Case Studies in Cultural Entrepreneurship

This book of five case studies demonstrates the critical role entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial thinking play in reinventing cultural organizations to make them relevant and sustainable for the twenty-first century and beyond. Through the twin lenses of cultural entrepreneurship and organizational change, these readable and inspirational cases offer an in-depth analysis of how a variety of cultural organizations—small and large; local, regional and national; museums and arts organizations—have found opportunities in complex situations to create new identities and missions and, in doing so, have revitalized their organizations and in many cases, surrounding communities.

Cases include:
The Strong: how a museum in Rochester, New York, forged an entirely new national identity as The National Museum of Play.National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium: how the Mississippi River Museum developed and nurtured a network of partnerships to create a new regional identity and, in doing so, revitalized the waterfront area of Dubuque, Iowa.Montreal Center for History: using oral history and community collaborations to dramatically build its audiences throughout the city. Proctors: how an arts organization revitalized downtown Schenectady, New YorkWeeksville: how an institution in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City found a niche that provided vital services to its constituency.

Gretchen Sullivan Sorin is director and Distinguished Professor at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, a museum studies program dedicated to the museum as a public service institution that must be entrepreneurial. She has worked for more than 200 museums as an historian, exhibition curator, strategic and interpretive planner and writes about African American history, art and museums. Major exhibitions include: Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art; In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews for the Jewish Museum in New York City. Sorin is the author of Touring Historic Harlem: Four Walks in Northern Manhattan with Andrew Dolkart, In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews. She holds a B.A from Rutgers University, an M.A. from the Cooperstown Graduate Program of SUNY College at Oneonta, and a Ph.D. in History from the University at Albany. Lynne Sessions holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.S in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University. Her career combines extensive experience in higher education with training and development and public relations experience in the not-for-profit sector. Throughout, she has specialized in bringing broad-based knowledge, experiences, and creativity to the strategic development of structures and processes designed to improve organizational performance. In 2005, her lifelong passion for the arts was realized when she created Voice!, an annual juried art exhibition sponsored by The Arc Otsego which features work by artists with intellectual and other developmental disabilities from across New York State.