Grantmakers in the Arts

WESTAF Boosts Advocacy Efforts to Support NEA

May 17, 2017 by Monica

From the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF):

WESTAF has expanded its advocacy work on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts. Recently, three contractors were hired to focus exclusively on this project and to work closely with our regional network of advocates. WESTAF has also created an NEA Advocacy enter with the latest updates on the NEA FY18 budget as well as an Advocacy Toolkit that contains step-by-step guides for calling, writing, and meeting with members of Congress. Advocates can also find talking points there to use when engaging with members of Congress or their staff.

May 16, 2017 by Monica in Support for Individual Artists

Native American artist and poet Joy Harjo has been awarded the 2017 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a $100,000 award from The Poetry Foundation. Harjo was a keynote presenter at the 2014 GIA Conference in Houston, Texas (watch the video). Presented annually to a living US poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant singular recognition, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to American poets.

May 11, 2017 by Steve

From Carolinia A. Miranda, writing for the Los Angeles Times:

After President Trump threatened to eliminate the [National Endowment for the Arts], Congress approved a spending bill that not only funds the NEA for another year, but increased its $148 million annual budget by nearly $2 million. Lost in much of the acrimonious debate over whether the NEA should live or die is the organization’s support for cultural programs that cater to military veterans, active duty service members and their families.

May 11, 2017 by Steve

Joshua Heim, Arts Program Manager for the city of Bellevue, Washington, posts to AFTA’s Artsblog:

The lack of suburban arts leaders shouldn’t come as a surprise. From 2011-2015, Barry Hessenius published an annual list of the Fifty Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts. Of the 142 individuals included on that list over the years, just three people came from suburbs. If you’re anxious about the steady decline in arts participation and interested in a fully integrated creative situation, then this is a problem. Because over half of Americans live and work in suburbs.

May 9, 2017 by Monica

From The New York Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio and his lieutenants are deep into a re-examination of New York City’s $178 million arts budget and other cultural resources to try and give a higher profile — and perhaps more taxpayer money — to smaller institutions in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

The proposed new approach, with an emphasis on greater equity, has some major arts organizations fearful they will end up with less of the municipal-funding pie, while more marginalized groups are hopeful about finally receiving more.

May 5, 2017 by Monica

Congress has passed, and President Trump has signed into law, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, which funds the federal government through the end of the current fiscal year. Included in the spending bill is increased funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, an additional $2 million more than the 2016 budget for each agency.

From The Washington Post:

Republicans and Democrats who negotiated the measure Trump signed Friday had successfully defended other accounts Trump had targeted for spending cuts, such as foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, support for the arts and economic development grants, among others.

May 4, 2017 by Monica

Eloise Damrosch, the executive director of the Regional Arts & Culture Council (Portland, OR), has announced her plans to retire on June 30, 2017. Damrosch has earned a local and national reputation as a respected arts administrator while helping create one of the best-known public art collections in the country.

May 3, 2017 by Steve

In an article in the latest issue of the GIA Reader, “How to Invest in the Arts without Buying a Picasso,” Laura Callanan of Upstart Co-Lab writes about the emergence of impact investing and how it can support the creative economy.

Explore Solidarity Economy resources here

Future of the Field: Cross-Sector Creative Placemaking Series

Video from the GIA 2021 Conference are now available for streaming.

The Racial Equity Coding Project: Unpacking The “Why”

In this first of a three-part discussion, we are joined by Susan Feder, Adam Fong, and Maurine Knighton, as they discuss the Racial Equity Coding Project, why it was started, their experience with the earliest iterations of the coding measures, and how their reflections will inform steps forward.

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