GIA Blog

During the month of October, GIA's photo banner features artists and projects supported by Houston Endowment. Houston Endowment is the Anchor Sponsor for the annual GIA conference happening this month.

Houston Endowment supports nonprofit organizations and educational institutions that produce and maximize enduring benefits for the people of the greater Houston area. Jesse H. Jones and Mary Gibbs Jones established Houston Endowment as a private philanthropic foundation in 1937; since that time, Houston Endowment has donated almost $1.7 billion ($3 billion in constant dollars) to help arts and culture, education, environment, health and human services organizations realize the Joneses’ vision of creating a community where the opportunity to thrive is available to all.

Sarah Lutman is principal at Lutman & Associates, a consulting and program development enterprise working with cultural, public media, and philanthropic organizations nationally. As an entrepreneur she creates civic projects designed to spark discovery, debate, and dialogue, and writes extensively about ideas and trends in the nonprofit sector and the culture at large.

Former Director California Arts Council, President California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, and Executive Director of LINES Ballet. Author, consultant, blogger and public speaker. Barry published his work Hardball Lobbying for Nonprofits in 2007 (Macmillan & Company, New York). He conducted a two phase study with reports released in 2007 and 2009 for the Hewlett Foundation on the issue of generational management & succession in the arts. He authored several other studies including the California Arts Advocacy Handbook, the Local Arts Agency Funding Study for the Aspen Institute and the City Arts Agency Tool Kit. He is author of the most widely read blog in the nonprofit arts field – Barry’s Blog.

By Janet Brown from her blog Better Together

My first year at Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) was 2009. When I travelled the country to meet members and learn about their work, I was surprised by my conversations with most private funders.

A blog post from Rebecca Thomas at Nonprofit Finance Fund:

Grantmakers in the Arts is pleased to have a fantastic team of bloggers covering the 2014 Conference in Houston. Latoya Peterson, Barry Hessenius, and Sarah Lutman will all be posting their comments and reactions beginning Sunday, October 12. We hope you enjoy their observations and that you join the conversation.

From Joel Brown, writing for The Boston Globe:

The National Endowment for the Arts is launching new resources to assist practitioners who are working on arts-based community development projects. These resources will assist those practitioners to develop projects that are authentic, equitable, and that augment existing local assets. Those resources are:

• Exploring Our Town, an online resource featuring case studies of more than 60 previous Our Town projects complete with an insights section of lessons learned
• 2015 Our Town guidelines with a new project type designed to build and share creative placemaking knowledge more broadly
• Beyond the Building: Performing Art Organizations and Transforming Place a national convening to be held on November 3, 2014

Following a national search, Artist Trust has announced that Shannon Roach Halberstadt has been hired as its Executive Director. She will start at Artist Trust in October 2014. Halberstadt is currently the Executive Director of Spokane Arts and previously served as Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy and as Managing Director of the Vera Project.

Read the full announcement.

Helicon Collaborative was commissioned to help Grantmakers in the Arts understand the value of its local funder workshops presented in 2012 and 2013 and other programs where capitalization education has been included since 2010, when GIA’s National Capitalization Project began. The results are detailed in the newly published Progress Report on Grantmakers in the Arts’ National Capitalization Project.