Funding Research

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.

Wireless Technology Investment and Digital Dividends Act
Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a bill on May 2, 2002, that includes some of the ideas introduced last year by Newton Minow and Lawrence Grossman in their Digital Promise proposal.

April 28-30, 2002, Asheville, North Carolina

March 6-8, 2002, Washington, D.C.

Last year when RAND released The Performing Arts in a New Era, (Performing Arts) the prediction that times were going to be particularly difficult for mid-sized performing arts organizations was widely quoted. It was prominent in press coverage of the report and quickly embraced as a fact by grantseekers and foundation colleagues. I was curious to return to Performing Arts and the conditions it cites for organizations in the middle, to see how they apply to readings of recent field reports for different performing arts disciplines.

It has been almost two years since I first put fingers to keyboard to write about the rising tide of nonprofit reform. Hardly a day went by without hearing some new idea for improvement, whether embedded in new management standards, bounties for mergers and strategic alliances, or calls for greater "transparency." The problem facing individual nonprofits was not too little reform, but too much.

We just returned from yet another community gathering where arts leaders sought the support of their business and civic counterparts by documenting the "economic impact" of arts spending and employment in their region.

Media is pervasive and influences the culture in myriad ways. Technological advances and structural transformations are profoundly changing the way we receive and distribute information, as well as the quality of that information and whether or not we are able to interact with it. Legislative, legal, and regulatory policies that favor corporate interests over the public interest have created an environment where a dwindling number of corporations which control both the content and the means of distribution dominate the market.

2001, 76 pages. New York Foundation for the Arts, 155 Avenue of the Americas, 14th floor, New York, NY, 10013, 212-366-6900.

Culture Counts, published by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), is the final report on a special initiative entitled, "A Cultural Blueprint for New York City." The document represents the first comprehensive study of cultural life in New York City in nearly thirty years.

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.