Funding Research

Editors of the Reader invited GIA's research advisors to reflect on challenges facing arts grantmakers in light of current research findings on arts funding trends.

What do recent research findings suggest about the prospect for the support of arts and culture in the years ahead?

Ed Pauly: After a decade of dramatic growth in foundations' support for the arts, the funding news is now somber. Yet the meaning we make from the most recent study of foundation funding for the arts depends, as always, on the perspective we choose.

Recently, several studies of arts funding have been conducted in specific cities and regions. We report on a few of these here. In the winter 2002 issue of the GIA Reader Vol. 13, No. 1, Lisa Cremin and Kathie de Nobriga reported on a comparative study of arts funding in Atlanta and nineteen other cities. The report was both an inspiring and a cautionary tale for Ann McQueen and others in Boston as they planned the study that Cindy Gehrig reviews below.

Booms and Busts

From the depths of our economic trough it is hard to look ahead, clear-eyed, and to see where U.S. foundations are headed. But consider, for a moment, where we have been. We have experienced an era in which: :

• New scientific and technological advances captured the popular imagination.
• These innovations promised a huge jump in economic productivity.
• There was talk about a new economy replacing an old economy.
• Many business corporations were consolidated and reorganized.

The magnitude and distribution of foundation arts and culture grants in 2003 are the most significant findings of this report. Key findings of the report, based on arts grants of $10,000 or more reported to the Foundation Center by 1,010 of the larger U.S. foundations, are highlighted here.

This report also includes a brief examiniation of the growth of foundation giving from 1992 to 2005 and a summary of government funding for the arts from 1992 to 2005 by Kelly Barsdate of NASAA.

Download:

2003, 79 pages. Department of Art Education, Ohio State University, 128 North Oval Mall, Room 258, Columbus, OH 43210, 614-292-5649

This final report on Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (TETAC) is more than a compilation of the results of a five-year initiative to link comprehensive approaches to arts education with national and local school reform efforts.

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

2003, 130 pages.

September 2002, 292 pages, $24.95, paper. Center for Urban Policy Research, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. 732-932-3133, ext 555, cuprbook@rci.rutgers.edu

2001, 36 pages. Alliance for the Arts, 330 West 42nd Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY 10036, 212-947-6340

Who Pays for the Arts? is a fascinating analysis of funding trends for 575 cultural institutions in New York City from 1995-1999. Although charts, graphs, and statistics fill the study, the information they present is explained clearly and simply.

America's Performing Art
A Study of Choruses, Choral Singers, and Their Impact
Chorus America
2003. Funded by the James Irvine Foundation, the Kiplinger Foundation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund

Reggae to Rachmaninoff
How and Why People Participate in Arts and Culture
Chris Walker and Stephanie Scott-Melnyk, with Kay Sherwood. 2003. The Urban Institute (Washington, D.C.), Funded by the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds