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The latest issue of the GIA Reader features our annual Arts Funding Snapshot, an overview of national arts funding by the numbers. The snapshot includes “Foundation Grants to Arts and Culture, 2014,” based on the most recent completed year of Foundation Center data, and “Government Funding for the Arts, 2016,” prepared by the National Assembly of State Art Agencies (NASAA). Findings of these two reports will be presented in our March webinar.
PolicyLink has released a report supported by The Kresge Foundation revealing how arts and culture strategies are used to help create sustainable and equitable communities. Creating Change through Arts, Culture, and Equitable Development: A Policy and Practice Primer highlights both promising and proven practices that demonstrate equity-focused arts and culture policies, strategies, and tools. The report describes the role of arts and culture across many sectors: transportation, housing, economic development and financial security, health and food, youth and education, open space and recreation, and technology and information access.
The Pop Culture Collaborative, a recent initiative founded by Unbound Philanthropy, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Ford Foundation, The JPB Foundation, and General Service Foundation, has announced its new leadership staff. The Collaborative aims to advance “the combined power of the entertainment, philanthropic, and social justice sectors to use pop culture strategies to create transformative change in the world.”
In a new blog post at The McKnight Foundation, Arts Program Director Vickie Benson makes the case that the National Endowment for the Arts continues to illuminate the power of the arts, and that our communities are better off because of their work:
In a statement today, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) argues that “eliminating the NEA would hurt every state in our nation.” The statement outlines the national impacts of eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, and NASAA has voiced its resolve “to sustain the NEA and ensure that its important work continues.” Grantmakers in the Arts is committed to working with NASAA, Americans for the Arts, and other national partners to support the NEA.
Jane Chu, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, has released a statement following today’s release of the president’s budget plan:
President Trump released his first federal budget plan today, as reported by The New York Times:
Nothing will change for the endowments or other agencies immediately. Congress writes the federal budget, not the president, and White House budget plans are largely political documents that telegraph a president’s priorities.
Yet never before have Republicans, who have proposed eliminating the endowments in the past, been so well-positioned to close the agencies, given their control of both houses of Congress and the White House, and now the president’s fiscal plan. . . .
Arts groups have already begun a furious lobbying campaign to press Republicans in Congress to save the endowments. The House will draft a budget in the coming months, and arts groups have already been focusing its lobbying efforts there.
An op-ed piece written by dance educator Amy M. Wilkinson and published in The Hill argues the importance of the arts as part of a well-rounded education. As states develop their plans as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), advocates argue that the arts must be included in those plans. The article highlights the state of Illinois, which today will vote on an ESSA plan which does not include arts programming as an indicator of school quality. Wilkinson presents evidence of the many benefits of arts education and urges states to “help its children by elevating arts programming within our schools.”