Overview

Adam Huttler is founder and executive director of Fractured Atlas. In this talk, held at the sixth annual Public Affairs Conference at Missouri State University, Huttler discusses emerging models that reinvent the way nonprofit cultural organizations do business. He considers legal strategies, like the L3C and fiscal sponsorship; discusses structural approaches, including systems-centric cluster management; and notes the philosophical underpinnings of the whole conversation — Who are our customers? Is professionalism really a good thing? When should infrastructure be outsourced? Huttler notes how the traditional non-profit model is under attack. Rattling our tin cup for grants is no longer enough. Funders ask us to be “business-like,” but what does that really mean?

The 2010 Public Affairs Conference at Missouri State University convened from April 13-16, 2010, and its theme was “The New Economy: Peril and Promise.” Since its inception in 2005 as part of the University’s Centennial Celebration, Missouri State University’s Public Affairs Conference has focused on timely topics of national and even international interest. During 2008-2009, the world witnessed a severe financial crisis which triggered a global economic meltdown not seen since the depression of the 1930s. The pace of economic contraction has slowed somewhat in recent weeks and a few fresh signs of economic stability may have emerged. But still many questions remain: Are we witnessing a fundamental restructuring of the American economy? What are the implications of the new economic realities for various sectors of the economy such as education, health care, manufacturing, energy and above all environment? What is the appropriate role of government in this new economy? What policies will lead to a sustained economic recovery? In this backdrop, it is only natural that we spend time discussing and debating the nature of these changes and their numerous impacts at local, regional, national and global level.

Original Date of Workshop: April 14, 2010
Duration of Video: 60 minutes

Bios of Hosting Organization & Speaker

Missouri State University is a public, comprehensive university system with a mission in public affairs, whose purpose is to develop educated persons. The University is committed to five major goals: democratizing society, incubating new ideas, imagining Missouri’s future, making Missouri’s future, and modeling ethical and effective behavior as a public institution. The University’s statewide mission in public affairs, which requires a campus-wide commitment to foster competence and responsibility in the common vocation of citizenship, distinguishes its identity. The undergraduate academic experience is grounded in a general education curriculum that draws heavily from the liberal arts and sciences. This foundation provides the basis for mastery of focused disciplinary and professional studies, as well as enabling critical, independent and intellectual judgment about the culture, values and institutions of the larger society. The task of developing educated persons obligates the University to expand its store of human understanding through research, scholarship and creative endeavor, and drawing from that store of understanding, to provide service to the communities that support it. In all of its programs, the University uses the most effective methods of discovering and imparting knowledge and the appropriate use of technology in support of these activities. The University functions through a multicampus system that is integrated to address the needs of its constituents. On June 15, 1995, Senate Bill 340 was signed into law, giving Missouri State University a statewide mission in public affairs. The focus on public affairs grew out of mission-review discussions with the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education beginning in 1994. That mission review focused the institution’s efforts in six primary areas: professional (teacher) education, business and economic development, science and the environment, the human dimension, health care and the performing arts. The public affairs focus is the integrating theme that cuts across and informs all disciplines in their relation to society.

Adam Huttler is Fractured Atlas’ founder and executive director. He has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.B.A. from New York University. Since forming Fractured Atlas in 1998, he has grown the organization from a one-man-band housed in an East Harlem studio apartment to a broad-based national service organization with an annual budget of $6 million. Adam also runs Gemini SBS, a for-profit subsidiary of Fractured Atlas that provides custom software development for nonprofit organizations and government agencies.