Ron Chew, a leader in the community-based model of museum exhibit development, delivered a keynote address to the Conference for Community Arts Education in November 2014 called The Five Essentials: Arts and the movement for social justice. The text of the keynote is published at Northwest Asian Weekly:
Grantmakers in the Arts
March 4, 2015 by Steve
March 3, 2015 by SuJ'n
During the month of March, GIA's photo banner features artists and projects sponsored by the Kentucky Foundation for Women (KFW). Founded as a private foundation in 1985 by writer Sallie Bingham, her founding gift of $10 million is one of the single largest endowments to any women's fund in the United States. KFW is celebrating thirty years of promoting positive social change by supporting varied feminist expression in the arts.
March 3, 2015 by SuJ'n in Support for Individual Artists
In a speech delivered at a symposium held by UK-based Circus Futures, Owen Calvert-Lyons, artistic director of The Point, Eastleigh, and The Berry Theatre, implores the arts eco-system to make emotional in additional to financial investments in its artists. He asks:
Artists are constantly being asked to be financially resilient. But what about emotional resilience? When artists face rejection from a funder or a programmer, who is there to provide that sense of community and solidarity and empathy? So often the work that artists subsidise with time, money, love and belief is treated as a commodity, or just a product by venues. In an era in which our sector is constantly being asked to commercialise, this will only increase.
February 26, 2015 by SuJ'n
This morning, GrantCraft released Supporting Grantee Capacity: Strengthening Effectiveness Together. This guide looks at how funders approach capacity-building with grantees. It uses examples from foundations from a range of sizes, fields, and geographic regions. The guide covers various topic areas including broadening the grantee capacity-building conversation, applying lenses to focus and inform grantmaking, knowing your own capacity, acknowledging power dynamics, and assessing impact.
February 24, 2015 by Steve
From Peter Dobrin, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Is the act of funding great art its own reward? Or does the funder have the right or even the responsibility to make sure that what gets produced accomplishes a set of objectives for both the giver and the recipient? It is a given now that in order to get a foundation grant, it’s often not enough to simply apply for funding of what you do day in and day out. What do funders want? Innovation! New ways of “engaging” younger audiences! High-impact special projects that others will want to emulate!
February 23, 2015 by Janet
By Janet Brown from her blog Better Together
From large major institutions to small nonprofits, one of the critical responsibilities of volunteer board members and funders is to assure best practices in fiduciary and organizational management. When a management issue arises that threatens the stability of a nonprofit arts organization, “where was the oversight?” is often the question on everyone’s lips. There are some common misperceptions and unfortunate “group think” that prevent or discourage adequate oversight by board members. Here are a few:
February 22, 2015 by Steve
From Naseem Miller, writing for the Orlando Sentinel:
The Dr. Phillips Center Florida Hospital School of Arts and Wellness, unveiled on Thursday morning, aims to integrate various forms of art into wellness, whether it’s in the community or in health-care settings to help families, caregivers and people with conditions such as autism, dementia, trauma or anxiety… The center’s effort is part of a national movement — from the military’s National Intrepid Center of Excellence that integrates arts into care of returning soldiers to the Arts & Medicine Institute in Cleveland Clinic — but data and standards are still emerging.