My father, a linguist, gets annoyed when people use the word viability willy-nilly. He prefers the strict definition of the word: a fetus’s ability to live outside the womb. Of course, my dad realizes he’s in the minority here. Viability has irrevocably changed. That’s language. It evolves.

For better or for worse, the evolution of language also explains how we ended up with today’s notion of sustainability.

Not surprisingly, the sustainability concept comes from the environmental movement, specifically a 1987 United Nations commission report that argued for “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” In other words, consuming the earth’s resources in such a way that the earth can naturally replenish them.

Eighteen years later, sustainability is about survival in the marketplace. It describes not only a company’s consumption of natural resources, but also its business practices—from product to payroll. Today, sustainability has little to do with the environment and more to do with keeping companies in business.

All companies, like the natural environment, have a life cycle. They’re born, the grow, and, as the needs of a community change, they sometimes die. Watching the federal government bail out United and Delta Airlines (again) in the face of competition from JetBlue and Southwest reminds us that even the biggest corporations can’t sustain themselves forever. Keeping these organizations on life support is not always in our best interest.

But at what point do we put these aging beasts out of their misery?

It isn’t just the corporate behemoths that are feeling the pinch. Shifting audience demographics and a reliance on outdated funding models have crippled many of this country’s largest arts and cultural organizations. Many are unlikely to recover.

Here in Seattle, the financially troubled Empty Space Theatre has become the poster child for this problem. After surviving some bleak times, it recently decided to pull up stakes and retreat to the safe and well-heeled confines of academia, taking up residence at Seattle University. Though this might be a winner for them artistically, it’s a reminder of how hard it is to make nonprofit theater work in the community.

This impending local crisis was the focus of a recent Sh*tstorm Seattle, a public forum that bills itself as “quarterly debates on Seattle culture.” This standing-room only event was brimming with impassioned artists and arts organizers—and at times had the tenor of a lynch mob. A number of high-profile arts organizations in this town have recently run into serious financial messes, and many Sh*tstorm attendees argued that those organizations needed to be cut off from the public trough.

Initially, I resisted this idea, since The Shunpike’s core mission is to—yes—make local arts organizations more sustainable. We help new and emerging arts organizations make effective and efficient use of scarce dollars through improved community support, fundraising and bookkeeping. But there are limits to what we can do. If a community institution doesn’t have the support of the very community it claims to serve, it’s doomed. You can’t manufacture demand, and, at some point, Darwin takes over.

Community needs change. And, to borrow an environmental metaphor, sometimes the forest needs to burn so new saplings can grow. Sustainability is a worthless concept unless it recognizes that our needs change over time. My generation demands a different cultural experience than my grandparents’ did. Our cultural institutions are going to have to evolve in kind.

Thus far, that hasn’t happened. Most cultural organizations are stuck in their ways. The currently preferred solution, it seems, is to take these old dogs and teach them the “new trick” called sustainability. In the long term, that strategy is a sure-fire loser.

In this light, maybe sustainability is no longer the goal. Perhaps a better word is in order. Might I suggest viability?