Grantmakers in the Arts

Portland Arts Tax Overhead Costs Soar As City Mailed 170,000 Collection Letters
by Steve

From Andrew Theen at The Oregonian:

Portland’s arts tax is proving more expensive for city officials to administer partly because of the cost of tracking down scofflaws. In 2014, city finance officials mailed 170,000 collection letters to residents who hadn't paid the voter-approved Arts Education and Access Fund. The city spent $775,000 last year to administer the program. Thomas Lannom, Revenue Bureau Director, said the city spent $85,000 on postage and printing and $50,000 on temporary staffers, plus the remaining budget to run the arts tax program each year.
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New from the Reader: Imaginary Needs and a Raucous Caucus
by Steve

Featured in the current Reader, Anne Focke documents two important meetings in the 1980s that brought hundreds of people together to discuss Creative Support for Creative Artists.

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NASAA Names Pam Breaux as CEO
by Steve

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies board of directors has announced the appointment of Pam Breaux as NASAA’s chief executive officer, effective July 6, 2015. The national search effort was conducted with the assistance of Arts Consulting Group. A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Breaux has held leadership positions at the local, state and national levels. She currently is completing her appointment as assistant secretary of the Office of Cultural Development at the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism (CRT). She is a former secretary of CRT and was executive director of the Louisiana Division of the Arts. During her time at CRT, Breaux led the state’s cultural economy policy efforts, developed the annual World Cultural Economic Forum program and spearheaded the state's attainment of UNESCO recognition of Poverty Point as a World Heritage site.

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Art X Culture X Social Justice Network Website Launched
by Steve

The Art X Culture X Social Justice Network is based on the power of art and culture to advance social justice by inspiring collective action across identities, issues, sectors, geographies, and power imbalances. It works to bring together artists, activists, cultural bearers, and philanthropists. Check out their new web presence at artculturejustice.com.

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NFF State of the Sector Survey Data Analyisis for 2015
by Steve

Nonprofit Finance Fund has done its annual analysis of data from the State of the Sector Survey. Of the 5,451 nonprofits that took the survey in 2015, more than 900 identified as arts and culture organizations. These groups represented a wide range of artistic disciplines, with top responses among Museums (15%) and Theatres (13%). An in-depth Special Supplement on the Arts & Culture Sector is also available.

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Engaging in an Unlikely Manner: Artists as Environmental Stewards
by Steve

From Eileen Cunniffe, writing for Nonprofit Quarterly:

“If you actually engage a place in an unlikely manner, you probably won’t forget it. It becomes yours.” So says Catherine Gudis, a professor of public history at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the founders of Play the LA River, described as a “game of urban exploration and imagination.” The game consists of a 51-card deck developed by members of Project 51, a collective of “LA River–loving artists, designers, planners, writers and educators,” that invites Angelenos to explore — and reclaim — a river that for decades was “a polluted, concrete-encased ditch,” as reported in Next City.
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Building Community Through Innovation in the Arts
by Steve

An extraordinary new report Building Community Through Innovation in the Arts, written by Brett Sokol and creative directed by Gavin Strumpman, has come from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:

[U]sing initiatives like the Knight Arts Challenge to identify and empower new groups of entrepreneurially spirited artists and creative leaders has been key to transforming communities through the arts. True, some of those fresh faces will hardly fit the mold of traditional nonprofit administrators. This is exactly the point, given that much of the traditional arts establishment remains in crisis with its audience share waning.
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Arts Education in the Senate ESEA Bill
by Steve in Arts Education

After several attempts over the past few years, Congress is making progress in updating the No Child Left Behind Act, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The Arts Education Funders Coalition has been advancing its systemic policy agenda for ESEA as part of the Senate and House process to move ESEA legislation. Just this past week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (Senate HELP) Committee approved their version of an ESEA rewrite on a unanimous 22 to 0 vote. The AEFC arts education agenda was well represented as part of this legislation.

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