Community Foundation

Under Marian Godfrey's direction, GIA held a pre-conference immediately before its 2005 conference called "New Directions in Cultural Policy Research." As part of that meeting, four well-respected individuals were asked to assess the impact and importance of research in the arts. They were asked to specify the big ideas currently in play and to speculate about the future of those ideas. Predictably perhaps, the four argued for the importance of research to the cultural sector. More surprisingly, they agreed that the platform for cultural research needs serious re-planking.

2005, 48 pages. The Potlatch Fund, 801 Second Avenue, Suite 304, Seattle, WA 98104, 206-624-6076.

Based on a series of talking circles of tribal leaders and funders, this handsome report reviews the history of Native peoples and the role of art in tribal culture, examines the program priorities of funders, and identifies strategies for supporting Native arts and artists. The extensive bibliography is also a valuable tool for grantmakers.

2005, 18 pages. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Harvard University, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, 617-495-1480.

Download pdf: www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/pubs/pub_161.htm

2005, 40 pages. New York State Council on the Arts, 175 Varick Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10014-4604, 212-627-4455.

PDF available for download on website.

2005, 22 pages. Grantcraft, a project of the Ford Foundation, 320 East 43rd Street, New York, NY 10017, 212-573-5288.

PDF Download: www.grantcraft.org/dl_pdf/personalstrategy.pdf.

This fifteenth guide in the Grantcraft series promotes thedevelopment of personal strategies for grantmakers to better manage the ambiguous "soft" part of their work. Other guides are also available on this web site.

2005, 82 pages. The Foundation Center, 79 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10003-3076, 212-620-4230.

Published in cooperation with the Independent Sector, this report is the first comprehensive analysis of U.S. foundation funding for social justice from 1998 to 2002, based on data that includes all grants of over $10,000 from more than 1,000 of the nation's largest private and community foundations.

2005, 174 pages. Theatre Communications Group, 355 Lexington Ave. New York, NY 10017-0217, 212-697-5230.

Launched in 1999, the National Theatre Artist Residency Program was designed to foster both new and expanded relationships between theaters and artists through grants for long-term residencies. This volume documents the experiences of the 135 artists and 99 theaters that participated in the program through 2005, and provides an in-depth analysis of the many challenges and opportunities they faced.

2005, 43 pages. Foundation Strategy Group , LLC, 20 Park Plaza, Suite 320, Boston, MA, 02116, 617-357-4000.

On March 1, 2005, the first convening to share the findings of Deep Focus: A Report on the Future of Independent Media was held in San Francisco, the geographic community studied for this project1.

As grantmakers, we have choices. Finding the right tool for the job and experimenting with tools to learn the range of their usefulness is what grantmakers do.