Kudos go to Katherine Kane and Jeffrey Nichols for collaborating on cost-cutting measures that will help the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and Mark Twain House to better withstand the economic turbulence that is threatening so many cultural institutions.
The Twain House has endured years of mounting debt, at one point being targeted for closure. The Stowe Center is in better financial shape but not immune from the effects of the recession.
So the efforts by the two executive directors — Kane at the Stowe Center and Nichols at the Twain House — are critically important at this time. For sure, their discussions, reported on in today’s Hartford Business Journal, are in the preliminary stages.
Right now they’ve found one cost-saving measure: sharing a Dumpster. They’re also reviewing vendors’ contracts in search of overlaps.
The key to the effort’s real success may rest in whether the two institutions can collaborate on programs. Last year, they launched a school program together that was also recently picked up by public libraries.
Kane is hoping that similar efforts will be attractive to corporate sponsors, although she expects to see a decline in corporate support because of the recession.
But the corporate community should give the Twain House and Stowe Center more than a passing thought when it comes to sponsorship opportunities, especially if the two can make good on the promise of joint programs.
