The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World is by Dr. Peter M. Senge, keynote speaker at the 2009 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention. The book offers a toolkit with specific strategies and points of action to help change how organizations think and act. It is also a valuable resource that provides concrete examples of how each of us can be part of the solution in promoting sustainability.
General
All Volunteer Force: From Military to Civilian Service
The central message of this report is that a new generation of veterans is returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan without sufficient connections to communities, is enthusiastic to serve again, and points the way forward for how our nation can better integrate them into civilian life. Although the 1.8 million veterans are from every corner of our nation, they are strongly united in their perspectives regarding civic responsibilities and opportunities as they return home. What’s more, the findings show that OIF/OEF veterans are underutilized assets in our communities, and their continued service is likely to improve their transition home. We believe there is significant potential to increase volunteering and civic engagement among this generation of veterans.
BOOK: The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Arts, and Culture, by Tom Borrup
Put the power of arts and culture to work in your community: Part 1 of this unique guide distills research and emerging ideas behind culturally driven community development and explains key underlying principles. You’ll understand the arts impact on community well-being and have the rationale for engaging others.
Find inspiration and ideas from twenty case studies: Part 2 gives you ten concrete strategies for building on the unique qualities of your own community. Each strategy is illustrated by two case studies taken from a variety of cities, small towns, and neighborhoods across the United States. You’ll learn how people from all walks of life used culture and creativity as a glue to bind together people, ideas, enterprises, and institutions to make places more balanced and healthy.
More examples in Part 3.
BOOK: Living the Artist’s Life: A Guide to Growing, Preserving, and Succeeding in the Art World, by Paul Dorrell
Written in a conversational tone that resonates with energy and wisdom, Living the Artist’s Life is a unique book. Relying on a lifetime of experience, and a host of enlightening anecdotes, Dorrell keeps you engaged through each chapter. Whether instructing on how to photograph your work and get it into a gallery, or discussing subjects such as inspiration, depression and self-doubt, Dorrell knows his ground. He also relates the stories of his own failures, his successes, and his dealings with New York agents and publishers, Dorrell being a novelist as well as a gallery owner. Regardless of your discipline, you will benefit from the real-life guidance of this work.
BOOK: Fundamentals of Arts Management – 5th Edition
Since its first edition in 1987, Fundamentals of Arts Management continues to offer a useful refresher to the basics as well as new understanding regarding how to integrate and gain support for the arts in the social, economic, and cultural fabric of communities. Now in its 5th edition, Fundamentals of Arts Management updates and expands what has become a primary and trusted reference book for arts managers and students of arts administration, as well as programmers who wish to incorporate the arts in human service, education, and a range of other community organizations.
Anchoring the book are eleven tried and true chapters providing principles and best practices for managing and governing community arts organizations; raising funds; and presenting, promoting, and evaluating arts programs. Four new chapters cover fundamentals of personnel management, writing successful funding proposals, advocating effectively for the arts, and maximizing the arts’ role in the economic development of communities. Nationally recognized leaders and authors in the community arts field offer historical and contemporary context regarding the role of the arts in community, as well as insights about arts education and cultural access–two important dimensions of local arts agencies’ work.
Also new are Online Companions to several chapters. Easily accessed Online Companions offer expanded exploration of subject matter; worksheets and other practical tools that can be downloaded and used or adapted; and valuable resource listings that point to organizations, publications, and websites.
FROM THE PUBLISHER: softcover, 400 pages + online companion $65.00
BOOK: The Art of the Turnaround, by Michael M. Kaiser
Many arts organizations today find themselves in financial difficulties because of economic constraints inherent in the industry. While other companies can improve productivity through the use of new technologies or better systems, these approaches are not available in the arts. Hamlet requires the same number of performers today as it did in Shakespeare’s time. The New York Philharmonic requires the same number of musicians now as it did when Tchaikovsky conducted it over one hundred years ago. Costs go up, but the size of theaters and the price resistance of patrons limit what can be earned from ticket sales. Therefore, the performing arts industry faces a severe gap between earnings and expenses. Typical approaches to closing the gap–raising ticket prices or cutting artistic or marketing expenses–don’t work.
What, then, does it take to create and maintain a healthy arts organization?
Michael M. Kaiser has revived four major arts organizations: the Kansas City Ballet, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, and London’s Royal Opera House. In The Art of the Turnaround he shares with readers his ten basic rules for bringing financially distressed arts organizations back to life and keeping them strong. These rules cover the requirements for successful leadership, the pitfalls of cost cutting, the necessity of extending the programming calendar, the centrality of effective marketing and fund raising, and the importance of focusing on the present with a positive public message. In chapters organized chronologically, Kaiser brings his ten rules vividly to life in discussions of the four arts organizations he is credited with saving.
