Why the charity model might be the biggest threat to your organisation’s future.
*Founder-led organisations
Theatre organisations are not short on ideas — but they are short on legal and governance structures capable of letting those ideas scale, sustain, and return value to the people who create them. For years, the sector has pointed to funding cycles, risk‑averse boards, and overstretched teams as the barriers to innovation. These pressures are real, but they are symptoms, not causes. The underlying issue is structural: most creative organisations are still operating within frameworks designed for a different era. Innovation isn’t failing because people lack imagination. It’s failing because the systems surrounding them were never built to support change.
The charity model, once fit for purpose, is now fundamentally misaligned with the realities of contemporary creative work. Designed for institutions, it prioritises compliance over agility, grant dependence over sustainability, and prevents founders from benefitting from the intellectual property they generate. It assumes stability and long‑term funding that no longer exist, and it structurally separates value creation from value retention.
A personal reckoning
When I restructured RHP from a nonprofit to a commercial producing company, the question I kept returning to was not whether the transition was risky — it was whether staying in the existing structure was riskier. The answer, when I looked at it honestly, was clear. So I moved.
If organisations are serious about dynamism, it is imperative they interrogate whether their current legal structures can carry it. For many, the most sustainable path forward will involve transitioning to models that align creative ambition with commercial potential. Boards should be modelling these scenarios now — not only calculating what might be lost, but recognising what stands to be gained: autonomy, flexibility, and the ability to build genuinely self‑sustaining enterprises.
For Founder CEOs and boards, the question is no longer whether innovation is desirable — it’s whether your existing structure can legally and financially sustain it. Unlocking innovation requires leadership teams to rethink how creative work is organised, resourced, and protected. This is not a cultural challenge; it is a governance one. And meeting it demands vision, strategic courage, and rigorous risk management.
Five questions every board should be asking
Legal clarity: understanding the implications of each available model and the extent to which your current structure can hold your creative and commercial ambitions.
Stakeholder engagement: surfacing concerns around mission protection, organisational identity, and the shifting expectations of artists, funders, donors, staff, and audiences.
Financial modelling: mapping the realities of each pathway – revenue volatility, tax advantages lost or gained and the likely reactions of funders.
IP review: knowing what intellectual property you hold, what value it generates, and where value is currently leaking through outdated contracts or unexamined assets.
Decision-making framework: balancing mission integrity with commercial viability — recognising both the risks of change and the risks of staying structurally static.
The organisations that will thrive in the next decade are those whose leaders act early enough to build structures capable of holding the future. The ones that do not, risk losing talent, stifling innovation and remaining financially unstable.
- Rafia