Review by Joseph Wesley Zeigler of the the book United Arts Fundraising in the 1990s: Serving the Community Arts System in an Era of Change [New York, NY: American Council for the Arts, 1993, 139 p.].

59 organizations participated in the 1993 united arts funds survey. Collectively, these organizations raised $79.1 million for more than 1,000 arts and cultural groups. A comparison of the communities reporting in both 1992 and 1993 shows a slight increase of $454,000 from the $78.6 million raised in 1992.

The purpose of this chapter is to address the fundamental question of united arts giving: Where does the money come from?

This manual will prove invaluable to those wishing to create or improve existing united arts funds. Writers herein have tackled key issues and concepts at the heart of united arts fund raising. Because their own experiences have taught them about the ever-evolving characteristics of the organizations about which they write, they have introduced and discussed subjects, but rarely have dealt in absolutes.

Putting together your very first allocation process is a piece of cake! Go out and find 12-15 community leaders to sit on the Allocation Committee (not incestuously connected to any group asking for dollars), steal someone else's application forms, decide how much money you have to give away, and you're in business. It's only scary if this is as far as your allocation process ever goes.

How will you know when you get there if you don't know where you're headed? This statement in its several variations has been attributed to a long list of writers and speakers. To all of them, we credit their realization that clarity of mission is of utmost importance to the on-going success of any enterprise. So it is with united arts funds.

Just as united funds differ dramatically in mission and objective, so necessarily do their organizational structures. Consequently, to attempt to set forth the model united arts fund organization is impossible. Even in well-established united arts funds, the structure is constantly evolving. In fact, any organization that is overly rigid and thus unwilling or unable to respond to the changing needs of its various constituencies most likely will not survive, or, even at its best will fail to achieve its optimum effectiveness.

The American Council for the Arts' latest statistics demonstrate that united arts funds (UAFs) are emerging as one effective measure to counteract the downside of corporate and government cut-backs in arts support. In fact, the Washington Post has called UAFs a bright spot in the gray outlook for cultural funding. The reason for this is simple: united arts funds build and sustain pluralistic bases of support.

This study, sponsored by the American Council for the Arts (ACA) and funded by the Knight Foundation, is a response to the need for an objective analysis and evaluation of united arts funds - a need that has become increasingly pressing as communities try to meet the arts funding challenges of the 1990s.