FUNSINCOPA: The Austerity Paradox – A Tale of Two Orchestras

Author: Bradley Powell (Jamaica/Canada)

In mid-2017, Dr. Isaac Casal, founder of Panama’s Fundación Sinfonia Concertante de Panama (FUNSINCOPA), was at a critical juncture. His organisation had survived a near-fatal funding crisis that had forced the gutting of its flagship social program, La Red. While some government support had been restored, allowing him to begin the slow process of rebuilding, the program was struggling to regain its former momentum. A report from a recent guest teaching artist, who had also spent time at FUNSINCOPA’s remote sister organisation, FUNDAMOA, presented a stark contrast: FUNDAMOA, despite having fewer resources and less prestige, was thriving due to its intense focus and hands-on leadership. Dr. Casal was now forced to confront a difficult question: Was his own multifaceted, high-profile role—once FUNSINCOPA’s greatest asset—now a liability to the deep, on-the-ground work needed to truly resurrect La Red?

BACKGROUND

Founded in 2008 by the accomplished Casal siblings, FUNSINCOPA is a major cultural force in Panama City. The organisation operates two principal initiatives: the prestigious Alfredo de Saint Malo (ASM) International Festival, which brings world-renowned artists to Panama, and La Red, a music-for-social-inclusion program serving youth in the city’s high-risk districts. This dual-focus model positioned FUNSINCOPA as both a high-arts presenter and a grassroots social agent.

THE ORGANISATIONAL MODEL AND THE CRISIS

La Red was designed to use music as a tool for social transformation, offering tuition scholarships, instruments, and orchestral training to hundreds of children. However, in 2016, a shift in government priorities led to a catastrophic funding cut, eliminating the program’s entire budget for teachers and staff. La Red survived in name only because Dr. Casal and his wife volunteered full-time to maintain basic operations.

By mid-2017, the program was in a state of “funding limbo.” Partial government funding had returned, but La Red was a shell of its former self, suffering from a depleted staff, stagnated student progress, and difficulty recruiting new participants. The crisis had not only decimated its resources but had also exposed the fragility of its operating model and eroded its internal culture.

THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE

The strategic challenge for Dr. Casal was not simply to rehire staff, but to rebuild the culture and pedagogical intensity of La Red after a traumatic institutional shock. The comparative analysis with the sister organisation, FUNDAMOA, provided a powerful, if challenging, blueprint.

FUNDAMOA, located in the remote Chiriquí province, lacks FUNSINCOPA’s brand recognition, international connections, and access to funding. However, it thrives due to two key strategic differences:

1. Singularity of Focus: FUNDAMOA has one mission: music for social inclusion. Its leadership is not distracted by the demands of running a major international festival.
2. Embedded Leadership: Its director, Xiomara González, is a constant, hands-on presence, deeply involved in the daily life of the program. This fosters a palpable culture of discipline, motivation, and student ownership.

This contrast created the “Austerity Paradox”: the resource-poor but highly focused FUNDAMOA was demonstrating greater organisational health than the resource-rich but distracted FUNSINCOPA. The challenge for Dr. Casal was to figure out how to import FUNDAMOA’s “secret sauce” of intense, present leadership into his own, more complex organisation.

TWO PATHS TO REBUILDING

Dr. Casal faced two distinct strategic pathways for resurrecting La Red, each with profound implications for his own role and the future of the organisation.

Path 1: The Leveraged Leadership Model. This strategy accepts that Dr. Casal’s time is scarce due to his multiple roles as a university professor, festival director, and performer. It focuses on rebuilding La Red by creating efficient systems that can run with minimal hands-on oversight from him. Key tactics would include establishing a formal teaching internship program with the University of Panama to create a steady pipeline of staff, hiring external experts to train on-site coordinators in classroom management, and leveraging his high-level connections for corporate fundraising.

Path 2: The Embedded Leadership Model. This strategy is a direct application of the FUNDAMOA paradigm. It requires a fundamental shift in how leadership time and energy are allocated. This would involve either Dr. Casal stepping back from some of his other duties to be a more constant, hands-on presence at La Red, or hiring and empowering a dedicated, on-site director with the specific mandate to rebuild the program’s culture from the inside out. A core tactic would be to formalise a partnership where the FUNDAMOA team directly trains La Red’s new staff, explicitly transferring their successful cultural DNA.

IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS

The Leveraged Leadership model aligns with Dr. Casal’s existing strengths but risks rebuilding the program’s structure without restoring its soul. It might fail to solve the core cultural issues of low intensity and discipline that were hobbling its recovery.

The Embedded Leadership model is more likely to create the strong, resilient culture that has made FUNDAMOA successful. However, it demands a major, perhaps unsustainable, shift in Dr. Casal’s own professional commitments, or the difficult task of finding and funding a new leader with the unique skills to drive such a cultural transformation.

DECISION POINT

Dr. Casal was at a crossroads. The partial funding was a lifeline, but it would be wasted if he chose the wrong strategy for rebuilding. The path he took would define the future of La Red.

Rebuild the System. Pursue the Leveraged Leadership model. Focus on creating efficient, sustainable systems that allow him to lead La Red effectively from a distance while maintaining his other critical roles.

Rebuild the Culture. Pursue the Embedded Leadership model. Make the difficult choice to fundamentally change the leadership structure of La Red to provide the intense, on-the-ground presence needed to rebuild its culture, using FUNDAMOA as the explicit blueprint.

The decision rested on a core question of post-crisis turnaround: What is more important to restore first—an organisation’s systems or its soul? And what is the most effective role for a founder in that process: as a high-level strategist leveraging external resources, or as a hands-on leader embedded in the daily fight?