Technical Assistance

The Allen Foundation for the Arts is one of six foundations that make up the Paul G. Allen Foundations, a family of foundations established by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen. The other Allen foundations focus on medical research, health and human services, forest protection, virtual education, and most recently, music.

A Web search for “Poetry,” “Poet,” or “Poem” points to hundreds of sites. I've gathered some sites providing poetry services, projects to engage the public, and opportunities to learn about and locate individual writers. This column does not touch upon the growing numbers of online literary journals or fully represent literary centers.

Building Audiences

April, 2001, 45 pages. The Surdna Foundation.

More than Bit Players, commissioned by the Surdna Foundation, examines how Information Technology (IT) changes the way that organizations, including nonprofit organizations, work. The report offers suggestions for grantmakers who are assessing proposals for projects based on information technology and discusses ways to put costs and timing into perspective.

In a past report on challenges facing San Francisco Bay Area arts nonprofits (Reader, Vol. 11, No. 2), I wrote at length about space. Many nonprofits had been forced to seek new office, rehearsal, and storage space due to a steep rise in Bay Area real estate costs fueled by demand from a dot-com economy for start-up locations. The situation seems to have eased somewhat, in part due to funder- and municipally-driven programs as well as to a general downturn in the economy.

November 2000. Benton Foundation, 950 18th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 638-5770.

October 2000, 94 pages. Bay Area Video Coalition, 2727 Mariposa Street, 2nd floor, San Francisco, California, 94110, (415) 558-2100, funded by the Ford Foundation.

This study identifies successful programs and practices of training programs that provide low-income people with job skills in the technology field. The study can be helpful to grantmakers wishing to better understand this field.

This issue introduced "From Washington," a new column contributed by Shelley Feist, associate, National Culture Program, The Pew Charitable Trusts. The column provides readers with information on policy and regulatory matters at the federal level affecting nonprofit arts and culture. The aim is to present brief reports on timely but underreported items.

The remarkable growth of the online sector in recent years can be assessed in many ways — from the rapidly expanding number of wired households (over half are now connected to the Internet) to the sheer explosion of content on the World Wide Web (which now encompasses over a billion pages). Data traffic exceeds voice traffic on the nation's phone lines now, and far more email messages than postal letters are sent every day.

Throughout human history, certain cities and regions have come to be regarded as pinnacles of human creativity and innovation. Sir Peter Hall, in his landmark book, Cities in Civilization, examines the underlying conditions that led to the emergence of "cultural crucibles" in Athens, Florence, London, Vienna, and Berlin.