Family Foundation

"Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear

In the tradition of Dana, an ancient Pali word meaning generosity or giving, the Dana Foundation funded the Dana Arts and Cognition Consortium in July 2004, to study the effect of the arts on learning. At the GIA conference in Los Angeles, October 2005, Michael Gazzaniga, director of the Consortium1, described a three-year study being undertaken by the Con-sortium as "the first extensive scientific attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of the role of arts education in changing the brain."

Imagine throwing an arts event and the entire community shows up. This is oftentimes what takes place in the towns delightfully portrayed in Bright Stars, a publication from the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In Neal Cuthbert's foreword to this award-winning piece, it is underscored that rural communities in Minnesota are suffering in several ways due to listless econo-mies and dramatically shifting demographics.

Very awkward to speak politely about money in public, and yet it is so awkwardly at the heart of our culture. Here is Sophocles, in his Antigone. Creon is speaking, ironically misinterpreting the noblest of motives for the basest: "Money! There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. Down go your cities, Homes gone, men gone, honest hearts corrupted, Crookedness of all kinds, and all for money."

We also have Timothy from the New Testament: "The love of money is the root of all evil."

What often is lost in cultural policy conversations or research reports about the visual arts world is an examination of how ethnic-specific cultural practices and the dynamics of non-collecting museums and artist-centered organizations keep the art world from be-ing static and dull, from being victimized by the hierarchies of taste or the technocratic aims of cultural managers. Any analysis of the sociology of the visual arts field needs to speak about the relationship between the aesthetic content of a work and the contexts in which different aesthetic inquiries are supported.

Grantmakers in the Arts has been in existence for a brief two decades, and yet even within the ranks of long-time GIA conference attendees and the veterans who are among GIA's leaders today, there is no common recollection of the organization's prehistory and the moment of its founding. History generally belongs to the domain of the humanities rather than the arts, but nonetheless it is slightly embarrassing that a professional arts philanthropy organization, which has come to exercise substantial influence it its field, has no record of its founding.

Jim Collins says that greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, he says, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline. In his 2001 book, Good to Great ¹, Collins articulated the principles he believes differentiate companies that become great from those that do not. In his recently published monograph, "Good to Great and the Social Sectors" ², Collins addresses how these principles of greatness apply to nonprofits. Collins' framework for greatness in the social sectors encompasses five areas:

"I believe that if we can keep our values close, our imaginations open, and our stories fierce, we can and will win." - Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Introduction

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.