Grantmakers in the Arts

President Obama’s Budget Request for the NEA: The Fine Print

February 14, 2012 by Steve

More on the Obama budget from Narric Rome at ArtsBlog:

While the NEA’s budget proposal increases several grant categories, it is the Our Town initiative that receives the most significant support: doubled from $5M to $10M. The Our Town program made a big debut in 2011 with 51 grantees from 34 states receiving a total of $6.5M. More than half of these grants were awarded to communities with a population of less than 200,000 and seven went to places with fewer than 25,000 people. With $10M to spend in 2013, the NEA could make Our Town grants to 115 communities. Some further details...

February 14, 2012 by Steve

From The Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog:

President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget, released Monday, calls for a 5% increase in spending for three cultural grantmaking agencies and three Washington, D.C., arts institutions. Obama aims to boost outlays from $1.501 billion to $1.576 billion, encompassing the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities (NEA and NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Gallery of Art.

Can This Suburb Be Saved?

February 13, 2012 by Steve

From Justin Davidson at New York Magazine:

A few years ago, an architect with a global reputation was walking me through his busy studio, boasting of his exhaustive experience. I asked if he had ever designed in the suburbs; he looked at me as if I were out of my mind. Architects tend to treat the zones where half of all Americans live as a backward, inhospitable wilderness. The suspicion is mutual: Who needs a fancy designer when builders all over the country know how to construct a peaked-roof single-family house?

February 10, 2012 by Steve

From Rick Cohen at Nonprofit Quarterly:

When a nonprofit implodes, the tendency is to avert one’s gaze and hope that it was simply that one nonprofit or its specific cast of characters that made it a “one-off.” When the nonprofit International Humanities Center (IHC), a fiscal sponsor for over 200 projects around the world, imploded, it’s estimated that it took with it more than $1 million in donations that never made it to the intended recipients in what begins to look like a nonprofit version of a Ponzi scheme.

February 9, 2012 by Abigail

Grantmaker CDP is a new online interface designed by the Cultural Data Project (CDP) to provide strategic planning and program evaluation tools to help funders in the arts and cultural sector.

February 9, 2012 by Steve

Katherine Gressel, who has just completed her stint as a Writing Fellow for the blog Createquity, published last week a deep-dive review and analysis of the Urban Institute report from 2003, Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structures for U.S. Artists (full report is here). The research and publication of the report, as Katherine explains in her review, led to the formation of the 10-year national initiative Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) that is in its final stages now, as well as the expansion of NYFA Source into the online database we know today.

February 8, 2012 by Steve

From Colin A. Young at The Boston Globe:

The Boston public schools have received a $4 million grant to maintain and expand arts education for students across the city.

Superintendent Carol R. Johnson said the grant, from the Wallace Foundation in New York, will greatly enhance an initiative launched three years ago by the school district, the city, and outside partners to provide more instruction in the visual and performing arts.

February 8, 2012 by Steve

The Minnesota Council on Foundations Philanthropy Potluck blog provides an overview of a recent webinar with arts grantmakers who focused on community vibrancy, support for individual artists, and avenues of non-cash support for organization:

Yesterday in MCF's fourth – and final – webinar in our 2012 grantmaking outlook series, leading arts grantmakers expressed their dedication to supporting the arts and individual artists. Recent giving trends show that grantmaking to arts has declined 7.6 percent since 2004. MCF’s outlook for 2012 indicates that arts funding will remain relatively stable. Bill King, MCF president, discussed arts funding challenges and opportunities

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.

ALL PODCASTS