SUPER BOWL BETS

At this time, five hours before game time, the Green Bay Packers are favored to win the Super Bowl over the Pittsburgh Steelers by two and a half points. (Full Disclosure: I’m a Franco Harris fan since before his 1972 “Immaculate Reception.”) I don’t have money on the game, but I do have a suggestion.

There are now many imaginative wagers on this game. Sports books found more ways to draw in more money from fans looking for more action, these are known as proposition (a.k.a. prop) bets. For example, one can bet on the duration of Christina Aguilera's performance of the national anthem. In Chicago, we remember the betting on whether Chicago's 380-pound William "Refrigerator" Perry would score a touchdown in the Bears-Patriots 1986 Super Bowl XX game (which he did).

Elected officials have their personal bets. This time, if the Steelers win, Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt will shovel snow from the walkway of a Steelers fan in Green Bay, while clad in Steelers attire. He'll also fly the Pittsburgh city flag at Green Bay's city hall for a day and send Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl a package of local food products. If the Packers win, Mayor Ravenstahl will shovel the walkway at St. Rosalia in Greenfield, the family church of Pittsburgh-born Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. Mayor Ravenstahl also will fly Green Bay's flag at the City-County Building and donate Pittsburgh food to a Wisconsin food bank.

The nonprofit world has gotten into the act. The Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has wagered the temporary loan of their Pierre Renoir “Bathers with a Crab” (1890), to the Milwaukee Art Museum, should the Steelers lose. The director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the closest art museum to the Packers, has agreed to loan Gustave Caillebotte’s “Boating on the Yerres” (1877) to the Carnegie.

We can all get in on the win-win proposition of doing good for the big game: Make a donation to your favorite charity in honor of which ever team wins!

MERGERPHOBIA

Rocco Landesman, the controversy magnet sitting in the chairman's chair at the National Endowment for the Arts, gamely tried to address the issue of scarce funding for non-profit arts organizations in January. Mr. Landesman, himself in the cross-hairs of conservative Republicans who would like to obliterate the NEA, adds to a critical conversation that reaches beyond the arts world, given current economic conditions and the competition for scare dollars.

For years, foundations have been discussing the best use of their grant-making dollars in the economic downturn. Yet the same consideration of cost efficiencies in operating foundations could be considered by grantmakers themselves.

Only a few nonprofit organizations and smaller foundations seriously contemplate the possibilities mergers and acquisitions have for cost efficiency, as well as expanding reach, strengthening effectiveness, and in turn making the best use of scarce resources. A 2009 Bridgespan Group poll of nonprofit executives found “that 20 percent of 117 respondents stated that mergers could play a role in how they respond to the economic downturn. These leaders may consider mergers and acquisitions (M&A) reactively, as a way to shore up finances, to make their organizations appear more attractive to funders or to address a succession vacuum.” The time is right for savvy leaders in all sectors of the nonprofit world, whether financially stable or struggling, to face economic reality and consider the benefits from a potential merger or acquisition.