{"id":6679,"date":"2023-05-11T11:40:38","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T18:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/?p=6679"},"modified":"2023-05-11T14:20:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T21:20:28","slug":"a-few-words-from-jim-may-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/a-few-words-from-jim-may-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Words from Jim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I strongly encourage you to read \u201cAnyone can be successful, Just ask Nathan Miller<\/a><\/strong>\u201d on page 16 of this months journal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan built a $10,000,000 a year business with only 16 employees in Grants Pass, Oregon with only $140 and a lot of sweat equity and he believes any of us can do the same. It was fun to interview him and learn some secrets to his success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m really excited to see if the article impacts you as much as it does me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My partners in 1000Museums and Art Authority and I bought another company<\/a>.<\/strong> Read about that on Page 26. Buying companies is an interesting process and I\u2019ll spend time in the future documenting the process and tricks and tips I have learned over the years as I have acquired several small businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is in trouble and so is Ashland. After losing its executive director earlier in the year, they have lost their creative director<\/a>. (Page 6) You may not care, but you should. I\u2019m working on a story called \u201cOSF by the numbers\u201d which I hope to publish soon. I\u2019m going to leave all the politics, all the drama, all the COVID blaming out and focus on the numbers. OSF matters to more communities than just Ashland. They have been operating the last couple of years as a $40,000,000 theatre company. They employed over 600 people with living wage jobs. They were nationally recognized as one of the top 10 theaters in the country. I live in Ashland and I had no idea. I don\u2019t go to plays. It\u2019s not why I live here. But my quality of life is better because of it. There are interesting people that chose to live here even if only for a couple of years and there are world class restaurants here. Ashland is one of the Crown Jewels of Oregon. I\u2019m assuming the festival\u2019s  trouble isn\u2019t related to one thing, but it suffers from many straws that broke it\u2019s back or 1,000 cuts. I\u2019m reading everything I can including old 990s. It\u2019s about the numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A non-profit is a business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, even the ART non-profit with high highfalutin ideals is a business. It just has special privileges. It doesn\u2019t pay taxes and the people and corporations that donate to it can write off the donation. The government can gift it money. This privilege comes with an expectation. The board is responsible for making fiduciary decisions that keep the organization on mission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a way to get OSF back on track. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board needs to roll up its sleeves and work with local business owners, the city, the state, the chamber of commerce and do what a world class theatre does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n