Case Study: Building Sustainable Infrastructure for a Cross-Cultural Youth Arts Organization
Sector: Arts and dialogue nonprofit, youth empowerment through cross-cultural music programming (Middle East/US-based operations)
Role: Contracted for one year as Consulting Strategic Advisor to the Executive Director
The Challenge
The organization had launched with real promise — a joint Fulbright and mtvU grant funding a model that brought high school-aged youth from different communities in Israel and Palestine together through music. But by the time the engagement began, that funding had run out, no replacement funding was in place, and there was no operational model to sustain the work or bring participants back for continued programming. Staff — including the Executive Director — were working without steady and dependable salaries. The organization had no meaningful marketing infrastructure, yet was in the middle of planning a US concert tour with its most dedicated participants and educators. The pedagogy and facilitation were genuinely strong; the business infrastructure to support and sustain it didn't exist yet.
The Approach
The work started with visibility rather than internal restructuring — the organization needed to be known before it could be funded. That began by securing a speaking opportunity at an Institute for Cultural Diplomacy conference in Berlin and using it to bring the Executive Director into a room with artists, scholars, and field practitioners who could become future allies and supporters. From there, the focus shifted to building capacity rather than doing the work alone: an internship program brought in college-aged artists and activists to take on marketing, operations, and programming support, extending what a small staff could carry. Fundraising was rebuilt from the ground up alongside the Development Director, with three distinct strategies — major gifts, small-dollar giving, and grant writing — replacing a model that had relied entirely on a single initial grant. The engagement closed with an organization-wide strategic plan, built jointly with the Executive Director and board chair, connecting programming, fundraising, and marketing into a single coherent direction rather than three disconnected efforts.
The Outcome
Within the year, the organization secured its first new funding since the original Fulbright grant, enough to pay both its local and US-based staff for the first time. The US tour happened successfully across the Eastern seaboard, generating the name recognition to become an annual tour across both the US and Europe. An ambassador program of established musicians — including several multi-platinum and Grammy-winning artists — began actively promoting the organization's work through their own platforms, bringing high-profile support the organization couldn't have accessed on its own a year earlier. Perhaps most tellingly, the clarity and infrastructure built during the engagement gave both the Executive Director and Development Director enough stability to pursue graduate degrees simultaneously — in social enterprise management and international peacebuilding education, respectively — while continuing to lead the organization forward.
