Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA's Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture

Tuesday, September 13, 2:00 EDT/ 11:00 PDT [PASSED]

Kelly J. Barsdate, Chief Program and Planning Officer, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Alexis Frasz, Consultant, Helicon Collaborative
Steven Lawrence, Director of Research, Foundation Center
Holly Sidford, President, Helicon Collaborative

Session 8 of the 9-part 2011 Web Conference Series
A recording of this presentation is available here.

Description:

The 2011 issue of GIA’s annual Arts Funding Snapshot, slated for publication in late September 2011, will include Foundation Grants to Arts and Culture 2009, based on Foundation Center data; Public Funding for the Arts 2011 Update, prepared by NASAA; and An Overview of Private Arts Philanthropy's Response to Changes in Public Funding, produced by the Helicon Collaborative. Web conference registrants will receive these publications in advance.

Presenter Bios:

	Kelly Barsdate has been on staff at the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) since 1991. She oversees NASAA’s knowledge services, including research, planning, policy analysis, and member education programs. Barsdate directs NASAA’s tracking of public funding for the arts including NASAA’s work as a national data repository of state agency grant making data, a role the association has played since 1982. In addition to designing NASAA’s own web seminars and convenings, Barsdate is a frequent speaker and trainer at other national and state arts conferences. Prior to joining NASAA, Barsdate was a researcher at Educational Research Services, Inc. Her arts background includes formal training in music, dance and ceramics. Born and raised in Alaska, she is an avid angler and enthusiastic amateur naturalist.
	Alexis Frasz is a cultural anthropologist at heart, with a particular passion for processes of transformation and change. She has worked as a strategy consultant in the cultural sector since 2004. She applies influences from a diverse range of fields to her work including physics, psychology, acupuncture, ecology, martial arts, and design-thinking. Prior to joining Helicon, Alexis worked at AEA Consulting, an international consulting firm, on cultural policy, strategic planning, and market research. While there, she conducted an analysis of major trends affecting the performing arts sector in Australia and co-authored Critical Issues Facing the Arts in California for the James Irvine Foundation. She was editor of AEA's magazine, Platform, and has written about technology and other trends affecting the cultural sector in several publications. Before AEA, Alexis worked at New York's Center for an Urban Future, where she contributed to a comprehensive study of the creative sector, Creative New York. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Princeton. In her spare time, she practices yoga, martial arts, and meditation.
	Steven Lawrence joined the Foundation Center’s research staff in 1991 and currently serves as director of research. Steven is author and editor of numerous reports on national, regional, and special-topic trends in the field of philanthropy, among them Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates, Social Justice Grantmaking, and various research advisories on the impact of the economic crisis on foundations. Steven serves on the GivingUSA advisory committee and the board of directors of Funders for LGBTQ Issues. He received a B.S. from Cornell University and an M.A. from the University of Chicago.
	Holly Sidford is President of Helicon Collaborative, a consulting company with offices in New York and California. She is a strategic planner, program developer, and fundraiser with more than 30 years’ experience leading and developing nonprofit cultural and philanthropic organizations. She has worked as a funder at the state, regional, and national levels; and has developed programming and management systems at a range of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the U.S. and U.K. Prior to founding Helicon, Holly served as the founding president of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year national initiative to expand support for creative artists, and as program director for arts, urban parks and adult literacy at the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. She has held leadership positions at the Ford Foundation, The Howard Gilman Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Holly holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and a Management Certificate from Columbia University.