Trend or Tipping Point: Arts & Social Change Grantmaking

Tuesday, March 15, 2:00 EDT/ 11:00 PDT [PASSED]
Barbara Schaffer Bacon and Pam Korza, Co-Directors, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts

Session 2 of the 9-part  2011 Web Conference Series
A recording of this presentation is available here.

Description:

Join Barbara Schaffer Bacon and Pam Korza as they share the findings of the 2010 report, Trend or Tipping Point: Arts & Social Change Grantmaking. Released by Americans for the Arts’ Animating Democracy program, the report assembles a first-time portrait of arts funders, social change funders, and others supporting civic engagement and social change through arts and cultural strategies.

Barbara and Pam will offer an overview of the arts and social change funders supporting this work, detailing how grantmakers think about social change in the context of agency goals and the outcomes they are looking for through their support. Participants will learn about opportunities for building this support, as well as the common obstacles peers face, such as the language and meaning of “social change” and lack of evidence of impact.

Whether you are exploring or affirming your place in supporting “arts for change,” this webinar will help inform internal planning conversations, program design, and assessment interests. Learn, too, about related resources including an online Directory of Funders and upcoming resources from Animating Democracy’s full Arts & Social Change Mapping Initiative.

The study and the Arts & Social Change Mapping Initiative are supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, CrossCurrents Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Lambent Foundation, and Surdna Foundation.

Presenter Bios:

Barbara Schaffer Bacon and Pam Korza co-direct Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts that inspires, informs, promotes, and connects arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change. Through Animating Democracy, they have written, edited, and contributed to many publications including: Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy; Case Studies from Animating Democracy; and the Arts & Civic Engagement Tool Kit. They have delivered presentations and keynotes and offered workshops on the principles and practices of arts and civic engagement across the country and internationally through local and state arts agencies, colleges and universities, and national arts and other service organizations. They are frequently called upon by public and private funders to act as program advisers and as funding and research partners.

Barbara Schaffer Bacon has worked as a consultant since 1990 and prior to that served as executive director of the Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts. Her consulting work includes program design and evaluation for state and local arts agencies and for private foundations nationally. An arts management educator, she has served as a primary instructor for the Fundamentals and Advanced Arts Management seminars and contributor to publications including Fundamentals of Local Arts Management and The Cultural Planning Work Kit. Barbara recently concluded 14 years of service on her local school committee. She is a board member of the Fund for Women Artists and she serves as president of the Arts Extension Institute, Inc. at the University of Massachusetts.

Pam Korza also consults in organizational assessment and planning, program design, and evaluation with cultural organizations, state arts agencies, and private foundations. She has conducted research for a children's picture book museum initiated by internationally renowned book artist Eric Carle; planned with the Maine Arts Commission for expanded artist services; and consulted with individual visual and media artists. Pam coordinated the National Public Art Policy Project of the Arts Extension Service for 17 years. She co-wrote and edited Going Public: A field guide to developments in art in public places and has edited and contributed to Fundamentals of Local Arts Management, both published by AES. She is on the National Advisory Board for Imagining America, a consortium of colleges and universities whose mission is to strengthen the public and democratic purposes of the arts, humanities, and design in and through mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships.