Why Intermediary Organizations Matter: Interview with Patrick Fisher, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council
What is an intermediary organization, and why do they matter? Learn how intermediaries drive capacity building, collective action, and systems-level impact for mission-driven orgs.
Intermediary organizations are the infrastructural backbone of nonprofit work. Whether they’re designed as a membership structure or advocacy body (or both!), they connect mission-driven organizations with resources, research, visibility, and connections.
For those of you working in public-oriented orgs, whether theaters or clinics, you might not be familiar with the term “intermediary”—but we guarantee you’ve worked with or benefited from their output. Our own client base of intermediaries has grown over the years and includes Genesis Collective, Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh, Nonprofit Alliance for Women and Girls, PACE, and several others.
As our work in this area has expanded, we keep running into the same issue: many of the arts organizations and social service providers we support don’t understand the role of the intermediary—even though many of them rely on intermediaries every day. We sat down with Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council CEO Patrick Fisher to dig into why intermediaries matter.
This interview with Patrick has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you define an intermediary organization? What do you do?
An intermediary is an organization that works within an ecosystem or defined industry on behalf of the people and organizations within it. It impacts hundreds who then go on to impact potentially hundreds of thousands. Some intermediaries offer direct services, but most of our impact comes from other kinds of work.
We coordinate across the ecosystem and provide systems-level infrastructure. We serve as a base of knowledge and information. We build relationships and extend our social capital to others. We help individuals and organizations build their capacity. And we generate the critical mass and will needed for collective action.
At the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, I often say we are the only organization in the region’s arts ecosystem with a 10,000-foot view and a 360-degree scope. We are also the only one that is agnostic about artistic discipline, budget size, and career level.
Our work falls into four basic categories:
We are an information hub. We capture and share information that matters to people working in the arts. Our current analysis of the regional arts funding landscape is a good example.
We are a convener. We create opportunities for relationships to form and work to break down the silos that can compartmentalize the arts.
We are a storyteller. We help artists and organizations reach broader audiences beyond their own networks. Artsburgh does this every week.
We are an advocate. We identify opportunities, help the field navigate moments of crisis, and make sure people with resources and power understand the challenges and aspirations of those working in the arts.
Taken together, these roles mean we understand the full range of ways the arts operate and show up in our region—allowing us to act on behalf of the whole field rather than any one part of it.
Patrick Fisher with owner Richard Parsakian inside Eons Fashion Antique, Photo by Zed Armstrong
Patrick Fisher speaks during the NFL Draft Brand Unveiling Event, Photo by Karl Roser, Pittsburgh Steelers
Navigating Sector Realities: Challenges & Opportunities for Intermediaries
What challenges do you face? Do they open up new opportunities?
Small arts organizations often have very different needs and priorities than large institutions. Individual artists have different needs and aspirations than organizations. Because we’re agnostic about discipline, budget size, and career level, our job is to find common ground and help the field act in a unified way, even when agendas compete.
On the flip side, the opportunity is that we see the whole picture in a way no single organization does. We notice patterns across the field. We can bring together people who would otherwise never sit at the same table. And we can turn many individual voices into collective power. When that works, a relatively small investment in an intermediary is multiplied many times over across the ecosystem.
The Arts Council is 20 years old. How has it evolved over time, and how do you stay close to what your actual members are asking for?
The Arts Council was formed in 2005 through a merger of two earlier arts intermediaries. Bringing those two missions under one roof meant that, from day one, the Arts Council was responsible for both individuals and organizations, two groups whose needs don’t always align.
When I stepped into the role of CEO in 2023, I was asked to assess where we fit into the arts ecosystem and how we could have the greatest impact. Our strategic plan that we adopted in 2024 has strongly shaped the work we do today and how we define our role.
We stay close to the field by being physically proximate to it. Our staff works remotely, and we firmly believe in going where the work happens. That means site visits with organizations, studio visits with artists, and showing up at events across the region. We’re also active on social media, and we track sector-level trends and data so we can see the broader patterns behind what we hear one-on-one.
The focus on relationships and non-financial support aren’t new ideas for the Arts Council. They’re a return to the core of what the Southwestern Pennsylvania arts ecosystem needs us to be. What has changed is the context. The issues the field faces today look different than they did 20 years ago.
Defining the Role of Intermediaries: Value, Competition, and Impact
Since you’re an organization serving other organizations, you run the risk of possibly competing with your own constituents. How do you navigate the question of competition?
Artists and organizations come to us when they have a challenge or a need. Sometimes the instinct is to build a program in response, especially if we assume the need is shared by more than the one person who brought it to us.
The most direct way we avoid competing with, or duplicating, the work of the people we serve is simply knowing who is doing what. Our role is to connect those in need to that existing resource, often with a warm introduction to the person or group who administer it. That’s part of what having a 10,000 foot view means in practice. It also takes discipline.
When we do see a gap, our first question is who we can build the solution with, not what we can build ourselves. The Fair Deal is a good example. Rather than designing standards for freelance arts workers on our own, we’re piloting it with partner organizations and the Equity | Impact Center, so the tool is shaped by the people who will use it.
How do you build an effective case for funding support? How do you draw the distinction between the impact of one organization versus your impact as an intermediary?
We start by recognizing that our case resonates most with people and foundations who already understand the value of systems-level support. Not every funder or donor is drawn to that kind of work, and we don’t try to pursue everyone.
We also prioritize those who already have significant investment in the arts. For them, we position our work as either an insurance policy or a megaphone for those other investments:
As an insurance policy, we protect what they’ve already put into the field. When public arts funding comes under scrutiny or a policy threatens the sector, we're the ones organizing a response.
As a megaphone, we amplify their investments. We help the artists and organizations they fund reach audiences, decision-makers, and new resources beyond their own networks.
As I shared earlier, we impact the hundreds that go on to serve hundreds of thousands. We measure ourselves by how well those hundreds are equipped to do their work. We look at whether there are more resources flowing into the field, whether policies are stronger, and whether artists and organizations have the relationships, information, and capacity they need to thrive.
Navigating Pittsburgh’s Arts Landscape: Challenges & Regional Dynamics
The Arts Council has a stake in Pittsburgh becoming truly livable for creatives, entrepreneurs, and community members. Tell us about this aspect of your work. What is challenging? What is galvanizing? Are there unexpected collaborations that have emerged?
Pittsburgh has been a place where great artistic work gets made, and where generations of artists, creatives, and culture bearers have found what they need to do that work. Some were born here and some moved here. They found inspiration, collaborators, institutions, and networks of resources and supporters in this city.
Evan Mirapaul, founder of the Troy Hill Art Houses, often says that creativity thrives when the cost of failure is low. Steve Knapp, President of Carnegie Museums, has observed that Pittsburgh isn’t the most affordable city, nor the most arts-dense, but that among affordable cities, it’s the most arts-dense. For a long time, those two truths meant artists in Pittsburgh didn’t need much to get by.
That’s what makes the current moment challenging. Neighborhoods that were once full of artists become more expensive, often because visible signs of creativity and culture drive up property values. At the same time, Pittsburgh has relied mainly on philanthropy to fund the arts. Public and private investment in the arts still lags behind benchmark cities. So artists face rising costs with a funding system that leans heavily on one source, and that source tends to fund arts organizations at a much higher level than it funds the individuals who create the work.
There is also a gap in how we think about fair work. The region continues to advance equitable employment practices for W-2 employees, but far less focus has been extended to non-W-2 gig workers. The arts field is three times more likely than other industries to rely on some kind of contract labor. That gap is where much of our energy is focused right now.
With support from the Tremaine Foundation, we’ve partnered with the Equity | Impact Center to develop the Fair Deal Checklist, a set of recommended guidelines for more equitable contracting practices. As far as I know, it’s the first framework of its kind that goes beyond compensation standards. We’re currently piloting the framework with the organizations that have shown a real commitment to equitable policies and practices: Assemble, Shiftworks, and Kelly Strayhorn Theater.
As an intermediary, we have to recognize where our interest begins and where our expertise ends. That’s why it’s so valuable to work with organizations like the Equity | Impact Center, whose expertise in workplace and organizational equity complements our interests.
Pittsburgh is often compared to other Rust Belt cities. How do these cities inform your work?
I’m part of a network of leaders of arts intermediaries in other Rust Belt and Mid-Atlantic cities. I meet regularly with my colleagues in Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and we often find ourselves navigating similar challenges and opportunities.
Philadelphia and Cleveland have both been exploring cultural plans while we’ve been in conversation with Allegheny County about one of our own. That has given us a chance to work through the same fundamental questions together. What is a cultural plan? What should it address? Who leads the work, and who is ultimately accountable for it? Similarly, Philadelphia and Detroit were exploring what it means to be a membership organization at the same time we were rebuilding our own membership program.
I also serve on the steering committee of the Urban Arts Coalition, a network of arts councils and agencies from roughly the 60 largest cities in the country. Those relationships give us a broader view of what’s possible and help us avoid reinventing the wheel.
Can you think of an example of another city that has achieved something you’d like to see in Pittsburgh?
There are a few things I’m envious of. The first is the benefit Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus, and other Ohio cities get from having a statewide advocacy organization like Creative Ohio. It’s resourced in a way that lets it be proactive at the state level and a meaningful convener when policy opportunities arise. Pennsylvania has Creative Pennsylvania, but it’s volunteer-driven and minimally resourced, so our statewide positioning tends to be reactive rather than proactive.
I also deeply admire what Cincinnati has created with Blink. It’s a homegrown festival that blends street art, projection mapping, and site-specific light installations, and it has grown into something truly remarkable. When I visited Cincinnati in 2025, organizers shared that it draws around two million people each time it’s held. It’s a huge driver of community activation and tourism. Pittsburgh needs a signature event like that.
And I’m always envious of the murals in cities like Cincinnati, Richmond, and Philadelphia. Pittsburgh has leaned more toward graffiti culture than murals, and many of the murals we do have are thinly veiled advertisements. I’d love to see more street art that treats our outdoor walls as living galleries.
What can Pittsburgh teach other Rust Belt cities?
Across the Commonwealth, other counties are envious that we have the Allegheny Regional Asset District. No other county in Pennsylvania has a comparable funding mechanism. Many communities struggle to find funding for capital projects, and as their theaters and museums age, the burden of maintaining those buildings falls heavily on local philanthropy and individual donors. RAD shows what’s possible when a region decides to invest collectively and consistently in its cultural assets.
Pittsburgh also has world-class colleges and universities, with international reputations across artistic disciplines. They attract faculty and students who go on to do remarkable work. That concentration of talent and training is something few Rust Belt cities can match.
Pittsburgh is philanthropically dense and has many nonprofits for its size. When you look at the landscape of our current intermediaries, what’s your assessment?
It helps to look at the nonprofit sector as a whole, which is made up of verticals: health and science; human and social services; education; advocacy and community development; arts, culture, and humanities; environment and conservation; animal welfare; business, professional, and trade associations; religious organizations; and philanthropy. Very few intermediaries operate at the top of those verticals, where systems-level work happens.
The Arts Council serves arts, culture, and humanities. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development serves the business community. Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania serves philanthropy. That leaves most other verticals without a systems-level intermediary, and it makes coordination and collaboration difficult.
We also have intermediaries that work horizontally across those verticals, at different levels of service. The lower in a vertical an intermediary sits, the more likely its work is to address symptoms and fill gaps while waiting for the system to change. That work matters, but it can’t substitute for the systems-level work above it and it cannot sustain the non-profit sector.
What Southwestern Pennsylvania needs is to map its system and network of intermediaries, and then have honest conversations about where to invest.
Sustaining the Sector: The Evolving Role of Nonprofit Intermediaries
How are you looking to the future? What should the Arts Council be doing in the next 2–3 years?
For us, looking ahead means holding ourselves accountable to the same standard I’d apply to any intermediary that is responsible for a vertical the way I described before. We must stay focused on root causes and systems-level change, even when filling gaps would be easier to fund. It also means continuing to invest in the work our stakeholders and community are responding to most positively, and building on what’s working rather than constantly starting over.
At the same time, we want to stay nimble. That way we can act on new opportunities as they arise and respond to the evolving needs of our field.
Underneath all of it is our commitment to the four roles that define us as an intermediary: information hub, convener, storyteller, and advocate. If we fulfill those roles well, the field will be stronger, better resourced, and better positioned to act together. In the end, that’s how we should measure our success.
Workhorse Collaborative, in collaboration with Shannon Parris Consulting, was hired to support the research, direction, and rollout of the Arts Council’s 2024 strategic plan. In 2026, Jackie Baker became a board member of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.
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