Grantmakers in the Arts

(5-12-10) The San Francisco Foundation has announced that Moy Eng is joining the Foundation as the interim program officer for Arts and Culture. Moy has a national and local reputation for her leadership in arts and culture. She served previously as director of the performing arts program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

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(5-12-10) From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Most of the last year’s business headlines have featured financial bailouts, ethical lapses, Ponzi schemes, executive bonuses and a general erosion of confidence in corporate America. Yet at the same time, corporations have shown extraordinary innovation in how they are leveraging their unique assets to generate positive change in communities...

(5-11-10) So they don’t call Tennessee the “Volunteer State” for nothing! Although the national media has already moved on to the latest stock market twist and political scandal, the artists and arts organizations of Tennessee are recuperating, rebuilding and performing. The Nashville Symphony, although their hall is damaged, has designed a “traveling” season and has already performed. But there is much work to do, artists to help and organizations that will need support rebuilding.

(5-11-10) The Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund has announced ten gifts, ranging in size from $12,500 to $75,000, to Atlanta area arts troupes and organizations. The gifts are part of a three-year, $3 million initiative to help small and midsized nonprofits weather the recession. Howard Pousner, writing for The Atlanta Journal Constitution explains: "The Atlanta Arts Recovery initiative can also be seen as one response to the gap in relatively weak public arts funding in Georgia and Atlanta.

(5-5-10) In "Philanthropy, Evaluation, Accountability, and Social Change," from the latest issue of The Foundation Review, John Bare, Vice President for the Arthur Blank Family Foundation, argues that many foundations have substituted process accountability for accountability for contributing to social change. Accountability in terms of required reporting is important, but it sets a floor, not an aspirational ceiling.

(5-5-10) The organization formally known as National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts has changed its name to National Guild for Community Arts Education. From their website:

By retaining "National Guild" we reaffirm our identity as an association of arts education providers committed to the values of quality, accessibility and accountability. The change to "for" further signals our commitment to advocating for increased access to lifelong learning opportunities in the arts.

(5-5-10) The Center for Effective Philanthropy has just released a report titled Working With Grantees: The Keys to Success and Five Program Officers Who Exemplify Them. The report concludes an eight-year analysis of several thousand grantee surveys. Its authors have distilled this information into a list of five qualities that nonprofits value in their foundation funders, briefly: fairness, comfort, responsiveness, clarity, and consistency.

(5-4-10) Last week, New York Governor David Patterson proposed a “$620 million Gap Closing Plan” that includes this line item:

Reduce Council on the Arts Grant Funding (2010-11 Savings: $10 million; 2011-12 Savings: $10 million): The New York State Council on the Arts awards approximately 2,300 grants per year to not-for-profit arts and cultural organizations through a competitive application process. After this reduction, $25.2 million would be provided for these grants in 2010-11.