Recent Research and the State of Arts Funding

Tuesday, October 20, 9:30 am – 11:00 am

Organized by Tommer Peterson, deputy director, Grantmakers in the Arts.

Moderated by Marian Godfrey, senior director for culture initiatives, The Pew Charitable Trusts. Presented by Kate Levin, commissioner, New York Department of Cultural Affairs; Claire Peeps, executive director, Durfee Foundation; Holly Sidford, president, Helicon Collaborative; Huong Vu, community investor, Arts & Culture, The Boeing Company.

This session will draw primarily from research commissioned by GIA from the Helicon Collaborative that included interviews with twenty-two diverse arts funders conducted in Spring 2009. It will also incorporate results from electronic surveys of arts funders conducted by GIA (in January and May), New York Grantmakers in the Arts (in March), and other sources.

The funders interviewed for the Helicon study include representatives of private, corporate, and community foundations; local and state arts agencies; endowed and unendowed funders; and those that fund in multiple sectors as well as those that fund only in the arts. Interviews were conducted with program officers, program directors, and presidents or executive directors reflecting local, regional, and national perspectives. This was not conceived as a comprehensive study, but rather a gathering of representative opinions which, taken together, may suggest current patterns and a future trajectory.

Six months will have passed between the time this research was done and the conference. This conversation will examine what trends in arts philanthropy have emerged since, and provide some recommendations and possible courses of action for the future.

Related Links:

GIA Reader, Volume 20, No. 2, Summer 2009