Case Study
Temporary Art Platform (TAP)
Beirut, LebanonTAP is a nonprofit organization affecting social change through contemporary art.
Audit
Leveraging our familiarity with TAP as an institution, acquired through exposure to their programs, past collaborations, and personal relationships with the Founder, past members, and the current team, we conducted the audit through a series of in-person and remote sessions. TAP's aspiration for growth, sustainability, and a capabilities-driven strategy over the next two years led them to approach Cousins. They sought our interdisciplinary expertise in organizational, operations, communication, and digital strategy, coupled with our understanding of the art scene and art economy.
Setup
Based on the audit findings, Cousins assigned a dedicated partner to oversee the project.
Partner
Victor Ayache
Managing Partner, Consultant at Cousins
Collaborators
Anna Ogden-Smith (strategy, design, digital)
Director at Bananamonkey.
Accounting/Auditing (to be assigned)
Legal Services (to be assigned)
Workshop
The workshop commenced with in-depth conversations involving the founder, the team, and collaborating artists.
01/ Organizational Design
We examined the roles, scope and responsibilities of the Director, Curators, and Managers, identifying opportunities to free the Director from routine tasks. This shift would enable her to focus on growth and capability-building initiatives. Human resource planning commenced with a job analysis, detailing tasks and qualifications for each role.
02/ Operational Design
We have outlined a design that blends evolving organizational practices, streamlined operations (legal, accounting, auditing, and other workflow), and new technologies to allow increased connectivity, agility, and remote teams. This allows for agile and flexible remote teams.This new operational design, allowed for another opportunity. Identifying potential operational partnerships, particularly in administrative, legal, information technology, accounting, and auditing domains, led to substantial cost reductions and a more efficient resource allocation reducing overheads while maintaining agility and readiness for growth: Outsourcing.
03/ Diversification and Growth
Alongside core programs and a fundraising strategy, the growth plan involved establishing a new, related service line within a diversification strategy. This initiative aimed to monetize capabilities and knowledge while leveraging the efficiencies from the new organizational and operational designs. We pinpointed opportunities like curatorial training schools and functioning as a local agency collaborating with international curatorial organizations for specific projects. Historical data audits and lead analysis minimized uncertainties in demand forecasting for such diversification
and growth plans.
04/ Boards and Investments committee
Access to structural funds prompted considerations of potential investments as part of an overall financial portfolio management plan. To shape these initiatives, we conceived a contemporary advisory board involving stakeholders, team members, and experts, operating with an inclusive approach. An investment committee emerged from this board, composed of field experts to oversee decision-making for potential investments.
We are committed, more than ever, to our community of artists, collaborators, team members, and to the people of Beirut.
For governance, we pitched a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure to TAP. With voting handled through a blockchain, coordinated by tokens (NFTs) that grant voting powers, democratizing both ownership and decision-making using smart contracts. It's an evolution of governance, and today they are increasing in popularity and drawing in new waves of investors, VC, and acquisition.
With TAP being a social art platform to start with, we identified a list of opportunities for such a model. DAOs are great vehicles for social activities that incentivize people to contribute through a low barrier to participate model. DAOs incentivize token holders to participate by offering additional tokens for completing specific tasks; some might be operational, others curatorial, research, etc. Being the first in the region to adopt a DAO structure, TAP had the opportunity to create a protocol that other DAOs can be built on top of.