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The GIA Library is an information hub that includes articles, research reports, and other materials covering a wide variety of topics relevant to the arts and arts funding. These resources are made available free to members and non-members of GIA. Users can search by keyword or browse by category for materials to use in research and self-directed learning. Current arts philanthropy news items are available separately in our news feed - News from the Field.

Redefining Expectations for Place-based Philanthropy

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This article discusses how The California Endowment has used a midcourse strategic review to refine Building Healthy Communities, aiming to provide insight for other place-based initiatives and to add to the body of knowledge about how to support transformative community change.

Four Rural Poets for GIA

Writing is a solitary pursuit, and writers are often depicted as hermit-like figures. Rural writers, however, unlike their more urban counterparts, face an additional kind of isolation: they have few opportunities to rub shoulders with other writers and few, if any, chances to attend readings. For young writers, the isolation is particularly acute. Role models are absent, and even the idea of being a writer can be so foreign as to never enter their heads.

Small Is Beautiful

Even folks entirely unfamiliar with the concept of creative placemaking intuitively grasp the potential for artist spaces to catalyze revitalization, and mural projects to animate vacant walls. The usual mental backdrops, however, are down-and-out urban neighborhoods.

Innovative Crossroads: The Intersection of Creativity, Health, and Aging

September 2013, 9 pages. Grantmakers In Health, 1100 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1200, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 452-8331, gih.org.

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Establishing a Creative Economy

July 2013, 40 pages. First Peoples Fund, P.O. Box 2977, Rapid City, South Dakota, 57709, firstpeoplesfund.org.

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Placemaking: Provenance and Prospects

Every decade or two, the professions of architecture and city planning are captivated by a movement with a particularly catchy name. Currently, the popular term is placemaking — a fairly loose term that is running neck and neck with “sustainability.” Within the design professions, this movement — really more a philosophy — suggests that people’s lives can be made better by intentionally designing interior and exterior spaces to embrace a wide range of users, provide for safety, and create artful expressions that endure over time.

Dancing in the Streets Busts a South Bronx Move

“As this has never been done before, we have no idea what we’re doing today,” Joanna Haigood half-joked at the launch of Paseo, less a walking tour than a movable, danceable feast, a peripatetic block party that, for one delightful hour, would twist through the South Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point and Longwood.

Getting SMART

About four years ago I attended an extraordinary meeting in Philadelphia. Susan Nelson, principal of Technical Development Corporation (TDC), was presenting the draft of Getting Beyond Breakeven to the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and many other stakeholders associated with the work.

Fuzzy Concepts, Proxy Data

Creative placemaking is electrifying communities large and small around the country. Mayors, public agencies, and arts organizations are finding each other and committing to new initiatives. That’s a wonderful thing, whether or not their proposals are funded by national initiatives such as the National Endowment for the Arts’ Our Town program or ArtPlace.

Weaving Traditional Arts into the Fabric of Community Health

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