A Management Companion for Voluntary Organisationsby Tim Cook and Guy Braithwaite (Directory of Social Change, 2000, ISBN: 1 900360 67 5, £12.50 [£15.46 inc p&p]*) There are any number of books discussing the management structures appropriate to not-for-profit organisations. This one talks about the people within the structures and how they best need to work together. The authors have many years' experience as directors, committee members and funders of voluntary organisations. This book was born out of their regular meetings to discuss the issues which were taxing them. Their distilled thoughts address the three areas of the committee, the director and the team. In their view, it is insufficiently acknowledged that small organisations (defined as a staff small enough to meet together as a group, that is about 12 to 15) have very complicated relationships. They are particularly strong on the relationships between the Chair and the director, and the director and the staff. There are many useful hints and suggestions for making things work smoothly, written in straightforward language, and the book has lots of quotes from people who are actually doing these jobs now. Just two caveats. With their background in the voluntary sector, the authors understandably assume that the organisation is responding to need, rather than creating it. This does not necessarily apply in the arts field. Secondly, the critical relationship in an arts organisation is often that between the head of the artistic side and the head of the management side, the famous 'artistic duopoly'. For good advice on this often-tricky relationship, we will have to wait for another book.
|