New Genres / New Media

Sitting across the broad desk from David Bergholz, in an office that is clearly being packed up as he pre-pares to retire after fifteen years as president and CEO of the George Gund Foundation, there is a poignant juxtaposition that is very hard to miss. Just outside his office's large, eighteenth floor windows is a magnificent view of the industrial might that made Cleveland a player in years past; huge barges moving under steel bridges that cross an impossibly crooked river. The pewter river flanked by smoking chimneys and orderly cones of slag and salt and iron ore.

A labor of love for individuals committed to the significance and potential of media, Why FUND Media is a timely and worthy follow-up to a 1984 publication by the Council on Foundations titled How to Fund Media. Editor Karen Hirsch seamlessly brings together a series of separate chapters written by media arts experts who've based their chapter essays on extensive consultations with field representatives and grantmakers, and on historical research.

The following essay was jointly commissioned by Grantmakers in the Arts for its 2002 annual conference and by the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities as one in its series of Translation Papers.

Introduction

Economic language and ideas have increasingly found their way into discussions of artistic value and cultural benefit. For better or for worse, the discipline of economics has been the lingua franca of public policy discourse for at least the past fifty years. Sometimes the terms resonate harshly on our ears. How do people in the world of arts and culture answer those who speak this language, who try to value cultural activity in terms of economic multipliers, cost-benefit analysis, quantitative outcome measures and, a current favorite, contingent valuation methodology?

I am pleased to report on a new initiative to be launched in November 2003. I first got wind of this proposal at an event in Canada House in London where the organizers were sounding out representatives of the arts-on-television community as to their interest and enthusiasm for an annual gathering to be held in different places around the world. This is an initiative of the Banff Television Foundation based in Alberta, Canada and enjoys the support of IMZ (The International Music Zentrum, in Vienna), U.S. Independents (a Washington, D.C.

November 2002, 72 pages. Human Interaction Research Institute, 5435 Balboa Boulevard, Suite 115, Encino, CA 91316, 818-386-9137, HIRILA@aol.com

Partnership as an Art Form: What Works and What Doesn't in Nonprofit Arts Partnerships should be required reading for funders who are encouraging their grantees to work more closely together in these difficult economic times.

2002, 79 pages. RAND Corporation , 1700 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 (310) 451-7002, order@rand.org

Federal Support for Historic Preservation Fund on Downward Trajectory
In his fiscal year 2004 budget, President Bush proposed $67 million for the Historic Preservation Fund. The Fund is authorized at $150 million, but historically the Congress and Administration have provided in appropriations just one third of the authorized amount.

June 2002, 368 pages (executive summary, May 2002, 21 pages). The Chicago Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College, 600 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60605, 312-344-7985. The executive summary and full report can be downloaded here.