Search

In a past report on challenges facing San Francisco Bay Area arts nonprofits (Reader, Vol. 11, No. 2), I wrote at length about space. Many nonprofits had been forced to seek new office, rehearsal, and storage space due to a steep rise in Bay Area real estate costs fueled by demand from a dot-com economy for start-up locations. The situation seems to have eased somewhat, in part due to funder- and municipally-driven programs as well as to a general downturn in the economy.

When we initiated an artist award program at The Durfee Foundation a few years ago, we decided to use financial need as one of several criteria for support. Durfee is a relatively small family foundation, and the trustees feel strongly that the foundation's modest resources should be applied where they will make the most difference. This is true across the board at the foundation, not only in the arts, but in our other programs as well.

In recent months, debate has been renewed over whether learning in the arts causes a "spill-over" effect on children's learning in other fields, directly or by transfer, and whether that "spill-over" is what should be measured. The discussion was heightened by the publication of a special issue of The Journal of Aesthetic Education titled "The Arts and Academic Improvement: What the Evidence Shows," with guest editors Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland.1

March 2000, 29 pages, executive summary; 126 pages, narrative report. ArtsMarket. Copies are available from Walter and Elise Haas Fund, One Lombard Street, Suite 305, San Francisco, California 94111, (415) 398-4474.

In summer 2000, junior professionals working in Los Angeles County arts and culture organizations gathered to form the Emerging Arts Leaders (EAL), named to reflect their ambitions of becoming established arts leaders. The group has met bimonthly four times and is in the process of formalizing a mission statement and 2001 activities, one of which is to establish a professional development training program. EAL is composed of about thirty junior professionals from all facets of the arts (artists, arts organizations, grantmakers, for-profit enterprises, and independent consultants).

The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation was established in 1985 to provide supplemental instruction to promising young artists and financial assistance to visual artists of demonstrated talent. Today, the Foundation awards approximately $500,000 annually.

Filmmaker, painter, and composer Jerome Hill established the Jerome Foundation in 1964, and was active in its operation until his death in 1972. The Foundation makes grants to support the creation and production of new artistic works by emerging artists, and contributes to these artists' professional advancement. The Foundation states its "belief in the vigorous and distinctive voices of artists whose works challenge our thinking and add meaning to our lives.

Sitting around tables at a conference center last May, we each joined five other participants in imagining and illustrating possibilities for artists who work in community arts programs for youth. We were part of a group of around thirty people convened as a working group first in San Jose, California in May 2000 and again in October in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our aim was to explore how to build understanding and action toward the sustainable involvement of artists and arts professionals in youth and community development.

This paper was originally given at the 1987 Conference on Private Philanthropy and the Social Good. It was brought to our attention by a GIA member, and is reprinted here with permission from Cambridge University Press and the estate of Michael Hooker. © 1987 Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation.

A Report on the Ford Foundation Initiative
Edited by Mindy Levine

1999, 64 pages. Developed by New England Foundation for the Arts, edited and published by Arts International, ISBN 0-9676467-0-7, 212-674-9744