Steve's Blog

After Grand Rapids, Michigan found itself listed in January by the news website Mainstreet.org as one of America's top ten “Dying Cities,” (a piece that was picked up and re-printed by Newsweek magazine), the community turned out on Sunday to create a nine-minute, continuous-take LipSync video to the Don McLean classic “American Pie.” It's an impressive, and creative, show of community spirit that reportedly includes almost 5000 citizens of Grand Rapids, all of whom were behind the project enough to show up for the second scheduled shoot (the first was a rain-out) and then find their positions to do five takes of the epic song.

From Richard Kessler at Dewey21C:

The simple fact is that funding for arts education advocacy has been fractional. The state alliances have historically been funded on a marginal basis and local advocacy has for the most part been nascent. Underdeveloped advocacy efforts and little funding to support anything better. That's arts education in 2011.

Read the full piece at Dewey21C.

NASAA's update on the situation in State governments, including updates from Connecticut, Kansas, Nevada, and New Hampshire where the New Hampshire Senate Finance Committee voted to retain the Department of Cultural Resources, rejecting the House language that dissolved the department and the Arts Division.

This resource is available in .pdf form at www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Funding/State-Budget-Center/FY12R&EProposals.pdf.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman and Blue Star Families Chairman Kathy Roth-Douquet today announced the second annual launch of Blue Star Museums, a partnership with more than 1,300 museums across America to offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day 2011. Leadership support has been provided by MetLife Foundation through Blue Star Families.

From Dana Goldstein, Columbia University School of Journalism:

With the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit kicking off (on May 17), I thought I'd do an overview of the state of K-12 education philanthropy.

The NewSchools Venture Fund is one of the founding institutions of "venture philanthropy," a school of charitable giving that borrows its ethos from the world of venture capital. Venture philanthropists seek out non-profits that pursue social change while embracing data-driven corporate accountability standards.

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies maintains up-to-date information on the budget proposals affecting state arts agencies. This resource is available in .pdf form at www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Funding/State-Budget-Center/FY12R&EProposals.pdf.

Americans for the Arts latest State Arts Action Network bulletin, SAANbox, has updates on the situation with State Arts Agencies—an area of considerable drama these days, it seems. Yesterday's SAANbox includes news from many states including the heartland states of Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas, where the governor may veto funding put in place by a legislature dominated by his own party.

Read yesterday's SAANbox here.

The Lincoln Center's President Reynold Levy was on MSNBC this morning to discuss how arts organizations can thrive in a tough economy, and how Lincoln Center has managed to balance their budget every year.

Louisa McCune-Elmore has been named as the new executive director of the organization. McCune-Elmore joins the Kirkpatrick Foundation after a thirteen-year tenure as editor in chief at Oklahoma Today magazine, where she garnered numerous awards and national recognition. She graduated from San Francisco State University in 1992. Her career, largely as a journalist and editor, has included work with such publications as Harper’s Magazine, George, Worth, and American Benefactor, a magazine dedicated to philanthropy.

For his newest blog post, Barry Hessenius talks with GIA Board Member Kristen Madsen, Senior Vice President of the GRAMMY Foundation and MusiCares Foundation, about the business of music.

As a bonus, Barry posted a video of Kristen's speech from earlier this year on Hip Hop and the power of vocabulary.