Useful links

• #artsfunding daily newspaper on paper.li - http://paper.li/tag/artsfunding
• Minutes of the first meeting of Culture Forum - http://issuu.com/arts_business/docs/cultureforum_meeting_1_minutes_final
• Arts Council England's Why the Arts Matter toolkit - http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/about-us/why-arts-matter/
• #artsfunding on Twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23artsfunding
• To what extent should the arts be funded by taxpayers? BBC Radio 4 You and Yours on the BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00t8c7x
• Transcript of BBC's You and Yours programme - http://bit.ly/bHdMnz
• Columnist John Kay in the Financial Times: A Good Economist Knows the True Value of the Arts - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2cbf4e04-a4b4-11df-8c9f-00144feabdc0.html (you will need to register for free to read the article)

Help us gather more links and useful resources: post a comment below or join the conversation on Twitter: http://twitter.com/amadigital.

Comments

[Anita van Mil - Hopkins Van Mil: Creating Capacity]

At Creating Capacity we have serious concerns about the impact of budget cuts, pay freezes and efficiency savings on the continuous professional development of sector workers. Cutting a professional development budget is tempting in the Age of Austerity but will backfire enormously when we come out of the recession. It is vital for the future of the sector that we build capacity for change so that we emerge with vibrant, energised staff serving the needs of users.

Sustainability and effectiveness for the sector are central to Creating Capacity (www.creatingcapacity.org)to whom MLA London transferred their training programme on 1 April 2010. Creating Capacity is an organisation with a social enterprise ethos, managed by Hopkins Van Mil (www.hopkinsvanmil.co.uk), endorsed by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council and supported by Renaissance London. It delivers high quality learning programmes at an affordable price to ensure the training needs of the sector are sustained for the long-term.

Supporting museum, archive and library professionals on their learning
journey is at the core of Creating Capacity's offer. It has built on MLA
London's Training Programme to develop packages of learning for community
engagement, marketing, fundraising, advocacy, volunteer management, the digital agenda, collections care and other themes. This means that over a year participants can build up a portfolio of experience which is tailored to both their current roles and long-term development.

Ensuring staff participate in training programmes gives reassurance to employers that their staff are developing skills which are exactly right for the current climate and the needs of service users. It will take staff on a journey of change and prepare them for more effective and imaginative service delivery structured around the needs of service users and the potential needs of non-users.

Cutting professional development budgets means that ultimately users and visitors miss out. Nothing is more demotivating than a lack of investment in staff. If they don’t feel valued it will become harder and harder to perform well. Putting professional development at the heart of budget restructures however, will allow staff to be creative and help shape a cultural offer that inevitably will be different but won’t lack the passion of committed professionals.