Corporate Philanthropy

The annual conference of the International Funders of Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) met for two days at the Ford Foundation and the United Nations in May of 2006. In her opening remarks, Evelyn Arce-White, IFIP executive director, noted that it was rare to have funders, Indigenous Peoples, and NGOs together in the same room and that the value of such a meeting was not to be measured in financial terms but should be considered spiritual in nature. The spirit of this idea was evident throughout the conference.

The hallmarks of a just and civil society reflect the values of artistic freedom and the rights of free expression. Increasingly these rights are threatened by the "clearance culture" that is found in most creative industries and assumes that almost no quotation can be used without permission from the owner. Fair Use is an important yet often misunderstood legal right.

These thoughts were sparked by attending the Council on Foundations 57th Annual Conference, "Philanthropy: Investing in the Vision of Progress." I was especially engaged by the plenary remarks of George Soros and Newt Gingrich.

A growing number of scholars and writers have been tracing the multiple connections between the arts and economic vitality during the past decade. A recent book by anthropologist Maribel Alvarez, There's Nothing Informal about It: Participatory Arts within the Cultural Ecology of Silicon Valley (2005) has drawn a new set of connections for me and raised the possibility that informal, or participatory, cultural practices may have greater meaning in an economic context than I previously recognized.

America is on the threshold of a significant transformation in cultural life. There have been many cultural shifts in recorded history: Gutenberg's invention of the printing press and the rise of the reading public; the growth of a mercantile class and the birth of private art markets independent of the church and the king; the invention of gas streetlights and the beginning of urban nighttime entertainment. The most recent cultural transformation, still with us today, was set in motion on the threshold of the twentieth century.

Steve Gunderson is the new president and CEO of the Council on Foundations. After serving three terms in the Wisconsin State Legislature, Gunderson served sixteen years in the U.S. Congress, where he focused on agriculture, education, employment policy, health care, and human rights. After not seeking re-election in 1996, he served as senior consultant and managing director for the Washington office of the Greystone Group, a Michigan-based strategic management and communications consulting firm.

Under Marian Godfrey's direction, GIA held a pre-conference immediately before its 2005 conference called "New Directions in Cultural Policy Research." As part of that meeting, four well-respected individuals were asked to assess the impact and importance of research in the arts. They were asked to specify the big ideas currently in play and to speculate about the future of those ideas. Predictably perhaps, the four argued for the importance of research to the cultural sector. More surprisingly, they agreed that the platform for cultural research needs serious re-planking.

Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture
Findings from Animating Democracy
Pam Korza, Barbara Schaffer Bacon, and Andrea Assaf
2005, 312 pages, $24. Americans for the Arts, Washington DC, ISBN-13: 978-1-879903-33-3 (alk. paper)
Available online from Americans for the Arts

Cultural Perspectives in Civic Dialogue
Case Studies from Animating Democracy
Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon

2005, 36 pages. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, 1413 K Street, 2nd floor, Washington, DC 20005, 202-898-1840, www.geofunders.org

2005, 12 pages. Americans for the Arts, 1000 Vermont Northwest, 6th floor, Washington, DC, 20005, 202-371-2830, www.artsusa.org

In response to the surprising migration of leaders from the business world to the nonprofit arts sector, the author interviewed eighty-two individuals who had made such career changes and asked: What motivated them? How are they doing? What are the long-term benefits and challenges resulting from this influx of new leadership?