Roundtables
Does Art = Creativity?
Organized by Emily Peck, director of private sector initiatives, Americans for the Arts.
Studies from Americans for the Arts and The Conference Board, IBM, and others show that creativity is one of the most important skills needed for the 21st Century workforce. However, funders and business leaders question the connection of the arts to creativity and what it means for arts and arts education funding. Join us to hear how some funders are making the link between their grantmaking and creativity.
EngAGEd: The Velocity of Change in America's Aging Society
Organized by Rohit Burman, director, culture and public broadcasting, MetLife Foundation.
A final report from the MetLife Foundation Partnership Project between Grantmakers in the Arts, Grantmakers in Aging, and the National Center for Creative Aging will be distributed and findings discussed. Participants will take away new knowledge about the benefits and challenges in funding arts programs that engage a vast aging demographic who are searching for work and social purpose. This breakfast conversation will additionally address how this demographic can positively affect lifelong learning, civic engagement, and health & wellness initiatives.
Innovating for Impact: Arts-based Solutions for a Stronger America
Organized by Marete Wester, director of arts policy, Americans for the Arts.
This roundtable will feature a "sneak peak" at the preliminary recommendations from the 2011 Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Roundtable at Sundance, taking place September 22-24, 2011. Each year the roundtable convenes 30 high-level leaders from the corporate, foundation, individual philanthropy, arts, and culture communities to discuss issues of importance to the arts and society. Participants will learn how corporate leaders, and their CEO counterparts in foundations and in the social sector, perceive the arts as change agents—worthy of increased investment? (Or not?)—as they seek to fulfill other philanthropic priority areas such as alleviating economic disparity, improving health, fueling innovation, and reinvigorating neighborhoods. Strategies for stronger cross-sector understanding and collaboration and for extending the arts value proposition will be discussed.
Exploring Contemporary Issues through the Traditional Arts
Organized by the Mark and Margery Pabst Charitable Foundation for the Arts.
How can art forms deeply rooted in the past help communities understand contemporary issues and find a pathway toward the future? Our communities have a rich resource in traditional artists who have mastered the art forms of their ancestors, not simply to preserve the past, but to honor the culture and its values and bring them forward to the concerns of today. Share your ideas, experiences, insights and specific examples about the ways traditional artists and their work can help communities explore and deepen their understanding of or involvement in contemporary local, regional, national, or global issues.
Performing Arts Alliances: Lessons from the Field
Organized by John MacIntosh, consultant, The Lodestar Foundation, and Lois Savage, president, The Lodestar Foundation.
Performing Arts organizations that have been through the process of exploring and consummating an alliance—from sharing back-office functions to full-blown mergers—can offer important information and insights to groups that are considering doing the same—information about the real-world opportunities and challenges that an organization may face in pursuing an alliance to better advance its artistic mission in the current environment. Performing Arts Alliances is a recently-launched initiative to collect, analyze, and disseminate detailed information on approximately fifty alliances involving a diverse set of performing arts organizations from across the country. Performing Arts Alliances builds upon the work of the SeaChange-Lodestar Fund for Nonprofit Collaboration and the Lodestar Foundation’s 2009 and 2011 Collaboration Prize. At breakfast, we will describe the initiative, discuss what we have learned so far, and solicit ideas and feedback, including taking suggestions for alliances that should be included as models for the field.
USA Projects: A Demo of United States Artists' Microphilanthropy Website
Organized by Katharine DeShaw, executive director, United States Artists.
USA Projects is a new microphilanthropy website created exclusively for award-winning artists from across the country as a place to raise project funds from friends, fans, and followers. In nine short months, USA Projects has raised over $1 million from 7,500 donors for artists’ projects nationwide. The site’s robust matching gifts program—with funds coming from both private and public sector donors—will also be discussed. See a demo of the site and hear about how top artists now harness the power of the internet to support their work.
Funding & Changing Business Models
Organized by Valerie Beaman, private sector initiatives coordinator, Americans for the Arts; Marete Wester, director of arts policy, Americans for the Arts.
More and more, new arts organizations are being advised to avoid the 501c3 business model, both because the top-heavy infrastructure can be hard to sustain and because it can strangle the risk-oriented creative process. With the shift in philanthropic style toward more personal investments and entrepreneurial models, how will foundation funding adapt to support these new business models and ensure that arts and culture remain vital and relevant? Participants will take away a better understanding of the new arts business models and ideas for how grantmakers can restructure their funding processes.Breakfast for Trustees: How Can GIA Better Serve Us?
Organized by Margaret Reiser, trustee, Harland Charitable Foundation.
GIA would like to expand and improve opportunities for trustees of our member organizations, while increasing trustee participation in member programs. To this end, all trustees attending the conference are invited to join a conversation about potential conference sessions and ongoing services GIA could offer that would be most helpful to your work. With your input, we will explore and define the unique position of trustees in the GIA membership and chart a path for future professional development and collaborative opportunities.
A Growing Latino Population Without Cultural Equity
Organized by Maria Lopez De Leon, executive director, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.
How will our nation's growing Latino populations access their artistic traditions and engage in cultural dialogue when the Latino arts and cultural sector remains undercapitalized and segregated by national cultural policy?
The Artist as Philanthropist: The Emergence of Artist-Endowed Foundations in Cultural Philanthropy
Organized by Charles C. Bergman, chairman and CEO, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation; Cynthia Gehrig, president, Jerome Foundation.
Drawing on findings of the Aspen Institute's National Study of Artist-Endowed Foundations, the first in-depth look at private foundations endowed by visual artists in the US, the roundtable will highlight lessons learned about best practices for artists in creating foundations; consider forces spurring regional growth in foundation formation, particularly in California and western states; weigh the potential of these new philanthropies' activities; and explore possible roles they might play in the GIA community. This discussion will be moderated by Study Director Christine J. Vincent, joined by two leaders of newer artist-endowed foundations: Mark McKenna, President, Herb Ritts Foundation (Los Angeles) and Richard Grant, Executive Director, Richard Diebenkorn Foundation (San Francisco).
- The Artist as Philanthropist: Strengthening the Next Generation of Artist-Endowed Foundations, Volume 1
- The Artist as Philanthropist: Strengthening the Next Generation of Artist-Endowed Foundations, Volume 2
Stage Left: A Story of Theater in San Francisco
Organized by Shelley Trott, program officer, Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
A special Fairmont in-room television channel will feature the documentary Stage Left: A Story of Theater in San Francisco as part of a small film festival of work related to conference themes. This roundtable is an opportunity for those who viewed the film or would like to learn more about it to discuss the content with the filmmaker, Austin Forbord. Stage Left was commissioned by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to document and raise awareness about the important legacy of innovative and socially conscious Bay Area theater artists. Although the film is regional in focus, it serves as a catalyst for dialogue and storytelling, locally and nationally. Discussion topics will include the corporatization of the arts, politics in art, keeping theater relevant and vital, the funders role, and more.
Rethinking How We Track Giving for the Arts, Culture, Humanities, and Media
Organized by Steven Lawrence, senior director of research, The Foundation Center.
Data can tell the story of philanthropy best if they reflect the ways that grantmakers think about the field now. Yet the terms used to classify arts funding by the Foundation Center, the leading source of information on grantmaking trends, have changed little since they were introduced in the late 1980s. To move its representation of arts philanthropy into the twenty-first century, the Center will be working with Grantmakers in the Arts to identify the new concepts, terminology, and practices that will be critical to mapping the field going forward. Join Steven Lawrence, to share your thoughts on what works, what should be dropped, and what might be added to better capture the reality of today's arts grantmaking.
