In the months after Elizabeth “Lisa” Goddard was appointed acting executive director of the Newport Art Museum and Art Association, she endured many sleepless nights.
Goddard had been on the museum’s board of directors when she was asked to fill in after the previous director departed abruptly in 2008. At the time, the museum was grappling with a mountain of debt left over from a major renovation project.
While she had some experience working with nonprofits, the printmaker, painter and art teacher didn’t hold the advanced degrees usually required of someone running an art museum. And she had little notion about finances and spreadsheets.
In the early days, Goddard spent nearly every waking hour at the Bellevue Avenue museum, overseeing dozens of staff members and volunteers, three buildings, a $1.5 million budget, exhibits and art classes. At home, worries about whether she could do it kept her up at night.
“It was a big challenge for me,” Goddard recalled recently. “My training was very fast and very intense.”
Nearly two years later, Goddard has not only managed to hold things together at the museum, the self-described “nontraditional candidate” for executive director was appointed to the position permanently in September.
The financial changes have been significant since Goddard stepped into the role in 2008 and immediately looked for areas to improve the organization’s efficiency.
She’s consolidated the jobs of certain consultants, eliminating others. She had to lay off some employees, cutting the staff to 18 full- and part-timers.
Goddard attempted to squeeze all she could out of the marketing budget, reducing the number of mailings from four or five in a three-month period to one, for instance.
And she has placed a renewed focus on fundraising and grant writing.
“We faced a lot of challenges,” Goddard said. “We had to pay close attention to the business of running a museum, a school as well as historic preservation.”
In 1998, the association opened the Gilbert S. Kahn Building, which houses its art school.
According to 2007 tax filings, the museum’s assets are valued at $7.5 million and include a 2,500-piece art collection.
Goddard, who also is partner in Studio Goddard Partridge in Pawtucket, became a board member in 2005 after moving to Newport from Providence with her husband, Tom.
She declines to say much about her predecessor Karl E. Willers, who led the museum for nearly two years following his appointment in March 2006. Goddard does allow that the massive $5 million-plus restoration of the organization’s Griswold House during Willers’ tenure may have distracted the museum’s leaders.
“It does leave a lot of possibility of people losing track of ongoing management and administrative needs,” she said.
When Goddard took up the executive director’s reins, she says she first told longtime administrators to continue with work they had been doing, including curator Mary Whipple Grinnell and director of education Judy Hambleton.
“They needed to carry on in those areas,” she said.
Goddard also focused on the marketing budget. Besides reducing mailings, Goddard hired a marketing consultant to devise ways of getting the word out about the museum inexpensively, including with an improved Web site.
She also hired a new director of finance and administration, Jim Hockhousen, and director of development, Judy Blake.
Reluctant to take the interim job in the first place, Goddard says she never intended to stay on permanently. While the museum board searched nationally for qualified candidates, board members asked her to put her name in for consideration.
The board appointed her in September.
It hasn’t been exactly easy.
The economy has played havoc with fundraising efforts, as it has with many nonprofits. The annual fundraising drive has brought in fewer dollars, and events such as the summer dinner have attracted fewer donors.
“People are being more strategic and careful about whom they give to,” Goddard said.
And while attendance to exhibit openings has increased and the popularity of the lectures has always been strong, Goddard says attendance in the art classes has leveled off.
Yet membership has grown at the museum in recent years from 1,500 to 1,900, thanks in part to changes in the benefits and to personal letters Goddard penned to people who let their membership lapse.
She’s also focusing on getting local businesses to sign on for memberships under a program called “Partners in Art.”
Goddard believes tourism is a growth area for the museum. That’s why it is partnering with the nearby Redwood Library, Newport Historical Society and Newport Restoration Foundation, branding their section of Bellevue Avenue – at the opposite end from the famous mansions – as the “old quarter.”
Another of Goddard’s initiatives: Attract a 40-and-under age group to the museum. Last month, the Newport Art Museum launched a Facebook page.
“We’re looking to the future,” she said.
Goddard is also looking to be more accessible. She’s been holding monthly brown-bag lunches with museum members in a search for fresh ideas and feedback.
“Much of what I’m doing is trying to be inclusive,” Goddard said. “I’m making a big effort to be available, to get to know people on a first-name basis.” •
