Grantmakers in the Arts

Future of the San Diego Foundation’s Arts Funding Questioned
by Steve

By Kinsee Morlan at San Diego City Beat:

There’s a shortage of arts-and-culture funding in San Diego. That’s why there’s been shock and concern in the arts community after the recent announcement that Felicia Shaw, longtime director of arts and the creative economy at The San Diego Foundation, had left her position. The foundation is the biggest and most influential grant-making community foundation in the area, and critics say that Shaw’s departure signals the organization’s waning support for the arts.
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NASAA Will Hold Webinar on Individual Artists Support, January 29
by Steve in Support for Individual Artists

On January 29 you are invited to join representatives from a state arts agency, a foundation and an artist service organization for the first web seminar in 2015 from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Individual Artist Support: Trends in Funding and Services. Learn about current trends, challenges and strategies from three experts in the field:

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East West Players Prepares for a More Diverse 2042
by Steve in Racial Equity

From Diep Tran, writing for American Theatre:

Sometimes all you need is a push. At least that’s the thinking behind the 51% Preparedness Plan that was released last week. East West Players artistic director Tim Dang wrote the plan, which calls on Southern California theatres to diversify their staff and programming.

“We’re in Southern California, we prepare for earthquakes. Are we preparing for the demographic shift that is going to happen in 2042?” posits Dang. “We should prepare now, for theatre.”

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Opera Philadelphia Has Bold New Business Model
by Steve

From Francis Hilario at The Philadelphia Business Journal:

Opera Philadelphia is in the midst of rehearsing for the East Coast premiere of “Oscar,” a new American opera based on Oscar Wilde that’s set to debut in February. But the company is also in the midst of a changing business model. The upcoming “Oscar” is the first of two productions co-commissioned by Sante Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia as part of the latter’s American Repertoire Program. The program has the lofty goal of producing one new American opera for the next 10 seasons. The second commission, an opera based on Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain,” will premiere next year. Along with providing audiences with fresh material, the opera’s new American program has also allowed it to go from being a local company to one that’s global.
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Governance Lessons from the SD Opera: Culture, Transparency and Bravery
by Steve

From Eileen Cunniffe, writing for Nonprofit Quarterly:

This weekend, the San Diego Opera will open its 50th anniversary season — a season that came perilously close to being cancelled when the company’s board voted last March to cease operations at the end of the 2014 season. Nearly ten months after the company and its board began a highly public meltdown, followed by a hard-won battle to re-engage the community and restructure the organization, San Diego Opera was featured at the 11th annual Nonprofit Governance Symposium at the University of San Diego on January 10. In a panel discussion titled “Saving the Opera: Lessons Learned from a Board Perspective,” current board president Carol Lazier, board members Linda Spuck and Joe Watkins, and new CEO Keith Fisher shared insights from the wild roller coaster ride they’ve experienced since last spring.
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Catalyzing Culture and Community through CDFIs
by SuJ'n

Last week the US Department of Housing and Urban Development PD&R Edge magazine published “Catalizing Culture and Community through CDFIs.” In this article, Judilee Reed, director of The Surdna Foundation's Thriving Cultures Program, discusses the importance of community development finance institutions in the creative placemaking movement.

Reed writes:

The cross-sector nature of this work suggests the existing infrastructure in the community development field, like community development finance institutions (CDFIs), could play an important role in helping artists, arts and culture organizations, and non-arts organizations build their capacity to sustain creative production long after dedicated funding for specific projects has passed. For many CDFIs, the role they play in providing both financing and technical assistance to support neighborhood-based projects and the growth of small business in low income communities implies they may also have the potential to pivot their services to engage artists and projects that support the development of arts and culture.

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Nonprofits Win Key Victory in Overhead Battles With Government
by Steve

From Tim Delaney at The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Rather than focusing on what Congress will (or won’t) do in the new year, foundations and other nonprofits would do well to take a close look at a little-noticed overhaul of federal grant-making rules — in the works for three years and that took effect the day after Christmas — that could provide meaningful traction for ending the so-called nonprofit starvation cycle.
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Grantmaking Practices that Advance DEI
by SuJ'n in Racial Equity

Released in the fall and in collaboration with D5 Coalition, OMG Center for Collaborative Learning (newly renamed Equal Measure) released Foundations Facilitate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Partnering with Community and Nonprofits. This report outlines eight specific practices that foundations can do to facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion with non-profit grantees and their communities.

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