Do you think that we are living in a zeitgeist of catalytic change? I have heard the word catalytic used so frequently that I find myself accessorizing moments with this adjective as if it holds the weight of tectonic shifts. It seems to promise the kind of change that either redirects historical systems of oppression toward equity — gradually erasing calcified notions of otherness that fuel supremacist behaviors — or catapults us back into a time where Flintstones-like ideals become presidential norms.
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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.
The quest for support for the arts is continuous. We search for ways to seed or increase the flow of dollars, looking for more philanthropic capacity from every purse. It is never as bounteous as the need.
During the past two decades, cultural planning practice in the United States has fallen behind that in parts of the world where cultural plans are required in city general plans, broader definitions of culture have been adopted, more domains of city planning have been integrated, and theoretical debate has progressed further. In the United States there is neither a field of cultural planning nor of cultural planners.
In many ways, it has been a heartening year for champions of the literary arts.
As our country prepares for a Trump presidency, the issue of economic revitalization in rural American has much more urgency than eight months ago when I started collecting data for this work. Here is a sampling of headlines from coverage by the New York Times of the economic decline in the rust belt, or more specifically, coal country and Appalachian towns: “Trump’s Promises Will Be Hard to Keep, but Coal Country Has Faith” (Nov. 28, 2016); “A Bleak Outlook for Trump’s Promises to Coal Miners” (Nov.
What can you do when times are uncertain, and yet a clear opportunity to advance a collective agenda presents itself? Take action.
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.
DataArts is a national nonprofit service organization that supports data-informed decision making in the arts and cultural sector primarily by providing access to high-quality financial and programmatic data collected through its flagship service, the Cultural Data Profile (CDP).
On May 25, 2016, Grantmakers in the Arts gathered a cross-section of twenty-eight funders from the arts and environmental sectors for the Arts and Environmental Sustainability Thought Leader Forum at the New York Community Trust. Most foundations in attendance were represented by two people: a person from the arts and a person from the environment, each of whom were interested in collaborative work at this intersection. Helicon Collaborative organized and facilitated the session.
The woman on the phone was friendly but insistent. “Look,” she said, “more and more artists and arts organizations are taking on cross-sector community-based work. But this is a complex gig, and, unfortunately, many of them are in over their heads.” It was a blunt assessment, but I knew she was right. “Yeah, I’m seeing the same thing out in the field. So, what do you think is needed?” Her response? … One word: “Training!”