Grantmakers in the Arts

(12-2-10) The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) has appointed Barron M. Tenny to its board of directors. Tenny is executive vice president, secretary and general counsel of the Ford Foundation. He joined the Foundation in 1983 as special assistant to the president and was made vice president, secretary and general counsel in 1984. Prior to joining the Foundation, Tenny spent nine years at the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.

(12-2-10) In an unusual move that may alter the contemporary dance landscape in New York, the boards of Dance Theater Workshop and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company voted unanimously Wednesday to merge their organizations, forming a combination producing and presenting entity to be called New York Live Arts.

(12-2-10) Today, the National Endowment for the Art announces the new Media Arts Director Alyce Myatt. Myatt will lead the NEA's Media Arts office, both as a leading voice for the media arts field and as manager of NEA grantmaking in film, video, audio, web-based, and other electronic media. She begins her tenure on January 3, 2011.

Read the complete announcement here.

(12-1-10) Today is World AIDS Day and the 22nd annual Day Without Art. Since 1989, on December 1 organizations and individuals in arts communities have staged HIV/AIDS-related exhibitions and events, sometimes closing arts spaces in an effort to illustrate, literally, the loss of artists to AIDS. While these activities have slowed in recent years, some organizations, such as the J. Paul Getty Museum, continue to produce events that raise awareness of the ongoing health crisis.

(11-30-10) Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon have collaborated once again to produce a resource for funders, artists and arts groups concerned about how the arts intersect and influence social change. The report entitled Trend or Tipping Point: Arts and Social Change Grantmaking is published by Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, for which Barbara and Pam have labored for the past decade.

(11-30-10) Tomorrow's release of the book 20UNDER40: Re-Inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century will kick off a new dialogue concerning the future of the arts and arts education. Featuring 20 essays written by arts leaders under the age of 40, 20UNDER40 hopes to spark conversation that highlights the most innovative visions for the evolution and survival of the arts in the 21st century.

(11-29-10) In 2008 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a grant to NPower NY, Inc. to survey performing arts organizations in order to help understand how they develop and execute Information Technology plans, what IT barriers and needs they are experiencing, and whether IT is helping or hindering the achievement of goals such as audience growth, donor outreach, and program innovation. This study grew out of the observations that institutions sometimes struggle with the following:

(11-29-10) Maureen West for The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

While a small but growing number of foundations, such as Atlantic Philanthropies, have made clear their intentions to spend all their assets and shut down, charities that set their own expiration date are relatively rare.