More Than the Sum of Its Parts: Collaboration & Sustainability in Arts Education

Collaboration is a powerful strategy for arts education organizations to become stronger, more relevant and sustainable and find affordable, effective solutions for addressing community needs. Any nonprofit can benefit from an effective partnership that is built on best-practice strategies which have proven successful for organizations across the United States. More Than the Sum of Its Parts is a primer on how organizations that offer arts education and creative learning programs can initiate, enter into, and support long-lasting partnerships. It outlines the theory and practice underlying different levels of collaboration-from organizational partnerships to mergers to community-wide systems-with inspiring, real-life examples of thriving partnerships whose creative strategies multiply the benefits of arts education and help sustain their own work for years to come.