Grantmakers in the Arts

Both Sides Moving On after Messy Museum Breakup in Miami

December 2, 2014 by Steve

From Eileen Cunniffe, writing for Nonprofit Quarterly:

After many months of rancor, which NPQ has followed with attention to the governance, management, and community relations implications of a messy nonprofit meltdown, the dust appears to be settling around the reconfigured Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) North Miami and the newly established Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Miami. The public mud-slinging began last spring, but trouble had been simmering for some time between the City of North Miami — which owns the building MOCA North Miami has long occupied — and the trustees of the institution, who wanted to expand the facility or move its collection to another location.

December 2, 2014 by SuJ'n

From the News page at National Endowment for the Arts:

From partnerships to develop a districtwide arts education plan in North Carolina to poetry from a combat engineer to a folk arts festival in rural Wyoming, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) continues to support the arts and creativity to improve lives and communities in the United States. In its first fiscal year 2015 announcement, the NEA will award $29.1 million in 1,116 grants in three categories: Art Works, Challenge America, and NEA Literature Fellowships in Creative Writing.

December 2, 2014 by SuJ'n in Arts Education

Andrea Shea from Boston's The ARTery reports:

At the same time that school music programs across the country are being downsized due to budget cuts, there’s one intensive music-education program that’s growing. And now Massachusetts has become the first state in the country to set aside funding for the Venezuelan-born effort known as El Sistema.

Read the full article here.

November 30, 2014 by SuJ'n in Racial Equity

Artistic responses to the Ferguson no-indictment decision add to a long history of the arts being used to spotlight and counter injustice. Kim Diggs writes for North Texas' Star Local Media:

Because the arts have historically been instrumental in pushing agendas for social change, could the same tactics work to affect judicial change?

November 25, 2014 by Steve

From Kerry Lengel, writing for the Arizona Republic:

San Antonio Artpace executive director Amada Cruz was named Monday to guide the Phoenix Art Museum, a $9 million-a-year non-profit, which brings 200,000 visitors a year to Phoenix. Cruz, 53, who was born in Havana, has extensive experience in both the arts and non-profit worlds and starts work February 1. First on her to-do list, Cruz said, is a "crash course" on Phoenix's culture and history.

November 25, 2014 by SuJ'n

A study released by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Is Grantmaking Getting Smarter?, showed that grantmakers are making shifts on how they support their grantees. Among these shifts is the increasing support for general operating, multiyear, and capacity-building purposes. A median 25% of grant dollars now go to general operating support - up from 20% in 2008 and 2011.

Making Arts Policy a Priority

November 20, 2014 by Steve

From the editorial page of The Boston Globe:

Despite the boilerplate campaign rhetoric of “I support the arts!,” when hard times hit, and austerity is called for, arts are the first thing to go. Nowhere is that more evident than in the budget for the Massachusetts Cultural Council — the state agency charged with supporting artists and arts organizations — where the funding dropped by more than half, from $27 million in 1988 to $12 million in 2014. Recently, the dial has begun to move in the other direction. The Legislature opposed further cuts to the council’s budget in 2014 by actually giving it a slight increase. And Governor Deval Patrick tripled the Cultural Facilities Fund — which supports the maintenance and repair of arts venues — from $5 million to $15 million. Meanwhile, it would be nice to get the council’s budget up to at least what it was 10 years ago.

November 19, 2014 by Steve

Aroha Philanthropies prepared this video to advocate for the arts as a means for a more fulfilling and vital aging process.

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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