The League of American Orchestras’ upcoming national conference in Detroit falls just days before the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Detroit uprising, the largest urban disruption in America since the Civil War. According to Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) president Anne Parsons, the 1967 riot was the context for the orchestra’s fellowship program for African American musicians.
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As a writer who often ponders music and its many audiences, I spend a lot of time thinking about how some artists thrive, while others don’t, in places far from their first home. As listeners, members of an audience, we hear something that feels real, powerful, to us, and we feel connected to the experience of someone who may seem not much like us. From this experience we have a single urgent response: how can we share this with the world? You’ve got to hear this…
Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics, and the Arts; Edited by Michael Hutter and David Throsby; Cambridge University Press, 2007, 324 pages
The art that matters to us … is received by us as a gift is received. Even if we have paid a fee at the door of the museum or concert hall, when we are touched by a work of art something comes to us that has nothing to do with the price.
— Lewis Hyde
— Lewis Hyde
The current economic climate has forced many nonprofit arts organizations to confront underlying issues. Tensions mount, dollars are scarce, and unresolved weaknesses or fissures often grow. We have seen heartening examples of artists, donors, audiences, and funders rallying to support the art and organizations that they love. In some cases, streamlined, more focused organizations are forging ahead with renewed determination. But in other cases, the economic downturn may herald the time to close the doors.
In late January GIA polled its 309 member organizations about their organization's responses to the economic downturn. 117 (38%) members responded, which provides a healthy sample of the membership.
Members reported their expected 2009 arts grantmaking would likely compare to 2008 as follows:
- 41% expected that 2009 would be the same as 2008.
- 13% expected that it would be reduced to 90% of 2008.
- 12% expected that it would be reduced to 80% of 2008.
- 11% expected that it would be reduced to 70% of 2008.
Historical data do not mean anything in this situation. There is no blueprint and there is no network. We are doing the best we can with a combination of hard facts and intuition. Every line item is up for grabs; every $1,000 is material. How we feel about it all depends on which newspaper we read that morning.
Managing Director, large performing arts group
Introduction
Many of the feature articles in this issue offer tools for responding to GIA Executive Director Janet Brown's call to speak up, to not sit silently in the back but to stand up and illustrate or make the case for why arts and culture matters.
In The Place of the Arts in Multi-focus Foundations, Bruce Sievers writes that the rationale for supporting both the arts and the nonprofit sector as a whole is integrally linked to their capacity to advance pluralism, promote voluntary action, accommodate diversity, and champion individual visions of the public good. “Civil society,” Sievers notes, is increasingly the accepted concept to describe this sphere of social action.
Jaime Cortez was an arts and culture fellow at the San Francisco Foundation for two years. At the end of his fellowship, he and the other outgoing fellows were asked to read a prepared farewell statement to the board and staff of the foundation. Following is his closing presentation, given on July 9, 2008.
Is a trend developing that favors drawing foundation leaders from the for-profit sector rather than from philanthropy or the nonprofit sector? If so, does it change senior grantmaking staff's challenges and opportunities? Would a more corporate view of private philanthropy affect how foundations view the arts?