Abigail's Blog

This month's slideshow of member-supported grantees was provided by The Leeway Foundation in Philadelphia. Funded by a gift from Philadelphia-based artist Linda Lee Alter in 1993, the foundation's initial focus was support for women artists in the metro area. Now approaching its 20th anniversary, Leeway supports women and trans artists and cultural producers working in communities at the intersection of art, culture, and social change.

New this week to the TED website, a brief talk by social science researcher Michael Norton on the benefits of spending pro-socially, which is spending on others and spending to benefit a group. A little insight into why we love working in this field.

Heather Pontonio joins the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation as program officer for art. Heather will be responsible for managing the Foundation's national biennial Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award and the Marketplace Empowerment for Artists programs. Prior to joining the Tremaine Foundation, Heather was the associate vice president of grants at the Arts and Science Council in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The April slide show of member-supported projects is provided by our colleagues at The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in Morristown, NJ. For almost forty years, the foundation has funded arts, education, environment, and media initiatives that are innovative, take a big-picture view, and promote collaboration and community-driven decision making—all in service of a mission to foster a better New Jersey.

Registration is still open for the next installment of GIA's 2012 Web Conference Series. Arts Education: Local Impact of Federal Policy, presented by Alex Nock, executive vice president at Penn Hill Group, a Washington, D.C.-based education policy firm. The webinar begins tomorrow, April 3, at 11:00 PDT, 2:00 EDT.

In March, the GIA website slide show of member-supported projects is provided by our colleagues at the Manitoba Arts Council in Winnipeg. Established in 1965 “to promote the study, enjoyment, production and performance of works in the arts” throughout the Province of Manitoba, the Council uses a peer assessment process to make awards to professional arts organizations and individuals in areas including arts education, literary arts, performing arts, and visual arts.

Grantmaker CDP is a new online interface designed by the Cultural Data Project (CDP) to provide strategic planning and program evaluation tools to help funders in the arts and cultural sector.

Registration is still open for GIA's inaugural 2012 Web Conference, kicking off tomorrow, February 7 at 11:00 PST, 2:00 EST. Demographics, Equity, and the Arts is Manuel Pastor's reprisal of his crowd-pleasing 2011 GIA Conference keynote in San Francisco, revised and updated to include non-California-specific data.

New on the GIA website: The 2012 Web Conference Series schedule. This year's lineup of arts philanthropy leaders and innovators will address key topics of interest to arts grantmakers, including arts and health, arts journalism, and GIA's new Arts Education Funders' Coalition. Read about the presentations and register here. As always, all Web Conferences are free to GIA members.

This month's GIA website slide show of member-supported projects was provided by our colleagues at ArtsWave in Cincinnati. Founded in 1927 as the Cincinnati institute of Fine Arts, the organization has evolved several times in response to changing economic and cultural conditions. Today, through advocacy, partnerships, and grantmaking, ArtsWave acheives its mission of acting as a leader in advancing the vitality of Greater Cincinnati by mobilizing the creative energy of the entire community.