AMA member Merrin Kalinowski considers how the success of Art Happens campaigns is dependent upon close collaboration between marketing and development teams. This article is featured in the Spring 2018 issue of  JAM – the AMA’s quarterly publication.

A quick and simple toolkit to help you develop powerful vision and mission statements for your organisation. Based on training designed by Mel Larsen for the AMA’s Small Scale Development Programme.

Gain inspiration to develop a more resilient business model with this article from AMA Executive Director Julie Aldridge.

Reinvent your business model with this introduction to the Business Model Canvas for arts and cultural organisations.

The region in which Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima) is situated has very little arts infrastructure. It is a region with high poverty, high unemployment and very low life expectancy – where the art gallery is based, the average life expectancy is 54 year’s old. It was a risk to put an international contemporary art gallery in ... Read more

Discover how the Everyman Theatre razed and rebuilt their much-loved venue into a RIBA-prize winning building, while maintaining and growing their audiences. This is a transcript of the closing keynote from the AMA conference 2013.

Andrew McIntyre explores how to review your organisation’s vision and future direction to develop both art and audience. This is a transcript from Andrew’s masterclass at AMA Conference 2013.

NEMO is a Science Centre in Amsterdam, and one of the Netherlands leading attractions. NEMO wanted to reassess its organisational priorities and worked with arts consultancy Wonderbird to establish NEMO 3.0, the vision of NEMO in the future, and to set a marketing strategy that can support that vision.

This report looks at issues around governance in the arts. Why think about governance in the not-for-profit cultural sector? The governors of an organisation, whether they go by the name of trustees, directors or non-executive directors, are in a position of trust. They have a duty towards the organisation’s objectives and its provision of public ... Read more

In order to thrive in today’s challenging environment, arts organisations need to develop a higher tolerance for complexity, uncertainty and not knowing; this state can only be developed through experience. This paper argues that cultural leaders should support transformation in a way that looks forward rather than back.

In a follow-up to The Art of Dying, this article surveys the challenges and opportunities facing funding practice across the whole cultural sector. In a thorough and stimulating survey of arts and cultural organisations and all four funding communities, this is the first synthesis of all the funding issues the sector faces.

This essay considers how arts organisations might live a little better.  Would a more concerted effort to correct deficiencies in evaluating performance, defining success and establishing a more developed culture of accountability across the sector instil greater dynamism and excellence?

A personal or company vision gives you a sense of how things could be. It’s your ideal future, it says what you, or even the world, could become (as opposed to your mission statement which reminds you of your more immediate purpose in terms of who, what, why and where). Einstein famously called the imagination a ‘preview of life’s coming attractions’ which hints at the ... Read more

Why do some festivals thrive, while others fail? Knowing what is likely to go wrong is a good first step to avoiding problems and creating a sustainable organisation. This study looks at a lifecycle model of organisational development and applies it to Buxton Festival, to see if the forecasts used in the commercial sector can ... Read more

This action proposal starts with a review of the state of the poetry sector (written and live performance) and audiences for poetry, before the Thrive! Programme. It then describes the five proposed themes for developing the sectors with ideas for possible action.

Morris Hargreaves McIntyre detail seven pillars for arts organisations to potentially transform their audience development focus: vision-led, brand-driven, outcome-orientated, inter-disciplinary, insight-guided, interactively-engaged, and personalised.

This booklet presents the experience of 10 large arts and cultural institutions in London commissioned by ACE to undertake work in the public realm in preparation for the 2012 Olympics. They included The Barbican, The British Library, The British Museum, Exhibition Road Cultural Group, Royal Court Theatre, Royal Opera House, Sadler’s Wells, Southbank Centre, Tate ... Read more

This case study looks at how visitor research can be used to help create a shared language and understanding about visitors across an organisation and provide the impetus for change. The case study highlights the benefit of using research as a springboard for audience development and clear communication with visitors and colleague, how to lift ... Read more

In any role staff have the potential to successfully lead organisational change. This article provides the theory behind leading with limited authority, including key factors such as understanding barriers or dealing with the sources of resistance to innovation. The author argues that if arts organisations continue as they are – resisting change and innovation – then our ... Read more