Let's Talk Numbers: Applying Trend Data to Your Grantmaking

Tuesday, July 23, 2:00 EDT/ 11:00 PDT [PASSED]

  • Bobbie Lippman, The Pew Charitable Trusts
  • June Washikita O’Neill, Philadelphia Cultural Fund

A recording of this presentation is available here.

Web Conferences are free to the staff and board of GIA member organizations. The fee for nonmembers is $35.

Description:

Talking with the leaders of cultural organizations about their numbers can be tough…for the groups and for the funders. Now, with years of trend data available, the conversation can be even more challenging, but it is a valuable tool for exploring what those trend lines really mean. Philadelphia funders June O'Neill (Philadelphia Cultural Fund) and Bobbie Lippman (The Pew Charitable Trusts) will talk about how to use narrative and financial data together to better prepare for conversations and grant reviews with cultural groups. They will also discuss some of the benefits these conversations can bring to interactions with executive directors, boards, and grantmaker colleagues, and share examples from their work with public funders and private foundations.

Presenter Bios:
Bobbie Lippman is a director in the Philadelphia Program at The Pew Charitable Trusts, where she has managed the Philadelphia Cultural Leadership Program for thirteen years. The Leadership Program provides multiyear unrestricted support to organizations that achieve the highest standards of programmatic, fiscal, and management performance. The program supports twenty organizations located throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania with budgets ranging in size from $369,000 to $54 million.

From 2004 until 2008, Lippman served as director of the Cultural Data Project, a web-based data collection, management, and reporting tool created to strengthen arts and cultural organizations, inform grantmaking strategies, and enhance cultural planning policies. Prior to joining The Pew Charitable Trusts in 1999, Lippman taught at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she also served as assistant dean of the College of Art and Design (1987-1990) and as director of adult education and extension programs (1991-1999). She founded the papermaking program at Historic RittenhouseTown in Philadelphia, site of the first paper mill in the United States. She earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a certificate from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
June Washikita O’Neill is the manager of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation established by Philadelphia's Mayor and City Council to support and enhance the cultural life and vitality of the City through general operating grants. The Fund has an annual budget of approximately $2 million.

After receiving a BS in Arts Management from Northern Arizona University, O’Neill spent several years working in the nonprofit arts field before going to work for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Ms. O’Neill left Pew in 1992 to help establish the Pew Fellowships in the Arts program. She continued to work with individual artists as the first executive director of the Leeway Foundation and as the administrative director of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, an artist residency program located in Umbria, Italy. At Civitella, O’Neill managed an operating budget of $1 million and an endowment of $30 million.

O’Neill has served on numerous nonprofit boards. She has also served as a music panelist for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For eight years she was judge of elections at her neighborhood polling place in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. Her favorite activity is playing the Japanese taiko drums. Her husband is called Tim, her son is called Luke, and her dog is called Kira.