In an effort to promote resilience for the Sandy-affected region on the east coast, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development is launching the Rebuild by Design design competition. The goal of the competition is to attract world-class talent, promote innovation and develop projects that will actually be built. The Rockefeller Foundation, as the lead funding partner, will provide support for the analysis and design process and its support of the competition builds upon a strong commitment to promoting urban resilience through a $100 million investment, which includes their recent announcement of the “100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge.”
Grantmakers in the Arts
by Steve
Tom Kaiden announced this week that he will step down as President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance to join the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association as their Chief Operating Officer in Alexandria, Virginia. His departure will take place on July 26. Michael Norris, V.P. of External Relations, will serve as the interim Executive Director while the board’s Search and Transition Committee conducts a national search for the next president.
by Steve
The latest SNAAP DataBrief draws upon data from the more than 36,000 arts alumni from 66 institutions who responded to the SNAAP survey in 2011:
by Steve
From Nonprofit Quarterly:
...it appears that some categories of recipients have seen legitimate gains over the last year, recovering from the cratering caused by the recession. Giving to the arts, for instance, looks like it may be recovering, although for some organizations, deficits caused by unfortunately timed investments made in programming or facilities have caused problems that now need to be remedied. The growth of giving in this area from last year to this is even more striking when you consider that last year, the giving in that category was inflated by one $800 million gift to one museum.
by Steve
From Craig Melvin, reporting for NBC's Today, comes this story about Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program, begun in 1984 to connect students with teachers and world-renowned artists to design and paint more than 3800 murals city-wide.
by Steve
In a historic move, the leaders of the country’s three leading sources of information on nonprofits – GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance – penned an open letter to the donors of America denouncing the “overhead ratio” as a valid indicator of nonprofit performance.
by Steve
Hayley Roberts analyzes the University of Pennsylvania's Culture and Community Revitalization for Createquity's Arts Policy Library series.
From 2006 to 2008 SIAP’s Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert researched and compiled a set of documents that sought to investigate the real impact of the “creative economy” on community and economic development. The Rockefeller Foundation funded SIAP and The Reinvestment Fund to partner and “merge cultural data with other types of information on urban revitalization.” The project’s publications included a literature review, three policy briefs, and a community investment prospectus in addition to a range of summary materials. This project led SIAP to frame its subsequent work around the concept of “natural” cultural districts, or specific geographic areas dense with cultural assets that have evolved in grassroots fashion.