Announced by President Clinton at this June’s Clinton Global Initiative America, the US2020 City Competition seeks to capitalize on the role of cities as centers for innovation, supporting outstanding efforts to build STEM mentoring capacity at the local level. 3-5 cities from across the country will share over $1 million in resources from US2020, based on their plans to significantly increase STEM mentoring for girls, low-income youth, and students of color. Proposals will be accepted from self-organized coalitions including representatives from city government, corporations, nonprofits, schools, and philanthropy.
Grantmakers in the Arts
by Steve
EmcArts Inc. will host the National Innovation Summit for Arts + Culture, October 20 - 23. The Summit will take place in Denver, Colorado, with 250 pioneering arts leaders and funders from 14 communities. A Virtual Summit will be streamed online where you can experience all 27 Summit Talks via an Internet connection. While you watch the online talks, you may join the conversation using the Twitter hashtag #ArtsFwd.
by Steve
The folks at The Center for Disaster Philanthropy have sent out this notice regarding the serious situation in northern Colorado.
We have been continuing to follow the floods in Colorado and the response from the philanthropic community and donors. Here is a quick run-down of the situation:
- There are six confirmed fatalities (FEMA just announced this revised number) and 200 people unaccounted for, many of them in mountainous areas, and unreachable by telephone.
- About 13,500 people were evacuated and 26 shelters were opened.
- Close to 3,000 homes, 500 businesses and 5,000 other minor structures have been destroyed.
- Flash floods remained a threat to about 20,000 homes.
- Emergency responders continue to make airlift rescues of people now that the rain has stopped.
- The community and the nation are coming together to support the victims, making commitments to immediate relief and long-term recovery.
by Janet
By Janet Brown from her blog Better Together
The phrase “data-driven decision-making” has become popular with funders. What decisions are being made based on data and how relevant is the data being collected? Does the data reflect the reality in which we each work and how does it inform our actions? Does data merely answer questions of how funding proved successful based on outcomes, or does it inform how funders should be changing their portfolios, application guidelines and goals based on the successes or failures of the nonprofit arts field? These are the challenges for researchers and practitioners.
by Steve
Role-modeling alone does not appear to be as effective as talking to children about giving, the researchers (for a new IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy study) found. Parents who want to raise charitable children should talk intentionally with them about their own philanthropic values and practices throughout childhood and adolescence in addition to role-modeling, they say.
by Steve
Carla Escoda posts to Huffington Post:
A beloved New York City institution is losing its home after 34 years, its impending demise another reminder that this world capital of arts and culture has become inhospitable to all but the behemoths. The small but illustrious New York Theatre Ballet, which runs a school and outreach program and rehearses its company of 12 dancers on the fifth floor of the parish house of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church at 30 East 31st Street, has been given until September 30th to move out.
by Steve
From Stephanie Ebbert, for The Boston Globe:
Boston’s power constituencies typically hail from the fields of construction and real estate, firefighting, and law. Poets and painters do not usually register as table-thumping political forces with which to be reckoned. But the first wide-open mayor’s race in three decades has motivated Boston’s arts community to form a political movement unlike any in recent memory.