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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.

In the Face of Recession, What Are Arts Funders Doing?

As funders we have three main challenges: first, getting a handle on the extent and impact of the recession; second, exerting leadership — being bold, positive, and opportunistic without being insensitive; and third — and most important — asking ourselves the same tough questions that we are asking grantees: how do we slip the vice-like grip of old mindsets and behaviors and adapt so we increase our relevance, resilience, and meaningful contributions to our community?
  — Foundation President

GIA Members Responses to Economic Downturn Survey

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.

Connecting Public Interest Communications with the 2007 Council on Foundations Conference Themes

Ralph Smith, the 2007 Conference Chairman, issued a challenge in his welcome message – “that all who attend will leave with renewed energy, capacity and resolve to make a positive contribution toward meeting the challenges of our time.”

McGarvey Scrivner Award Speech

Council on Foundations Annual Conference, May 1, 2001

Craig McGarvey, The James Irvine Foundation

From a position of received privilege, how should one behave so that it might be put to productive use as people are learning to get better at their work? This is a central question facing philanthropy, and it figured centrally in preparations for today. How to say something appropriate and helpful under such extraordinary circumstances?

There was the problem that no single foundation's body of work could possibly measure up to being singled out.

Puget Sound Funders Act Together

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

Why Arts?... Why Arts!

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.

How Can the Arts Become Central?

In the past two years, several prominent foundations at national, regional, and local levels have appointed new presidents. Such leadership transitions are likely to increase in the years ahead in keeping with the larger generational shift in the nonprofit sector. Very few of the new foundation leaders are likely to come from the arts sector, and many will have had little direct experience with our field.

What Is Civil Society?

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.

read:write

2008, 64 pages. Arts Council England, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3NQ, UK, 0845-300-6590, www.artscouncil.org.uk

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/documents/publications/
phpvMEmeh.pdf

The School Leadership Challenge

2009, 31 pages. Grantmakers for Education, 720 SW Washington Street, Suite 605, Portland, OR, 97205, 503-595-2100, www.edfunders.org

http://www.edfunders.org/downloads/GFEReports/
SchoolLeadershipChallenge.pdf