The Cycle

July 22, 2013
Writing with Egan, director of the Devos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Kennedy Center president Kaiser (The Art of the Turnaround) synthesizes the most important best practices for nonprofit arts organizations. Hoping to reach small organizations, Kaiser has created a concise handbook for achieving success. The third in Kaiser’s trilogy on managing arts organizations, this volume is prescriptive, straightforward, and realistic: “Institutional marketing events and activities must be laid out periodically over a period of months and years. Small or mid-sized nonprofits should have something of note happening every quarter, while large organizations must have something major every month.” Even arts managers with expertise in board development or institutional marketing can appreciate a book that gathers these topics together in one package. Kaiser calls his holistic method for the management of arts organizations “the cycle: every activity—programming, programmatic and institutional marketing, developing relationships with important constituents, and even controlling costs—feeds into a beneficial cycle that increases the impact of the institution.” Kaiser has worked with the Kennedy Center, the Royal Opera House, American Ballet Theatre, and Alvin Ailey and uses anecdotes from his experience with all of these organizations to strengthen his arguments. How­ever, his advice can be applied to other types of nonprofits as well. 11 illus.