IRVINE FOUNDATION REWARDS INNOVATORS

The James Irvine Foundation will award $3.35 this year in the form of innovation grants, which CEO James Canales characterizes as “risk capital” to spur a strategic rethinking of the way these organizations deliver art.

The grants grew out of a series of conversations Canales had with some of the foundation’s major grantees after he became CEO in 2003. A consistent theme was that these organizations had large subscriber bases, but operated on narrow margins, making it difficult for them to take risks. But through its research, the foundation knew that changing demographics, technology and audience expectations would have a dramatic effect on how art museums, theaters, symphony orchestras and opera houses would run their establishments — and this was before the current recession.

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