Rethinking Strategy and Sustainability for Cultural Enterprises

An opinion piece on Artribune argues that cultural and creative enterprises must embrace risk and strategic vision to ensure sustainability. The author identifies three key obstacles: strategic cowardice (viltà strategica), managerial pauperism (pauperismo gestionale), and project insomnia (insonnia progettuale). Strategic cowardice stems from a non-profit alibi that avoids risk, but risk is inherent to entrepreneurship. Pauperism reflects a lack of awareness about business continuity beyond welfare. Project insomnia denotes an absence of imaginative capacity to innovate. The author calls for a return to dreaming as a means to conceive new architectures of meaning. Solutions include dedicating internal resources to think-tank functions, building disruptive alliances across sectors, hiring external out-of-the-box thinkers, and revisiting founding statutes and governance to realign with original mission. The piece is published in Artribune Magazine #64 and is written by a commercialista and auditor specializing in the third sector.