Back in the day, the boards of directors of many Shreveport arts organizations looked like private clubs for entitled society members.

Often the Shreveport Symphony, the Shreveport Opera and The Shreveport Little Theatre had shared many of the same players on their boards.

Board members had shared Caucasian ethnicity and southeast Shreveport residency.

Thankfully that has, to a large part, changed for these groups as well as the boards of Robinson Film Center, Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC) and others.

And there are irrefutable reasons for avoiding board overlap.

Its a fundamental tenet of nonprofit board membership that board members should bring at least two of three, if not all three, commitments: time, money, and influence.

Time to devote to the board versus just a sitting being a figurehead.

Money in the sense of personal contributions or generating other contributions to the organization.

Influence, either personal or business, to promote the agenda of the organization.

In todays world. as if always has been, money to fund the operations of these entities depends in large part on contributions. Ticket sales alone do not pay the bills.

For good or bad, at least two local arts organizations share a board member.

In one instance the president of the board also serves on another arts organization board.

Common sense says this is NOT a good idea.

But with many egos, common sense does not prevail.