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Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts  Volume 4, Issue 2 
http://artivate.org  pp. 77-95 
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Copyright © 2015, the author      
 
 

THINK TANK: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO STUDENT LEARNING, 
ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT, AND COMMUNITY-BASED ARTS 
Sonia BasSheva Manjon, The Ohio State University 
Wen Guo, The Ohio State University 

 
Abstract 

This article focuses on a creative collaboration that began in late 2013 between The Ohio 
State University’s Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise 
Graduate Student Think Tank (TT) and Sweet Honey in the Rock (SHIR), the internationally 
acclaimed, female, African-American Grammy Award winning a cappella ensemble based in 
Washington DC. As the ensemble reaches 40 years of performing, producing, touring, and 
speaking out about social injustices, the TT worked collaboratively with the organization to 
assess their organizational and management structure with the intent to resolve critical issues 
facing the group. A focus of the collaboration was to develop and engage in an interactive 
approach for building an arts-specific entrepreneurial business model.  

The TT is an interdisciplinary group of graduate students who work collaboratively on 
case studies to solve critical artist-defined issues and to develop new approaches to 
entrepreneurial management structures for artists and arts organizations. The processes of the TT 
forms a mutually beneficial system connecting the traditional case study model in higher 
education to the practice of business consulting for arts and cultural organizations.  

The first part of the paper is intended to give an overview of community-based non-profit 
arts organizations in the United States originating in the 1960s, including a history of SHIR. The 
second part of the paper discusses the collaborative process of the case in progress and how the 
students participating in the TT facilitate transition and transformation for SHIR.  
 

Introduction 
 This case study examines a two-year process that began in December 2013, initiated by 
The Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise (The Center) at The Ohio State University 
(OSU), under the direction of associate professor and director of The Center, Sonia BasSheva 
Manjon. The process engages both relationship building with SHIR and collective development 
of the Think Tank methodology. It also forms a mutually beneficial system connecting the 
traditional case study model in higher education to the practice of business consulting for arts 
and cultural organizations. The Graduate Student Think Tank (TT), the inaugural program of 
The Center, worked collaboratively with Sweet Honey in the Rock (SHIR), an internationally 
acclaimed, female African-American Grammy Award winning a cappella ensemble, to explore 
development of a new approach to entrepreneurial management and structural development 
while addressing challenges and issues faced by SHIR. Collaboratively, the students and artists 
explored public policy, finance, and strategic planning issues that work to support the 
development and application of a different type of organizational structure that could support a 
sustainability plan.  
  This article will present a new method for solving artist- and organization-defined 
challenges using an authentic, interactive approach. The TT defines this approach as one that 
incorporates the tenets of entrepreneurial mindset, cooperative learning, trans-disciplinary 
collaboration, intrinsic values and emotional ties, ethical procedures, and heterogeneity. The 
process included meetings, workshops, presentations, social gatherings, and artistic production 



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and performance visits. The TT, working hand-in-hand with SHIR, engaged in processes that 
explored and uncovered historical tendencies. Analysis of these tendencies created current 
practices, encouraged new ways of looking at challenges, and set a path toward a new method of 
operations and business practices.  
 As a new process of engagement, authenticity, interaction, and interconnectivity were 
necessary for full participation. It was important for TT members to honor the historical 
relevance of SHIR as an organization, and the wisdom, voice, and vision of each individual 
member of the ensemble. Simultaneously, it was equally important for SHIR to engage the 
theoretical knowledge and new visionary perspectives that the students brought to the process. 
The task of The Center’s director was to consider all perspectives equally in an attempt to 
manifest an entrepreneurial consciousness that would allow for both SHIR and TT members to 
collectively uncover new directions and outcomes so as to find that ‘aha’ moment new inputs 
that would produce desirable outcomes is realized. While the process continues to unfold, we 
attempt to document the strength in the process itself that will manifest a new organizational 
direction for SHIR. It was important to SHIR that its organizational structure incorporate both an 
artistic vision and a social justice voice for current civil rights issues, including Blue on Black 
crimes and immigration. The TT focus was to create a restructuring process that blends and 
bends with the quasi non-profit/music industry organizational structure of SHIR and that would 
include an entrepreneurial mindset. The task was not to create a new structure for the 
organization, but to collaborate with the artists to uncover new ways of thinking about and 
looking at their current structure in light of their artistic trajectories, challenges, and needs. If the 
end result changes the current organizational and management structure, the change would be the 
decision of SHIR.  
 The first part of the article is intended to give a brief overview of community-based non-
profit arts organizations in the United States originating in the 1960s, including SHIR, whose 
identity is grounded in the Civil Rights Movement. We explore this from three perspectives: 1) 
SHIR’s organizational status and their evolving identity; 2) the ecosystem and characteristics of 
community-based cultural arts organizations in the US; and 3) the emerging concept of arts 
entrepreneurship in expanding the capacity of cultural arts organizational structures.  
   The second part of the article examines the process used by the TT and how the TT 
supports transition and encourages organizational transformation. What is foregrounded is the 
relationship between artistic identity and the organizational structure. While the process is 
ongoing, we will discuss identified outcomes that are already being realized.  
 

Sweet Honey in the Rock’s evolving identity within a hybrid non-profit structure 
 Sweet Honey in the Rock (SHIR) began in the 1970s when a group of aspiring young 
actors attended a singing workshop led by Bernice Johnson Reagon at the Black Repertory 
Theatre Company in Washington DC. Created in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, SHIR 
became known for creating a sound rooted in various styles of music including, but not limited 
to, doo-wop, gospel, soul, jazz, blues, folk, rap, and traditional African and Caribbean music. 
The content of their music remains embedded in issues of democracy, freedom, racism, ableism, 
and economic and social justice. During a working session with the TT, Carol Mallard, a 
founding member of the group, described their music as a way to tell stories, “Our songs have a 
beginning, middle, and end, and take you on a journey. I believe that is why so many people are 
affected by our music.”   
 SHIR was originally registered as a 501(c)(4) organization in 1990, but did not use this 



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non-profit status as a funding mechanism. In fact, the organization has always operated within 
the for-profit sector, with a booking agent and manager, generating earned revenue from ticket 
sales. The (c)(4) designation as a social welfare organization is an alternative to the more 
common 501(c)(3) designation, intended to allow for political activism, freedom of speech, and 
to give voice to the historical and political relevance of the Civil Rights Movement. A 501(c)(3) 
corporation was later established in 2006 under the name SHERA, as a foundation for 
educational and archival purposes. However, like the 501(c)(4), was used neither to attract 
foundation or government funding nor to establish a traditional non-profit structure with an 
executive director and staff. In December 2007, their final structural addition was implemented: 
a for-profit business entity. The hybridity of this organizational structure is contained both in the 
appearance of being a non-profit organization with official IRS designation while operating 
within the for-profit platform of the music industry by generating all revenue through recordings, 
bookings, performances, and residencies. Meyer and Rowan (1977) describe this plurality: 
“…organizations in search of external support and stability incorporate all sorts of incompatible 
structural elements” (p. 356). Due to the complexity of the organizational structure it is hard to 
locate them financially within the non-profit paradigm. While they could be compared to a mid-
size non-profit organization, the hybridity allows for freedom from developing a dependency on 
grant funds while creating another set of challenges in managing such a complex structure. 
Additionally, challenges in establishing an organizational identity, structure, and strategy based 
on either a non-profit or for-profit structure is further complicated due to this hybrid nature 
(Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz & Block, 2008; Pache & Santos, 2010).  
 The identity of SHIR as African-American women and their mission to educate and to 
empower allows them to enlarge the capacity of their voices to address issues of social inequity 
and foster activist communities of African-American women. The energy from the Civil Rights 
Movement combined with the talent of the women in SHIR sculpted the a cappella group into a 
storyteller of social and political issues guiding the formation of intervention and social change. 
 With SHIR’s timely messages intertwined into soulful contemplations, they have 
consistently created material relevant to the current state of daily life and the legacy of struggle, 
determination and self-reliance ushered by the age of the Civil Rights movement. In 1980, an 
American Sign Language interpreter accepted the challenge of accurately interpreting SHIR’s 
songs for deaf and hearing-impaired audiences. This commitment incorporated a wider range of 
audience members, which also increased the capacity of their own identity. As stated in a SHIR 
interview on March 25, 2014 conducted by the TT, “We are an ever-evolving entity. We are not 
just a cappella, not doo-wop, not gospel. Whatever you see on stage at the moment is what we 
are… We don’t want the music or the movement forgotten. We were and are connected to the 
civil rights emotionally.” In addition to deep roots of the African-American music tradition, Civil 
Rights Movement, and the identity of African-American women, a variety of communities across 
the spectrum of “black cultural nationalists, feminists, gay men, lesbians, whites, and women’s 
activists” (Hayes, 2006, p. 73) found their space and convergence in SHIR’s music and 
performance. SHIR possess a soul of diversity while working with themes of humanity and 
recurrent issues relevant to every individual and community, with which a global audience could 
identify.  
 In an earlier interview with the TT on December 15th, 2013, one of the Honey Ladies 
explains that when writing music as a group, each woman has “an awareness of who [she is] in 
the world, as so many different things, as African American, as spiritual people, sometimes as, 
you know, fervently religious people, as mothers and daughters and lovers and breadwinners, 



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and pet keepers, and all kinds of things, whatever it is” she continues, “So, we just bring out who 
we are and put it down there, so it comes out in our writing, our arranging, our choice in 
material.” The identity of SHIR continues to evolve with their care of and responsibility to 
various communities in their 40 years, which also enables them to connect the cultural legacy of 
Civil Rights Movement to current issues of democracy, freedom, racism, and economic and 
social justice.  
 As SHIR has always been dedicated to building a sense of community and broadening their 
spectrum of communities by telling stories that address social issues, it was crucial for the TT to 
understand the non-profit cultural arts ecosystem where SHIR and other community-based arts 
and cultural organizations were created and fostered. This ecosystem is also subject to internal 
and external changes in the socio-economic environment dealing with policy dynamics. It is 
important here to understand the evolving ecosystem of community-based cultural arts 
organizations.  
 

The Ecosystem of Community-Based Cultural Arts Organizations 
Government and charities jointly provided for the cultural functions of American society 

before the modern nonprofits of the US emerged in the early years of the 20th century “amidst 
the rise of great wealth resulting from the Industrial Revolution” (Worth, 2012, p. 20). The 
foundation of the current social welfare system was grounded in decisive public action 
represented by New Deal policy in response to the Great Depression of 1930 (Salamon, 1993). 
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the federal government also created The Federal 
Arts Project to employ unemployed artists. During the 1960s, under the administration of 
President Lyndon Johnson, grants from the federal government were provided to non-profit 
organizations to carry out the government’s social welfare policy (William, 2003; Salamon, 
1993). With the support of new government ideology, federal agencies were established to help 
formulate and implement these policies.  

The establishment of National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment 
for the Humanities (NEH) in 1965 assisted the growth of non-profit organizations in arts and 
cultural services at the local, state, and national level. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s 
and 1960s sparked African-American and allied communities to take active part in political self-
expression through the arts and cultural activities. The spirit of these activities was also rooted in 
Harlem Renaissance (1919-1929) activist arts. The NEA’s Expansion Arts Program and Folk 
Arts Program highlighted the significance of nurturing arts excellence and improving arts 
accessibility as a national theme of cultural planning. Communities representing different ethnic 
groups, cultures, and socio-economic statuses were encouraged by these programs to actively 
participate in arts activities as both audience and creators. 

Jan Cohen-Cruz (2005) examines the field of artists and ensembles supported through 
NEA and NEH initiatives; these initiatives supported the emergence of community arts or 
community-based performance, the communal context that connects vision with practice and 
encompasses the community relational experience. These performative relationships affirmed 
under- or mis-represented communities and cultures. “Community-based artists use their 
aesthetic tools in concert with a group of people with lived experience of the subject and with 
whom they work to shape a collective vision” (Cohen-Cruz, 2005, pg. 92). 

The most talented artists of the time used their creativity and commitment to civil rights 
and social justice in their artistic activism. The voices of Bernice Johnson Reagon, Pete Seeger, 
Nina Simone, Joan Baez, Sam Cooke, Amiri Baraka, and The Last Poets, as well as the voices of 



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the masses in Black churches across the country sang out in spirituals against segregation and 
inequity and developed art as a weapon for change in the nation. The lyrics of freedom songs and 
the brush strokes of canvasses created artistic narratives and imagery that envisioned freedom for 
African Americans and other oppressed communities silenced by disenfranchisement. 
Marginalized communities of all kinds and colors embraced the plight of African Americans 
that, in part, reflected their own marginal experience as they also sought legal standing as full-
fledged Americans. Communities of color and poor White Americans understood the call for full 
legal equality and equity, and the role of the arts in spearheading the message and call to action 
as various historical protest movements utilized artistic advocacy for social change. Protest art 
was one vehicle artists used to join the movement.  

During the 1970s, international cultural exchange programs were sponsored and 
promoted by the NEA. These programs shed light on multiculturalism and cultural equity among 
American artists and academics (Chew, 2009). The different streams of cultural and conceptual 
trends converged and created the synergy of the blossoming scene of community-based arts 
activities and institutions nationwide, most of which aspired to become non-profit organizations. 

The 501(c) designation is a series of codes identified by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 
of the US federal government to categorize different types of tax-exempt non-profit 
organizations. Organizations could obtain federal income tax exemption, which provided the 
opportunity for donors to make tax-deductible contributions. The different section numbers 
indicate the classification of organization in accordance to purpose and allowance of services. 
The 501(c)(3) designation is the most commonly utilized for public charities, private 
foundations, and private operating charitable organizations and foundations that have purposes 
encompassing “religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, to 
foster national or international sports competition or prevention of cruelty to children or animals” 
(Greg, 2011). However, these organizations are prohibited from participating in substantial 
political activities. The 501(c)(4) category is for organizations attempting to advocate, lobby, 
endorse political candidates, or take other political actions. Civil leagues, social welfare 
organizations, environmental organizations, homeowners’ associations and various community 
associations are commonly 501(c)(4) organizations. As noted earlier, SHIR first organized as a 
501(c)(4) corporation. 

The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) was established in 1973. 
CETA provided an alternative for individual artists to be paid for their work and for non-profit 
organizations to establish administrative staff and youth programming. CETA was a U.S. 
government program designed to assist economically disadvantaged, unemployed, or 
underemployed persons. Block grants were provided to state and local governments to support 
public and private job training and youth programs. Full time jobs were funded through this 
program for a period of 12 to 24 months in both public agencies and non-profit organizations. 
CETA provided funding for artists and youth for a decade before the Job Training Partnership 
Act, which established the Office of Job Training Programs, replaced it. Elba Cabrera, former 
chair of the board of trustees of Association of Hispanic Arts (AHA) recounts, “It was a different 
time then. We also had the CETA artist project going on which gave us some staff and gave our 
member organizations staff. The CETA artist project was the best. It helped cultural 
organizations and individual artists work together” (as cited in Manjon & Moreno Vega, 2012, p. 
30).  

While CETA provided funding for both artistic and administrative functions at many 
cultural organizations and art centers, it created a dependency on public government funding that 



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left devastating gaps in organizational operational structures when the program dissolved. The 
San Francisco Art Commission’s Neighborhood Arts Program used CETA funding to establish 
many of the neighborhood art centers in South of Market, Mission District, Chinatown, Bayview 
Hunters Point, Western Addition, and many of the neighborhood festivals and parades. The loss 
of CETA funds severely crippled some organizations, causing a significant loss of both 
administrative and artistic staff. With funding trends shifting in the 1980s and 90s, organizations 
were forced to re-invent and re-establish their mode of operation. The cultural arts field has 
evolved to include concepts and terminology like art and social justice, social innovation, and 
cultural equity, but continue to receive limited resources to address the legacy of underfunding 
and defunding of community arts organizations. These organizations serve communities that 
have a multiplicity of social conditions created by the nation’s neglect and the placing of “band 
aids” on systemic issues rather than employing long-term funding commitments and other 
resources to assure positive change. 

Community-based non-profit arts organizations add diversity and dynamics for activism 
around core social issues (Chew, 2009). They are critical alternatives to mainstream art and 
culture institutions and provide a public understanding of  “the demographic shift and how it [is] 
much more nuanced than simply black and white” (Chew, 2009, p. 8). They also provide positive 
impact to communities from various perspectives and at different levels. Individuals, 
neighborhoods, and communities that are not recognized in mainstream culture benefit from the 
increasing social capital, the growing sense of collective identity, and improving economic 
vitality through participating in community arts and cultural activities (Guetzkow, 2002; Cohen-
Cruz, 2005).  

Through the 1970s and 1980s, while overall public spending on social service and 
escalating support of healthcare and other key middle-class oriented programs were facing sharp 
cut backs (Salamon, 1993), a national network of community arts centers fostered through 
NEA’s programs (i.e., Expansion Arts, Folk Arts, Design Arts) and other community-centered 
projects in various disciplines started taking shape. In addition to support from the NEA, other 
foundations, including Ford, Lila Wallace, Rockefeller, Doris Duke, and Nathan Cummings, 
have also invested significantly in small and midsized arts organizations that work at the 
intersection of diversity, community empowerment, and social issues in the past decade (Chow, 
2009).  

However, as evidenced in the study by Manjon and Moreno Vega (2012), the funding 
trend in the US has always been guided by Eurocentric aesthetic and discipline. Community-
based arts organizations are faced with barriers to growth due to funding inequities. In a 
supporting study by Holly Sidford (2011), she reports among the 100,000 nonprofit arts and 
cultural organizations in the US, thousands of groups are committed to serving the communities 
of African, Asian, Latin American and the Pacific Rim, Native American tribal, underserved 
populations and preserving and developing their arts and cultural heritage. Groups with budgets 
greater than $5 million represent less than 2 percent of the total population of arts and cultural 
groups, yet in 2009 these organizations received 55 percent of arts and cultural funding. The 
funding distribution does not reflect the diversity of these organizations (p. 8). 

Many of the community-based organizations with national reputations have a history 
spanning 20 to 30 years. They have struggled to build systems, financial stability, and 
appropriate staff to ensure quality of programming. However, heavy reliance on public funding 
and foundation support causes hardship, sometimes crisis, for many of these organizations. 
These community-based arts organizations have begun to explore new funding models to 



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diversify their revenue streams and expand their funding base. Therefore, arts entrepreneurship is 
stirring heated discussion in the blurring boundaries of nonprofit and for-profit business worlds 
serving communities through arts and social services.  
 

Edges of Arts Entrepreneurship 
In the U.S., individual artists working in the creative sector at the community level may 

form small or medium sized non-profit enterprises However, compared with for-profit 
organizations, non-profit organizations are challenged by their need for growth, changes in the 
marketplace, and financial and organizational constraints.  

Arts entrepreneurship encompasses small and medium sized community-based arts 
enterprises and related nonprofit organizations. Their programs serve artist’s career development 
and financial needs, and include arts, culture, and business related educational institutes. The 
broad range of entities where arts entrepreneurship takes place have not reached a consensus on a 
fine-tuned definition or typology of arts entrepreneurship, nor has a curriculum with a framework 
of relevant outcomes been developed for students who are likely to work outside the traditional 
arts and culture career path.  

As a burgeoning concept in the field of arts and culture non-profits, arts education, and 
arts policy, arts entrepreneurship can be regarded as a universal form of human action that 
involves the social interaction of artist and audience or market as well as a transdiscipline 
ranging across social science and humanities disciplines and creative endeavors in terms of both 
perspectives and methodologies (Essig, 2012). Arts entrepreneurship is not only about individual 
artists starting a new venture; it also encompasses the education and pedagogy of preparing 
artists with “tools for artist self-efficacy and self-actualization; provision of environments for 
artistic exploration and innovation” (Essig, 2012, p. 3). 

These subjects touch upon both the practice of artists at the individual level and policy 
formulation for arts entrepreneurship in a friendly environment. The “tools for artist self-efficacy 
and self-actualization” Essig refers to mean more than business knowledge and skills, they also 
include a set of attributes of entrepreneurship, such as identifying the niche for one’s own talent, 
career opportunities, needs of the market, and the wisdom of taking responsible risk. The 
“provision of environments for artistic exploration and innovation” emphasizes the public policy 
incentives cultivating and facilitating small enterprises and relevant education for artists. The 
environment is interpreted as an integration of the structure, culture, and policy of an 
organization, which enables artists within the organization to realize the institutional innovation 
and their self-actualization at the same time. 

The word “entrepreneurship” is often conceived in the context of the for-profit world; 
however, the intrinsic value of the word is actually not bounded by the nature and service of the 
entity. As Drucker (1985) notes, entrepreneurship should be a practice allowing both kinds of 
entities to innovate without threatening their missions. The concept of social entrepreneurship 
has been widely used in the field of social service and demonstrates that this concept helps 
bridge the mission-driven nature of the non-profit and the business traits and attitude of operating 
for-profit organizations to increase their capacity.  

The Center’s TT process explores the concept of arts entrepreneurship in a university 
setting with artists and community-based arts organizations employing a transdisciplinary 
cooperative research approach. The working premise is to develop a process for solving artist 
and organizationally defined challenges using an authentic interactive approach to establishing 
an entrepreneurial mindset that explores and values cultural identity, economic self-reliance, and 



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sustainability within a community arts context. The TT process seeks to introduce an authentic, 
collaborative and interactive framework that facilitates organizational transition based on 
establishing an approach of arts entrepreneurship. 
 
The Think Tank process  

To truly understand the concerns, needs, insights, and expectations that artists have about 
their organization, the TT needs to acknowledge and value the identity, motivations, talent, and 
communication methods of each individual within the organization and the group as a whole. 
The TT process was grounded in engaged learning and collaborative inquiry, and defined by the 
philosophical and methodological agenda of participatory action research. TT participants were 
always attentive to issues of power distribution and cultural identity in the interaction process. 
Participatory research has a theoretical root in critical theory, which connects the TT process to 
the history and identity of SHIR in advocating for social equity. Hence, the process can be taken 
as an emancipatory social process for TT members to collectively transform the practice of 
management and inform entrepreneurial issues in nonprofit arts and in professional education in 
arts administration. 

The organic process of the TT is conceptualized by the frameworks exhibited in Figures 1 
and 2 through an ex post facto analysis between group members. The first figure describes the 
four phases of the TT’s ongoing process with a focus on collaborating with and assisting the arts 
organization. Each phase has individual outcomes and strategic goals. In the first phase, the TT 
process with SHIR began by becoming familiar with the personalities of each individual artist, 
identifying the assets of the organization and understanding stagnating factors affecting the 
organization. The second phase focused on learning basic business practices and knowledge and 
generating collaborative creativity. This phase prepared the artists to enter into the third phase by 
having them envision the future of their organization and understanding their emergent and 
specific concerns and needs for future transition. This introduced them to organizational 
structure options so they could begin to envision a different way of operating, thus moving from 
a nonprofit mentality into an entrepreneurial paradigm. The second and third phases overlap in 
order to create a shift in the artists’ mindset. The interactive learning in phase two encouraged 
confidence before the collective visioning process in phase three, during which the artist-
thinking pattern starts shifting into an entrepreneurial mindset leading towards transitional 
actions as a group. Moving into a different mindset, the artists found direction for transition, 
recognized actions needed, and identified resources necessary to work on an action plan with 
timelines and specific steps required for phase four. The fourth phase emphasized the growth of 
the artists’ skills in rationalizing their choice of a transitional strategy thereby giving them the 
ability to identify the characteristics of a qualified management team and their responsibilities as 
the leaders of their team.  

In pursuance of the goals of each phase, the TT collaborated with the artists in the core 
actions of each phase. TT members designed thought-provoking and interactive processes for 
each of the four sessions in order to conduct an integrated assessment of the organization’s 
current structure. The four sessions effectively facilitated the exchange of ideas between SHIR 
and TT members and enhanced the artists’ comprehension of substantive knowledge of 
entrepreneurship via interactive games, lectures, and discussions.  

For example, to understand the financial and managerial structure of SHIR, the TT 
engaged a series of collaborative working sessions with the Honey Ladies (SHIR’s core 
members/performers) in April, June, September, and November 2014. During these sessions, we 



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co-constructed interactive sessions that included a thorough examination of the use of nonprofit 
status versus working with a fiscal agent, brand versus mission, artist/producer versus 
management team, and the benefits and challenges of each. One member of the TT, Jason White, 
developed a business entity card game that contained nine separate structures to give the Honey 
Ladies a way to understand their own structures and other structures. The card game structures 
included: LLC (limited liability company), 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), L3C (low profit limited liability 
company), C-Corporation, LLP (limited liability partnership), S-Corporation, Hybrids, and Sole 
Proprietorship. The back of each card contained a description, advantages, and disadvantages of 
each tax status. The sessions were presented using a combination of traditional didactic 
discussions and artistically engaging exercises such as visioning, drawing, singing, and 
movement.  

The April sessions concluded with ten preliminary recommendations presented to SHIR 
about organizational structural change. During the June sessions, we collectively developed a 
plan for an alternative structure and incorporated visioning sessions that included benefits and 
trade-offs of suggested options and connecting vision to product. June sessions concluded with 
transition planning. September sessions focused on action plan development and buy-in, and 
caused both the TT and SHIR members to evaluate individual and personal assumptions, 
attributes, and challenges in developing an authentic interactive approach towards 
entrepreneurship or the process of getting involved with new ventures or ideas. November 
produced a major break-through for both the TT and SHIR: a four-point succinct action plan was 
created by the Honey Ladies that was part TT coaching and part self-realization based on what 
had emerged during the various sessions, workshops, discussions, and relationship building 
exercises between and within the groups.  

The TT analyzed the materials used and the information gained in each session as data to 
understand the business structure, organizational identity, and management challenges faced by 
SHIR. Continuous feedback from each phase further defined the process in order to reach goals 
and continue to the next phases.  

Figure 1. The Phases and Aims of the Ongoing TT Process 

Phase	
  2	
  &	
  3:	
  Learn	
  knowledge	
  of	
  
business	
  and	
  collective	
  creatvity	
  to	
  

produce	
  a	
  shi=	
  in	
  mindset	
  
Phase	
  4:First	
  step	
  of	
  the	
  transiAon	
  

Knowledge	
  of	
  
Business	
  and	
  
ColllaboraAon	
  

Entrepreneurial	
  
Mindset	
  

arAtsts	
  	
  

stagnaAons	
  

assets	
  	
  

Collective vision 
and action plan   

Phase	
  1:	
  Understand	
  individuals	
  &	
  	
  
the	
  organizaAon	
  



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Figure 1 describes the primary TT activities and key impacts that resulted from the events 
throughout the process. The second figure focuses on displaying the essential value orientation of 
the TT process by coding the values generated from the interaction between the TT and SHIR.  

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Figure 2. The Spectrum of Value Orientation of Think Tank Activities 
 

The color blocks at the top of Figure 2 are the long-term impacts on both the TT and 
SHIR, engaged by the collaboration and also represent the value and belief orientation of the TT 
process. These color blocks are divided into the four phases referenced in Figure 1. Each of the 
impacts or values is realized by activities signaled by the pointers in the four phases at the 
bottom of the graph. The activity in the pointers share the same color with the block representing 
the impact it attempts to reach. The open loops indicate that all the impacts and values 
established in one phase pave the way for the next phase. They also reinforce each other and 
accumulate a foundation for the sustainability of the whole project.  

The “explosion” in the second phase represents a design thinking session that the TT 
members engaged in with Dr. Elizabeth Sanders from the Department of Design at The Ohio 
State University. Her expertise is in fostering collaborative creativity through a design approach. 
This session acted as a catalyst for boosting tacit communication between TT members. The 
methods for engaging collaborative creativity used by Dr. Sanders also introduced alternative 

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 

Catalysts: 
Session of 
Collective 
Creativity   

 

Think Tank Weekly Meeting 

Reflection 
Paper 

 

OSU 
Conferen

ce 

 

Session 
One with 
SHIR 

 

Madison 
Conference 

Interview 
and 
Document 

 

Interview 
and 
Document 

 

ACCAD 
Confere

nce 

 

Initiate 
and 

recruit 
students   

 

Session 
Two  
with  
SHIR 

 

Taiwan 
Conference 

 

Session 
Three 
with  

SHIR 

 

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 

                                      Empowermrent 

                                    Individual and Collective Creativity  

                Trust 

                                                    Inter-Transdisciplinary/Arts Entrepreneurial Mindset 



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methods for oral communication with the artists, which helped reveal more aspects and 
dimensions of the artists’ personalities and thoughts. 

Weekly meetings of the TT were one of the important components among all the 
activities. In these meetings, TT members discussed their understandings and research on critical 
issues of SHIR’s organizational and management structure, assessed the ongoing process and 
outcomes of the TT, prepared for sessions with SHIR and presentations for conferences, and 
uncovered knowledge generation from the practice. The following sections explain impacts and 
values and their corresponding activities in detail. TT members keep abreast of current trends 
and get feedback from experts and colleagues in the field through conferences at which TT 
participants have had opportunities to articulate their experiences and present preliminary 
findings. 
 
Mindset 

While the mindset of arts entrepreneurship has been explained in the previous section, the 
TT process also explores forms of and curricula for arts entrepreneurship in higher education. 
The theories of inter- and trans-disciplinarity integrate arts entrepreneurship in research, 
education, and practicum as the very foundation of the TT processes it established. 

 
Figure 3. The Integration of Arts Entrepreneurship in Practicum, Education, and Research 
 

The four students in the TT have studied and worked in fields ranging from arts 
administration and cultural policy, social work and public administration, finance and 
economics, acting, vocal music, dance, to journalism. They have different cultural backgrounds, 
including African-American, Chinese, Indian, and Latin American. Therefore, the profile of 
participants of the TT represents and actualizes a mindset of inter-transdisciplinarity in the 
globalizing world of arts. Managed by culturally sensitive leadership, the diversity of regional, 
functional, organizational, and individual contexts and cultures conveyed by individual TT 
members created synergies of comprehensive perspectives leading to thriving collaborative 
creativity and rapid innovation (Gassmann, 2001).  
 The processes of TT form a mutually beneficial system connecting the traditional case 
study model to the practice of business consulting for arts and cultural organizations. 
Differentiating from the case study and consulting model, the TT model was created and 
implemented based on the inter-transdisciplinary paradigm to expand and explore the application 

Inter-
transdisciplinarity 

Arts 
Entrepreneurship 

in Practicum  

Arts	
  
Entrepreneurship	
  
in	
  EducaAon	
  

Arts	
  
Entrepreneruship	
  

in	
  Research	
  



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of the emerging concept of arts entrepreneurship in helping artists transform their current 
organizational structure into one equipped with greater capacity.  

Interdisciplinarity focuses on integration of knowledge across boundaries of disciplines. 
The graduate students in the TT come from different academic backgrounds and have experience 
working in various practical fields. Their different nationalities and ethnicities as well as their 
varied undergraduate studies bring diverse perspectives and thinking patterns that complement 
each other in understanding the complex organizational issues of SHIR. The integration of skill 
sets and types of knowledge and perspectives create “a universal vantage point and methods, 
over and above all disciplines” (Godemann, 2008, p. 268) for solving complicated problems in 
the context outside academia.  

Transdisciplinarity “stresses the transgression of boundaries between academia and 
society, and is intended to be participatory research” (Godemann, 2008, p. 627). This 
interpretation of transdiciplinarity captures the TT activities in terms of communicating the 
academic conceptions of arts entrepreneurship with the real-life situation of arts policy and 
administration through collaboration based on interdisciplinarity.  

Transdisciplinarity also means reinforcement between academia and practice via 
collaboration. The TT took the initiative of analyzing the artists-defined issues and engaging the 
artists’ participation. Analogously, the artists also invested their time, trust, and experience as 
practitioners to enrich and ground the students’ research practicum. Thus, the TT process is not 
designed for the artists but with the artists by keeping the process open and flexible enough for 
both artists and students to contribute, develop, and adjust based on what they have learned from 
each other and from outside resources during any phase of the process. The communication 
process was delicately and democratically framed without imposing field-specific jargon to 
avoid mentally distancing the two parties. As Sanders (2012) indicated, “collective creativity in 
strategic thinking will lead to ownership of the ideas and strategies by the people who were 
involved in their creation” (p. 18) The ownership of knowledge and skills allowed both groups to 
sustain the outcomes and impacts endogenously and independently.  
 
Trust Building 

MacAllister (1995) proposed affective trust and cognitive trust as two paths to team trust 
building. Affective trust is built through creating a feeling of interpersonal caring and empathy 
between team members; cognitive trust is based on the authority and reliance of one’s expertise 
and familiarity with certain issues. Barczak, Lassk, and Mulki’s (2010) research demonstrates 
the effective emotion management of individual team members and the ability of managing 
others’ emotions produces a larger degree of affective trust. Furthermore, the reliance on the 
professional and competent behaviors of team members creates cognitive trust leading to higher 
levels of team creativity. The two types of team trust are positively associated with team 
creativity.  

The trust of the TT process is built between five sets of relationships:  1) relationship 
between SHIR’s members (SSM), 2) relationship between the TT members (TTM), 3) 
relationship between TT members and instructor Dr. Manjon, 4) relationship between SHIR and 
instructor Dr. Manjon, and 5) relationship between TT members and SHIR (see Figure 4). 
Cultural shocks and disagreement challenged us initially because of the diversity of cultures and 
disciplines, but it provided an opportunity to propel us towards realization and acceptance of new 
ideas and shared values. The possibility of building swift trust between the TT members was a 
result of the latent trust rooted from shared institution engagement, the learning experience, 



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beliefs in pluralism and multiculturalism, inter-related fields of study, and common tacit 
knowledge between peers. The trust between SHIR members was rational trust based on the 
long-term collaboration and interpersonal interaction between them at both the affective and 
cognitive level. Different combinations of affective and cognitive trust forged the five sets of 
relationships between parties and individuals. They were interconnected and interdependent with 
each other, allowing both parties and individuals within the parties to build a collective trust in a 
relatively short time.  

 
Figure 4. The Diagram of Trust Relationships of Think Tank Process 

 
Trust was significant and important in administrative issues of the organization and it was 

particularly sensitive in the field of arts, because in the close-knit community of arts, information 
and reputation spreads very quickly and the impact of disclosure is hard to predict and measure 
(McCarthy, 2006). SHIR’s members have been extremely cautious in sharing information about 
their organization and themselves because of the apprehensive nature formed in an arts sector 
where “building trusting relationships under conditions that do not enable trust to flourish” 
(McCarthy, 2006, p. 47). Traditional trust assets such as time, familiarity, and successful 
experience of collaboration do not exist in a project-oriented environment, so it takes patience 
and strategic thinking to build swift trust for the success of the project (McCarthy, 2006).  

The trust between the Honey Ladies was successfully built through 40 years of 
collaboration as a group. The affective trust between them, which was based on traditional assets 
of their relationships, is quite strong. The emotions of one member usually infects the others, so 
the engagement of one member can help the others feel safe and significant. Therefore, the TT 
invested significant attention to constructing a safe environment and intimate atmosphere for 
artists to express and communicate their emotions without mental constrains.  

The relationship between the TT members was formally built in the project through the 
recruitment process and group gathering. In addition, the similarity in institutional context, 
career and academic interest and goals, and shared understanding of collaboration in a 



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multicultural situation established potential for successful trust-building. The recognized 
communication skills and open mindedness of the TT members allowed them to deal with 
challenges of communication and role identification within the group. Furthermore, Dr. Manjon, 
core leadership of the TT, was perceptive in tapping the capacity of TT members without 
utilizing an intrusive or authoritative manner. The characteristics of her leadership give open 
space for students to explore their own abilities and enact their ideas without fears.  

As process convener, Dr. Manjon amalgamated the relationship between the TT and 
SHIR and facilitated swift trust-building. She utilized the affective and cognitive trust she had 
built with a member of SHIR over many years to introduce the TT process to the group by 
creating meaningful and consistent interaction demonstrating the intellectual ability and 
emotional enthusiasm of the TT members.  

In the first two months, TT activities focused on familiarity with artistic product, 
organizational history, and current challenges of SHIR, with particular focus on personalities and 
working styles of each individual artist. The TT became familiar with SHIR by watching live 
performances, analyzing a documentary film, and participating in the development process of the 
creation of their 40th anniversary production. Activities that built an in-depth understanding of 
SHIR included interviewing members about their identity, creation process, interpretation of 
their music, understanding their mission and vision statement, reviewing media presentations, 
and analyzing their financial reports. At the end of the first phase, the TT engaged a professional 
work ethic and respect for the privacy of SHIR by agreeing to confidentiality of any information 
considered exclusive and privileged.  

 
Individual and Collaborative Creativity 

The activities of trust-building and emerging a mindset of arts entrepreneurship and inter-
transdisciplinarity laid the groundwork for the effectiveness of the techniques we utilized from 
Dr. Sanders’ Design for Collaborative Creativity workshop. The TT encouraged the artists to 
talk about their dreams and concerns openly in each of the three critical TT sessions, June, 
September, and November 2014. The research that we conducted for and with SHIR 
accumulatively added layers of understanding about the assets of the organization, useful 
information, methods of communication, and the role the TT should play. The three sessions 
successfully produced useful information that supports an entrepreneurial mindset and 
constructed a four-point action plan of organizational transformation and transition.  

Table 1 exhibits the specific techniques adjusted from the model of The Art of Hosting 
(Sanders, 2012, p. 18) for fostering collaborative creativity during the evaluative and educational 
sessions with SHIR. During the second session, SHIR clearly reached a consensus on how to 
better utilize their organizational status to fulfill their social mission and artistic vision and to 
simultaneously maintain their financial stability. 
  



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Components  Meanings Think Tank Process 

Participants The people involved in the 
collaborative sessions range from 
artists/students/faculty to 
community and audience members. 
The diversity of people in these 
sessions increased over time.  

 

Think Tank sessions with SHIR, 
Think Tank sessions with professors 
Manjon & Sanders, conference 
presentations, performance 
rehearsals, concert observations, and 
artist interviews.  

Physical Spaces 
and Places 

The World Café method puts 
emphasis on the arrangement of 
physical environment where the 
visioning activities take place.  

 

Open space provided room for 
creative activities and trust building, 
round tables allowed for 
collaboration between participants, 
meeting spaces that provided for 
privacy allowed for trust building. 

Social attitudes, 
activities and 
rules for 
engagement 

Open Space and the Art of Hosting 
placed a lot of emphasis on 
describing the principles that are 
needed to support and enable the 
collaborative session.  

 

Individual and collaborative 
engagement, session framing, 
individual coaching between TT and 
SHIR members. 

Tools, techniques 
and materials 

The World Café allowed for a 
variety of tools, techniques, and 
materials that are needed to support 
and/or facilitate the visioning 
activities.  

 

Card game, visualization, journal 
exercise, acting game, word wall 
exercise, blue print exercise, 
elevator speech, community sing-
along, and pray. 

Follow-
through 

Scenario Planning and Blueprint 
exercise, explicitly addressed the 
decision-making stage that 
followed the visioning stage. 

 

Transitional strategic plan 
development, blueprint revision and 
decision-making, “burning the 
worries” exercise, track the artists’ 
action, action plan. 

 

Table 1. Components of the Art of Hosting (Sanders, 2012) 

 
Empowerment  

In Phase Three, we focused on assisting the artists in a transfer of their artistic creativity 
into assets for business innovation. In other words, the artists need to be entrepreneurial in 
conceiving of how to control and sustain their business proactively and innovatively. Thinking 
entrepreneurially does not require an MBA degree. It takes courage, patience, and collaboration 



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to navigate the value propositions of art works, identity, and brand into the right channels 
towards the organizational goals. For entrepreneurs, trust-building, knowledge of business, and 
bold imaginations do not constitute the courage to change. Nurturing a mentality and mindset of 
arts entrepreneurship calls for specific guidance to enable the artists to utilize their talents in 
proactively evaluating administrative decision-making issues.  

The collective vision and determination to make changes that allow for entrepreneurial 
structures was carefully constructed from feasibility discussions leading to action plans. This 
case study and working relationship was based on collective trust, new paradigms and 
possibilities, and collaborative creativity accumulated and integrated in twelve months of 
dedicated work between the TT and SHIR. The result: clarity of actions and timing needed to 
best transition the organization at a critical development point in their 40th anniversary year and 
in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of passage of The 1964 Civil Rights Act. 
 
TT Output 

In the final session, SHIR and TT crafted a detailed plan with goals that included creating 
a new product associated with a new brand, analyzing and articulating the value propositions of 
their new product as a united voice to different stakeholders, and identifying a list of friends and 
investors who would support them during their transition either as advisors or investors.  

The Honey Ladies are working on new material in the studio using an improvisational 
approach to recording. Each singer takes the lead on starting a song and the other singers 
incorporate unrehearsed sound and words. This method of new material development is new to 
the singers, an exciting approach to composing and is producing a new sound while staying 
connected to their social justice theme. The TT encouraged the artists to be bold in establishing a 
new approach to artistic development and then focus on establishing a brand to articulate what’s 
new in their approach and musical output.  

One of the sessions with SHIR was on branding and marketing. One of the members of 
the TT, Allison Hoyle, developed a vision vocabulary activity that lead SHIR through a process 
of connecting vision to product and understanding what it means to create and market a brand. A 
component of organizational restructuring includes examining current positions in relationship to 
new goals such as new material development. The need for a publicist and the establishment of a 
new brand are priorities that are being worked out.  

The most challenging outcome is analyzing and articulating the value proposition of new 
product. In honoring the brand that SHIR has successfully created over the past 40 years, they 
didn’t want to completely disconnect from it; however, they are looking forward to re-identifying 
who they are as women and artists moving into a new decade. To help them explore new 
possibilities, an advisory board is being identified that will focus on transition and new 
opportunities in touring and product development.  

The final and current phase is an opportunity for the TT to decipher lessons learned, 
clearly articulate the process of this work, and document final outcomes as SHIR navigates 
through this transition phase based on their work with TT. The TT will continue to meet as a 
group, although not as frequently, working on data analysis and follow up interviews with SHIR 
specifically focused on transition and goals. The focus of the next stage of the TT process and 
research is to evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of the process in helping artists 
redistribute their creative assets and identify themselves with an entrepreneurial organizational 
mindset. We will explore what that means to the artists and what it looks like in application.  

 



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Conclusion 
While the initial work of the TT with SHIR focused on identifying organizational 

changes needed that would support employing an entrepreneurial mindset towards future 
sustainability and growth, the TT process also gave birth to an experimental pedagogy of 
engagement within an arts administration and policy context. The collaboration further gave 
birth to what we are calling an authentic interactive approach to organizational transformation 
and capacity building. This type of capacity building incorporates individual and collective work 
in a cooperative modality and requires collaborative working relationships between artists, 
students, and organizations. Institutional resources and support are needed to carry out, at 
minimum, 12-24 months of engagement if the process is to be realized as a catalyst for change. 
TT presentations at conferences and in academic settings are important for students to test 
models and findings and acquire feedback from academics, scholars, artists, practitioners, policy 
makers, and others.  

The TT will continue to analyze data amassed from SHIR sessions and workshops and 
test the hypothesis on smaller case studies and in less time-consuming environments. For 
example, two students from TT will further explore components of the TT process in China and 
Czech Republic, summer 2015, in an effort to further understand how the arts entrepreneurial 
mindset model can assist production development in international cultural exchanges and in the 
process of career building for young international artists. Simultaneously, Think Tank 2 has 
launched, working with a cultural arts organization in Columbus, Ohio to develop an 
entrepreneurial organizational and management structure that features new enterprising ways to: 
generate and increase earned income; assess relationships with the local and greater Columbus 
communities, with special attention to displacement and gentrification; focus on branding; and 
maintain the organization’s connection to its cultural and historical legacy while identifying and 
training the next generation of arts administrators and artists.  

This second iteration of TT will incorporate a cooperative inquiry process, experiential 
learning objectives, collaborative skill building for artists and students, a transdisciplinary 
approach to generating knowledge, enriched practice for real world application, and focus on 
mission-driven sustainable change.  

 
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