The Arts & Democracy Project is hosting a conference call on Thursday, September 20 at 1pm EST. Participants are encouraged to share nonpartisan election work or listen in to learn about opportunities to get involved. The Project's intent for this call is to help connect civic participation opportunities with creative organizing by artists and cultural organizations, both before the election and after.
GIA Blog
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Grantmakers in the Arts commissioned a play for the Council on Foundations Conference in the spring of 2007 from KJ Sanchez that was called Four Short Plays, Four Big Ideas. The performances of those four plays was release later on DVD. But if you've not seen Four Short Plays, you can now stream the entire performance from our website. Check it out here. And remember that Sanchez, as part of the American Records Theater Company is producing a new short play, Duck Soup: A Play on Equity as part of the Monday Plenary session at the 2012 GIA Conference, next month in Miami Beach. We hope to see you there!
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The Chronicle of Philanthropy has put together reports on where the presidential candidates stand on issues of importance to nonprofits and foundations, including their positions on arts and culture funding.
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In September, GIA's website photo banner features organizations supported by the Cleveland Foundation. Established in 1914, the Foundation is the world's first community foundation and one of the largest, with assets of $1.8 billion and 2011 grants of nearly $80 million.
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From Beth Kanter, writing for Stanford Social Innovation Review:
The environment in which nonprofits are doing their social change work has changed dramatically over the past five years. It’s more complex, online networks are central to our lives and work, and stakeholders want more involvement. Seeing tangible results from your organization’s social change efforts now requires two things to be successful: leading with a network mindset, and using measurement and learning to continuously improve.
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From Steven Ross Pomeroy, assistant editor for Real Clear Science, for Scientific American:
Despite the profound connection between art and science, art programs across the nation are on the chopping block. In June, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed significant funding cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts. Schools nationwide are eschewing art programs to instead focus on teach-to-the-test courses catered to math and reading. The problem here is that a narrow focus on testing reinforces narrow-minded thinking. Young Americans are being educated out of creativity.
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A blog post from Roberto Bedoya, Executive Director of the Tucson Pima Arts Council, for Arts in a Changing America:
A favorite song of mine is “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered…” the Ella version that is warm, radiant, where your feel each word in pure tones. Ella sings about love; a blind love and the escape from that bewitchment. This is the song that plays for me in the background when I think about the practices of “Creative Placemaking”, which as an arts manager and policy maker, I define as those cultural activities that shape the physical and social characteristics of a place. I embrace Creative Placemaking and its aspiration as is manifests in a variety of methods – from city planning to art practices with a goal of advancing humanity. But I am bothered by what I consider a significant blind spot – a blind love of sorts – in the Creative Placemaking discourse and practices.
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From Lucas Kavner at Huffington Post:
If the federal budget were an American high school, defense spending would be the football team — untouchable, un-cuttable, popular by default — and cultural spending would be the chess club — the wallflowers at the dance, constantly picked on and pushed aside in the hallways.
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The Economist launched an online debate on the question: Should governments fund the arts?. Opening statements were posted on August 22 and the debate concludes on August 30 with some continuing post-debate material after that. Debate Proposer is Alan Davey, Chief executive of the Arts Council England while the opposer is Pete Spence, a research associate at the Adam Smith Institute. The debate is being moderated by Emily Bobrow, a culture editor for The Economist.
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From Artplace:
Broadway in Los Angeles is a nine block area listed on the National Register of Historic Places that boasts the largest concentration of historic theaters on one street in the nation, with 12 movie palaces as well as blocks of stunning art-deco buildings. Through the 1930s, the area was LA’s premier entertainment and retail destination. Post World War II to the present day, however, the area has witnessed decline and most theaters remain inactive. While adjacent areas in Downtown LA have seen a renaissance, Broadway continues to struggle with a 15-20% ground floor vacancy rate and more than 1 million square feet of vacant space on the upper floors of these historic commercial buildings.