Grantmakers in the Arts

Earlier this month, Theatre Bay Area released The Tangled Web: Social Media in the Arts, a survey of 207 international arts organizations on their use of social media. Reviewing the report on his blog New Beans, Clayton Lord makes the following, logical-to-me assessment:

What I find fascinating in these results (and let’s be honest, they’re really top-line, and don’t (by design) go into much depth on the reasoning behind the decisions made by these organizations) is the various spectrums of depth vs. breadth depending on the organization.

From a June 12 post on Barry's Blog:

I wonder how many tickets are sold in the aggregate to arts events in a given week across the whole country? In a month? Over the course of a whole year? Is that data available anywhere? Can we even make an educated guess? It must be a lot of people (tickets), and a substantial amount of money in the aggregate, despite not being what it once was or what it ought to be.

The New School, in New York City, announced a variety of new appointments today, including the appointment of Richard Kessler as dean of Mannes College, The New School for Music. The New School comprises seven distinct schools focusing on social sciences, liberal arts, administration and management, design and performing arts.

On May 4, 2011, the Ford Foundation hosted Fresh Angle on the Arts: Reimagining Culture in a Time of Transformation, a full day of discussion and performances to explore the next frontlines of innovation and free expression in a revolutionary moment.

Video of complete sessions from this event are now available on the Ford Foundation website. This was the first of three foundation forums focusing on a range of social justice issues to mark Ford's 75th anniversary.

Check out the session videos here.

Ann McQueen recently announced the formation of McQueen Philanthropic, an advisory service for foundations, individuals and nonprofits. McQueen, formerly the senior program officer for arts/culture at the Boston Foundation, served on the GIA board from 2005 to 2010. She is currently a member of the board of Associated Grant Makers, a forum for New England foundations and their nonprofit partners. See McQueenPhilanthropic.com for more information.

In the just-published Evaluating Innovation, the fifth in a series of papers on philanthropic field building, Lucy Bernholz explores the meaning of innovation and presents three case studies on evaluation.

Philanthropic donors need to understand that “overhead” should not be considered a dirty word when it comes to nonprofit organizations. From Rick Wartzman at Bloomberg Businessweek:

On May 25, 2011 the House Education & Workforce Committee, by a vote of 23-16, approved HR 1891, legislation that terminates 42 federal education programs, including the Arts in Education program at the U.S. Department of Education. This bill is more serious than the annual funding measures that threaten to de-fund arts education, as HR 1891 permanently strips policy language out of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that allows the Arts in Education program to be funded each year.