What does the Guggenheim Museum have to do with charity strategy?

By Ryan Miemczyk, head of research & measurement, Trust Impact.

A narrated version of this blog is available at the bottom of the page

If you’ve ever been lucky enough to visit New York and take a walk around Central Park, you may have spotted a building that doesn’t sit within the usual New York skyline, the Guggenheim Museum: a museum of modern and contemporary art opened in 1959 and designed by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

It’s a perfect example of how form should follow function – something we believe should also be a guiding principle for all charities.

So, what is form & function, and what does it have to do with the Guggenheim Museum? ‘Form follows function’ is a principle of design associated with late 19th and early 20-century architecture and industrial design, which states that the shape of a building or object should primarily relate to its intended function or purpose. The Guggenheim is a great example of this. The building is designed as a continuous spiral, with a ramp that winds its way up from the ground floor to the top of the building. This layout was designed specifically to showcase the museum’s collection of art in a unique and innovative way.

As you walk up the ramp, you’re able to gain an uninterrupted view of the artwork from a variety of angles and perspectives. The spiral layout allows for a continuous flow of visitors, as well as providing plenty of natural light and ventilation throughout the building.

Wright understood that the form of the building had to serve the function of housing and displaying the museum’s collection. Wright even went so far as to be quoted as saying “form and function are one.”

What does the Guggenheim Museum have to do with charity strategy?

Charities are often founded with a purpose of achieving something for their beneficiaries (their function).  Whether that’s an ambition to improve in mental health, support recovery from an injury, or to prevent an adverse event.

However, once the charity is established, there are lots of pressures that can lead use away from that original purpose. Leadership meetings start to become heavily operationally focussed, concentrating on how much financial pressure the organisation is under or the latest staffing crisis. All of this leads to greater amounts of time discussing how to solve problems rather than checking whether they are still meeting the core purpose (function).

‘Form’ prevails over ‘function’ and we begin working in siloed spaces, moving further away from our core purpose and increasing the cost base. Before long, we lose sight of what the charity set out to do in the first place, which is simply to create better outcomes for its beneficiaries.

We see this exact situation with many charities we work with but there are several things that can be done to get back on track:

Re-alignment on core purpose

Charities need to regularly revisit their core purpose and spend time thinking about whether everyone is aligned on what the core purpose is.  To do this, charities should consider their form and whether that fits with their function. One of the simplest ways to do this, is to place impact back at the centre of what you do. Dedicate 80% of the meeting time to understanding your beneficiaries and the progress they make (or don’t!) and then begin to build strategy to improve.

Create a measurement framework

Theorist, lecturer, and renowned consultant, Dr Peter Drucker once said, ‘What gets measured gets managed’. Therefore, by creating an appropriate, pragmatic, evidence informed impact measurement framework you can ensure that you are keeping aligned to your need, vision, and purpose and your form adapts accordingly.

Live impact reporting

By taking your impact measurement framework and implanting it in live impact reporting, you can re-orientate, redesign, and react quickly. In the past impact reporting was done on an annual basis or for funder reporting. This means that it can be a full 12 months before we can begin to think about what is going well and where our attention should be focussed for improvement. With live data, we can react immediately and rapidly increase our learning speed. This is the equivalent of an athlete going from only getting feedback at competition to taking on a full-time coach!