Steve's Blog

The Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) 2012 State of the Sector Survey fourth annual survey of nonprofits nationwide was released on Monday, showing responses from 4,607 nonprofits. Nonprofits have been reporting a steady rise in demand for services over the course of the survey’s four years, with 85% reporting an increase in 2011, compared to 67% of nonprofits in 2009. Financially, however, the picture continues to decline. Only 43% of nonprofits have more than three months of cash reserves, and only 56% broke even at year end.

Google Art Project, which launched last year with virtual tours and digitized artworks from 17 museums, has added 134 new museums to its site, including four from California.

Initially, no museums from the state were included in the project; now the Getty Museum, the L.A. County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the De Young Museum in San Francisco are participating.

Kickstarter is enormously appealing if you want to raise money for a single project and do it relatively quickly. Yet, just having a good idea and / or a worthy cause isn't necessarily enough to succeed. Like any appeal for funding, you can increase your odds of success by listening to the sound advice of those who have successfully used the platform.

In her first extended interview since taking office, Boone, 50, recently shared her own vision of Chicago's cultural future. She trumpeted a dramatically re-envisioned Chicago Gospel Music Festival that will unfold both downtown and on the South Side. She emphasized the return of the World Music Festival, Chicago SummerDance, Downtown Sound and other programs that some have feared would be eliminated in this year's budget crunch (the Music Without Borders series will not be returning).

Seattle school officials are using a $1 million grant to try to craft a comprehensive, K-12 arts curriculum — something that the district hasn't had in decades, if ever...

In general, white students in wealthy areas are more likely to have access (to arts education). Seattle Public Schools officials recently received a $1 million grant from The Wallace Foundation to confront that reality. The money comes with a January 2013 deadline for the district to develop a districtwide arts curriculum — essentially, minimum requirements for visual arts, music, dance and theater — as well as strategies to enlist support from principals and community partners.

While some may feel that cuts to the arts in Europe would have little effect on the arts here in the United States, one of the expenses artists in Europe are cutting back on are trips and performances overseas, to countries like the United States. Artists are canceling trips and forcing festivals to find alternative performers.

Another effect this is going to have on the American arts community is over the issue of fundraising. As we discussed with the Consulate of the Netherlands on Friday, there are different views towards art funding in Europe than there are here. In a country like the Netherlands, a resident pays higher taxes to pay for additional services like health care, transportation, and safety net measures. Another element of those increased taxes is funding for the arts; with the government taking a higher percentage out of every paycheck, many Dutch residents feel they are less inclined to donate their own money to the arts because they feel like the government is already doing it for them.

The art world cannot continue to expect visitors to cross barriers, enter unknown territories, and seek out artists on view in their hallowed halls. It ain’t a 1.0 world. While I do not deny the importance of curators and artist programmers, their intellect, their research, their knowledge base—we also can no longer deny that the world is large, and the majority of artists that are doing important, sophisticated, resonant work are outside of these institutions.

A small Philadelphia-based company called New Paradise Laboratories is re-creating theater for the connected generation. It’s incorporating social networks like Facebook, Skype and Chatroulette into the production and presentation of shows, pulling theater into the virtual space.