Grantmakers in the Arts

March 27, 2013 by Steve

The trustees of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have elected Carol Coletta as vice president/community and national initiatives. She is a nationally recognized expert on cities and the use of the arts to build communities. Coletta is the director of ArtPlace, a unique collaboration between private foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) organized to promote creative placemaking.

March 27, 2013 by Abigail

Of the nearly six thousand respondents to Nonprofit Finance Fund's fifth annual survey of the nonprofit sector, nine hundred represented arts and culture organizations. The data is posted to NFF's website in the form of an online data analyzer, with arts-specific results here. Some of the highlights:

  • 42% of arts organizations reported a surplus in 2012, but only 28% anticipate ending 2013 in the black.
  • 64% reported an increase in program demand in 2012, with 75% predicting an increase this year.
  • 40% of arts organizations reported some level of comfort talking to their funders about the need for reserves. This is 30% higher than for the entire nonprofit sector. Arts organizations, more than other sectors, also report greater comfort discussing with supporters cash flow, facilities, and working capital needs.
  • Still, the sector remains split between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’: 60% of orgs have three months of cash or less.
  • Only 37% of arts groups report regularly collecting data on the impact of their programs. This compares to 53% for all nonprofits nationally. 
March 26, 2013 by Janet

From Janet Brown from her blog Better Together

I took a short hiatus from blogging in the first quarter 2013. I was “blogged out.” I've been storing up some ideas and am ready to put them out there again for better or worse.

March 26, 2013 by Tommer

A new report, Using Technology to Build a Healthy, Sustainable Jazz Environment, which includes case studies of some of the projects supported through the Jazz.NEXT program as well as observations on its outcomes has been published by the MidAtlantic Arts Foundation. The report examines six grantees that are representative of the program:

March 26, 2013 by Steve

From Jane O'Brien at BBC News Magazine:

A new report from a National Academies workshop on the arts and ageing warns that the number of Americans with Alzheimer's disease will more than double by 2050 to 13.2 million, from about 5.1 million today. The direct cost of their care will soar to $1.1tn (£730bn) from $172bn over the same period. The report looks at various ways the arts may address some of the symptoms of such chronic diseases, as well as the need for more research.
March 25, 2013 by Tommer

Resources from the SNAAP conference, 3 Million Stories, are posted on the conference website, and a brief summary by Steven Tepper is posted on Barry's Blog.

March 21, 2013 by Steve

From Randy Kennedy writing for The New York Times:

March 21, 2013 by Steve

From Open Culture:

What entered the public domain in the US in 2013? It’s not a long answer, because the answer is… nothing.

Now here’s a question that yields a longer answer. What books would have entered the public domain if we were still operating under reasonable, pre-1978 copyright laws? Here’s a little list that comes from Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.