Funding Research

   Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture (1.1Mb)

Download:

   Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture (1.1Mb)

"What was the original goal of the arts education policy and advocacy grantmaking work?" That is one of the questions the education and policy firm, Education First, tackled after the Hewlett Foundation commissioned an evaluation of its arts education grantmaking over the past decade.

"What does culture have to do with sustainability?" A report by Helicon Collaborative, commissioned by ArtPlace, begins with this question to make the case for how place-based arts and cultural interventions, or “creative placemaking,” advance sustainability outcomes in the context of community development.

In this moment of upheaval, challenge, and resistance for our country, the phrase “speaking truth to power” has taken on a new urgency. Rarely asked amid the fervor pervading the corner offices and Twitter feeds of so many of our foundations and other civic institutions in recent months, however, is an important question: Where does our “truth” come from? How do we make judgments about truth in so subjective a field as arts and culture?

Download:

   Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture (332Kb)

Download:

   Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture (332Kb)

Download:

   Arts Funding at Twenty-Five (318Kb)

Introduction

The easy convenience of typing a few key words into a search box and promptly being immersed in data can make one forget that this capability has existed for a remarkably short period of time. Just twenty-five years ago — a point in time well within the recollection of most members of the arts and culture sector — Stanley N. Katz, then president of the American Council of Learned Societies, observed, “the serious study of arts philanthropy is less than a generation old, and we are just beginning the sorts of data collection and analysis…we need to make sound judgments about the field.”¹

Download:

   Recalculating the Formula for Success (459Kb)

Download:

 Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture (3 Mb)

Earned income and private giving make up the largest share of arts funding in the United States, but government funds are an essential piece of the arts ecosystem. Public investments in the arts are citizen driven and beholden to the public interest. They support inclusive experiences, promulgated by representative democracy covering every part of the country.