AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

The Graffiti of the Philanthropic Class - Sun NY Times

Aside from the poetic echoes provided by the Times’ headline writer, this piece talks about an issue near and dear to nonprofits, e.g., our beloved “naming opportunities.” Has this gone too far, posits the article…

WHATEVER happened to Anonymous?

I don’t mean the composers of old English folk ballads, or even the author of “Go Ask Alice,” the mildly lurid, apparently fake autobiography that was a staple of adolescent reading in the 1970s.

I am wondering instead what became of those wealthy philanthropists who used to support arts organizations and other not-for-profit and charitable institutions without requiring that their names be slapped somewhere — anywhere, it sometimes seems — on a building.

The thought arose recently as I attended the opening performances at the Shakespeare Theater Company’s glittering new home in Washington. The $89 million building is, apparently, Sidney Harman Hall, but the umbrella organization that also includes the company’s Lansburgh Theater is to be known as the Harman Center for the Arts. In any case, both of those appellations are emblazoned on the new building.

But that’s only the beginning. Walk inside, and you find yourself in a veritable carnival of nomenclature.