Advocacy and Public Policy

This article is excerpted from a phone conversation between Anthony Leiserowitz and Alexis Frasz on June 8, 2016.

On May 25, 2016, Grantmakers in the Arts gathered a cross-section of twenty-eight funders from the arts and environmental sectors for the Arts and Environmental Sustainability Thought Leader Forum at the New York Community Trust. Most foundations in attendance were represented by two people: a person from the arts and a person from the environment, each of whom were interested in collaborative work at this intersection. Helicon Collaborative organized and facilitated the session.

In 2008 I wrote Le facteur C (later translated as No Culture, No Future) because I felt an urgent need to respond to a troubling trend: a growing chasm between the art experiences that were being offered by arts professionals and those being sought out by an ever-growing portion of the public. My book argued that for the arts to thrive and to be a force in our everyday lives, the professional arts sector needed to do more and differently to engage people in the arts in meaningful, life-enriching ways.

Introduction: Georgia Men

“Black people did not come back from Georgia.”

“A man or woman that had learned that they might be taken south might do anything.”

“A man who had to see his son stand naked before buyers might do anything.”

Over the past few decades, arts advocates have toiled diligently to support and sustain the arts in a climate that has not always felt very welcoming. Culture wars, economic recessions, technological disruptions, accusations of elitism, and (most frightening, perhaps) the perceived menace of societal indifference have at times all conspired to create an impression for many of an arts ecology under perpetual threat.

January 2016, 88 pages. Ingenuity, 11 E. Hubbard, Suite 200, Chicago Illinois 60611. (312) 583-7459. www.ingenuity-inc.org.

On June 2, 2015, Kenny Leon presented the following as a keynote address at the Grantmakers in the Arts Racial Equity Forum in Atlanta, Georgia.

Paul Bonin-Rodriguez. 2015, 208 pages, Palgrave Macmillan; Houndmills

Holly Sidford and Nick Rabkin. 2014, 10 pages, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

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