Private Foundation

The Hawai'i Community Foundation recently completed a three-year evaluation that demonstrates how and why adaptive capacity — an organization's ability to successfully navigate changed circumstances — is central to organizational capacity building. This realization has powerful implications for the relationship of grantmaker and grantee, suggesting that capacity building occurs best in a group setting that includes not only these two but also peer grantees, consultants, and other interested leaders.

On May 15 and 16, 2002, more than 100 funders, artists, academicians, arts administrators, and community arts practitioners gathered in New Haven, Connecticut. We were there to participate in a convening organized by New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) entitled, "RE/New England: Investigating Community Building through Culture." The Open Society Institute and the Pitney Bowes Foundation provided funding for the conference. Participants came from thirteen states and the District of Columbia.

June 2002, 350 pages, Basic Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810, Creative Class.

September 11 and Beyond
The following is excerpted from a March 2002 interview with Susan Beresford (president, Ford Foundation) that is included in September 11: Perspectives from the Field of Philanthropy, published August 2002 by the Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003, 212-620-4230. It is published by permission of the Foundation Center.

FC: It was common in the weeks after 9/11 to hear people say that the attacks had changed everything. Did September 11 change everything?

The theme of education in the arts can be found throughout GIA's programs. The role that the arts can play in education is one of four primary themes that will be explored at our 2002 conference, Creative Connections; and the "Bookmarks" column in this issue of the Reader concentrates on "Arts Education Resources on the Web". The following two articles take a look at recent research, specifically research that explores the connections between education in the arts and student learning in other realms.The theme of education in the arts can be found throughout GIA's programs.

March 8, 2001 New Haven, CT

Woke up. Couldn't make tea 'cause it's my first night in these Eldorado Apartments, my second night at Yale, and I haven't got any tea 'cause yesterday when I arrived there was a big snow storm and all the stores were closed.

Swallowed my meds and took a shower. Quickly turned on my laptop to review the work I'd done on the BROTHER script last night.

For more than a decade the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has been among the nation's leading supporters of symphony orchestras, based on a longstanding commitment to help orchestra institutions strengthen, deepen, and broaden the relationships with their audiences.

First of all, it's a delight to be here this morning because I meet so many old friends, and I knew that you would be here related in some way or other to this gathering of foundations. The foundations you represent are doing what in an ideal situation, all governments would, should do. What you do with your contributions, with your interest, is help keep this world relatively sane. I say relatively for obvious reasons. What you do is feed a hunger for all the people of the world. Not simply food, clothing, shelter of course, but there is in everybody a hunger for beauty.

2000, 77 pages. NEA, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 20506-0001, 202-682-5400.

In 1999, Bill Ivey, as a part of his reevaluation of the NEA's funding strategies, convened a series of ten colloquia to discuss how arts institutions can more effectively serve their communities. Forty-one speakers participated; about half are well-known to GIA members and the other half included experts from intersecting fields such as advertising, entertainment, Internet services, and charitable gift funds.

2002, 64 pages. Museum Loan Network, MIT, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, N52-401, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, 617-252-1888, fax: 617-252-1899, loanet@mit-edu.