Fund-of-funds Books

Mack Hanan is one of the mose clear thinking, practical business writiers working today.  About every two years or so, he writes a book for the American Management Association. Consultative Budgeting is the follow-up to his best seller Consultative Selling(tm).  Personally, I find this book much more powerful and useful for marketing, because it gives you very solid approaches to getting funding for your marketing programs.  Almost totally flufless, and highly quantitative and specific.

Addresses the three elements of stewardship, time, talents, and treasure, with an emphasis on the spiritual basis, and scriptural background. Strongly written, would rate 5 stars if just a little more prescriptive. But then, some of us are always seeking an easier path.

I bought ROOM FOR A SINGLE LADY in a downtown Dublin bookstore for my "airplane read" back to the United States. It was a great choice and marvelous entertainment. It is a tale of family survival, both financial and social in depressed 1950's Ireland. Oh no, not another tale of making it through the Irish childhood and adolescence. Well there is always room for one more for us grandchildren of the old sod and this one had a bit more laghter than tears. To improve dwindling monetary circustances the Rafferty's of Dublin decide to take in a border--a genteel single lady who not only can contribute to the family's finances but can introduce their three daughters to some of society's better refinements. The border concept turns into a revolving door of various lovable, wacky, entertaining characters who bring great change and insight to the entire Rafferty family. From serious, sad Selena with her caring ways, to glamorous, trashy Sissy, to Ruth, the Communist, and Minnie Mankivitz, frugal and sensible, yet blind when it comes to men, the Rafferty's lives wind through complex delightful dramas! Seen through the eyes of Rose, the youngest daughter, ROOM FOR A SINGLE LADY details the effects of sharing one's home with strangers, and how one family grew thanks to the laughter, tears, anger, and wacky fun that resulted from letting out the spare room to these most bizarre group of women. This tale is not as dramatic as ANGELA'S ASHES or as angry as A STAR NAMED HENRY but is a delightful and entertaining saga of some uproarious days in the life of an Irish family!

George Krambles and Art Peterson take you deep into the innerworkings of The Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago's urban mass transit system. This book is chock full of rare photos of the agency's infancy in 1947, when it was a merger of two bankrupt systems, Chicago Surface Lines and Chicago Rapid Transit Company until its glory days of the late '70's early '80's...then its decline in the early '90's.

George Krambles was not just an observer, but the well respected, hands-on General Manager that respected all who worked for him and with him at the CTA. It was not unususal to see Mr.Krambles at the controls of an L-train in the Chicago Loop, or behind the wheel of the latest model bus. This is not just a collection of memoirs, but a factual journey into the day to day operations of a transit system no one knew the way he did.

The text is complimented nicely by color photographs by Art Peterson, one of the nation's top transit proffessionals and a prolific urban photo! grapher. To further add to this volume are rare photos from the CTA's own historic files, many rarely seen. Other graphics are reproduced as well.

Wheather you are a urbanoligist, transit proffessional, or rail or bus fan, this book is worth a prized spot in your library.

Anniversaries typically spark the reconsideration of historic events in all manner of popular ways, from reenactments to ceremonies to historical publications. The fortieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift in 1988 was no exception. Ann and John Tusa's "The Berlin Airlift" was one of many publications about the episode originally appearing as a result of that anniversary. It asserts that the Berlin Blockade represented a titanic struggle between two blocks of nations with divergent ideologies that nearly plunged the world into another major war. More important, however, it concentrates on the intensely human experience of the crisis, describing the problems and successes of the personalities involved. Throughout, in words and pictures, it creates vivid images of the crisis for a largely popular audience.

The blockade of Berlin marked the first direct confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union in the post-World War II era. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom responded to the Soviet siege with an ingenious means of maintaining the allied presence in a city cut-off from the rest of Western Europe without provoking combat. American and British fliers operated a complex shuttle service between western Germany and Berlin for some fifteen months between June 1948 and September 1949, hauling more than 2.3 million tons of supplies to the better than two million inhabitants of Berlin. This sustenance allowed the western allies to maintain their presence and influence in the city, if only by their fingernails, while diplomats worked on a settlement.

Ann and John Tusas' book presents the events of the Berlin blockade and airlift as an epic struggle between nations. Written from a decidedly British viewpoint--John Tusa is a journalist with the BBC-"The Berlin Airlift" contains a rousing story of individual heroism and high drama. It reads like a classic western, with good guys (the western allies) and bad guys (the Soviets and communist Germans), and anecdotes about how these two forces clashed. Like any good western, the ending was predictable as the Americans and their allies ultimately defeated the Soviets.

"The Berlin Airlift" will be of more interest to non-specialist readers than to students of Berlin Airlift historiography, although those knowledgeable about many aspects of the crisis will still benefit from the Tusas' descriptions of the British contributions to the airlift. The authors thoroughly researched British records and analyzed that aspect of the story, a particular area that has been slighted in previous studies of the crisis, and they present their findings better and with more verve than any earlier work. The position of the British government in the crisis; the development, organization, and, operation of the British task force flying airlift missions; and the British role in negotiating the lifting of the blockade are well documented in "The Berlin Airlift."

There are, however, several flaws which make "The Berlin Airlift" less useful than I would have liked. First, the authors take more than 150 out of a total of 379 pages of text to get to the actual blockade of Berlin. While this prefatory material deals with the Berlin question and general relations between the two power blocks that confronted each other at Berlin in 1948-1949, it seems excessive when measured against the size of the whole book. I would have anticipated a more expeditious handling of earlier foreign relations and a greater emphasis on the airlift itself. Second, no clear picture of the American side of the airlift can be gained from reading the Tusas' book. The organization of the 1st Berlin Airlift Task Force, the agent managing the American effort, receives short shrift; as does the unique operational approach developed to order airlift flow. Almost nothing about Major General William H. Tunner, the American commander who more than anyone understood the possibilities and especially the limitations of airlift and organized the operation for the success it achieved during the winter of 1948-1949, is included in "The Berlin Airlift." Brigadier General Joseph Smith, who initially commanded the Airlift Task Force and oversaw the early success of the operation, is not even mentioned. The Tusas offer no discussion of any sophistication about the pattern of operations, the nature of logistics and maintenance, command and control, force structure, and C-54 acquisition from outside of Europe to augment the airlift fleet. From an operational perspective, this books discussion of the American airlift effort is at best superficial. Indeed, the book should have been retitled to indicate that it dealt largely with the British aspects of the airlift.

Finally, the scholarly apparatus of this book, while present, proves next to useless. A mere five pages of bibliography, omitting some of the most interesting and useful works on the subject, were used as the basic references for the book. Even worse, the chapter notes are especially confusing because they have no page numbers for any published sources. Since the majority of the references are for published works this shortcoming is particularly troublesome. No one will be able to reconstruct the thought processes of the authors as they review the text, and I must ask, was that the intent in omitting them? To the credit of the Tusas, however, they have mined the Public Records Office in the United Kingdom and have, as their chapter notes demonstrate, offered several new insights relative to British participation in the airlift based upon these records.

"The Berlin Airlift" certainly has its strengths and weaknesses. It will not replace W. Phillips Davison's "The Berlin Blockade: A Study in Cold War Politics" (1958) and especially Avi Shlaim's "The United States and the Berlin Blockade, 1948-1949" (1983), both outstanding analyses of this foreign policy crisis. But this work does package the basic story in a readable format that will be useful to a general audience. Especially interesting, "The Berlin Airlift" demonstrates how military airlift can assist foreign policy execution. The unique capabilities of air transport in a non-combat environment were a fundamentally important realization of the experience. Since then military airlift, proven a viable option in the Berlin crisis, has been used with increasing frequency.

This is one book you can have on the shelf that concisely describes the fundamentals of raising money. Lant gives clear guidance and useful examples for producing fundraising materials: from letters to full campaign packages. All practical and effective. A good place to start if you are raising money for your favorite cause, or are employing a professional fundraiser.

Surveys the different kinds of Internet-based money exchange systems available at the time of book writing. Also includes some interesting interviews and monetary history. Even though the situation has changed since the book was written, it still is worth reading for basic knowledge of the area.

Ok, lets get things straight. I'm not under 13 I just don't feel like typing in some stuff. A lot of you are probably like "Oh, she's lying!" but no. Just cuz you hate me doesnt mean the world hates me.

Anyway, in this book the Chef girls are cooking for a charity harvest in the park. They make pies and all that stuff. But, Molly quits Dish because she's too stressed and wants to just sell pesto(she's crazy).In the end they make a lot of money and everything is good.

I would want to make a club like dish with my friends but I just don't know when to start it. I wonder if anyone else wants to do that. Just include it at the bottom of your review!

Thanx,
Lor K.

This book is a very extensive list of quick tips on fund raising for theatre and arts organization. It presents brief and informative case studies on what organizations are doing to successfully appeal to different audiences, build relationships, and raise funds. While not all of the case studies will appeal to everyone, you should be able to find some that are applicable to your situation. Don't expect this to be a "how-to" guide for audience building and fund raising, rather a good book to use if you are brain-storming on different ideas that you can use in your situation.

This book collects most of the important papers written by Armen Alchian, who has made great contribution on the development of new institutional economics.

The topics of his works starts from analysis of uncertainty and information costs. One of his famous contribution ,the implications of shirking in team production is the main heading in the book. Other topics including inflation and cost defintion are included.

In my opinion,the most impressive work to me is the paper which clarify the definition of cost. It is only Armen Alchian who is willing and has clear concept to write on such important concept but so many people has wrong understanding in what they believe as simple concept.