Janet's blog
Grantmakers in the Arts started to look at how organizations are capitalized in 2010. This was inspired by member studies that reported that a majority of their grantees were under-capitalized…meaning their didn’t have enough resources, primarily financial resources, to fulfill their missions over time. Big surprise? Not for anyone working in the nonprofit world for more than six months.
In 2012, Grantmakers in the Arts will form the Arts Education Funders’ Coalition. The Coalition will consist of funders concerned with the inequities of our public education system and determined that their investments should not be undermined by federal policy that ignores those inequities. Simply put, arts education is not equitably offered to all American children. Although there are national and state standards and regulations, we have been unsuccessful in creating an educational system where arts education is delivered to every child, in every school, every day.
Equity is at the core of this moment in our country's history. Occupy America continues to remind us of the inequities that have become the reality of the American dream. Once held in esteem because it was within reach of all Americans, the dream is fading in a country where poverty continues to increase, jobs are at a premium and politicians don’t realize their “team” is not one party but an entire country, and it’s losing.
The blogesphere and pressophere (I made that word up) lit up on Monday, October 10 with the release of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s (NCRP) essay on private foundation arts funding to marginalized communities.
The arts blogosphere is a buzz with news about ArtPlace America, a new nonprofit regranting organization funded by several major foundations, in partnership with commercial financial institutions, and involving seven government agencies. Add the Nonprofit Finance Fund in the mix as fiscal management and you have a pretty complex new initiative.
Equity is a complex topic with many interpretations. We are talking a great deal about it these days at Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA.) It is a major theme of the upcoming GIA conference in San Francisco, the focus of a new publication by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) for which GIA served in an advisory capacity, the topic of several articles in our upcoming Reader and the subject of a GIA Thought Leader Forum.
This is a nicely written piece reminding us of the great work of the Lower Manhattan Arts Council and the many artists who created in their space in the World Trade Center. An entire country grieved for those lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and as is always the case, we came together through music, photographs, poems, drawings, and other art forms that could express that grief when words were not enough.
This is a blog about two very different topics: Hurricane Irene and Barry’s Blog. Hurricane Irene kept my attention this past weekend. In fact, at one point I put 9-volt batteries and candles on my shopping list. And I live in Seattle.
Sometimes the very ingredients that offered success in one political and economic climate become liabilities or less successful when politics and economics change. That’s what’s happened in the arts at the federal policy level. Fifty years ago, America was feeling pretty damn good about itself, post WWII boom had occurred, industry was skyrocketing and we were going to the moon. If we could do that, we, as a society, could do anything. This was the political outlook on American life in the early 60s.
