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.
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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 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts announces its 2014 Grants to Individuals, which will award over $520,000 to 68 projects that demonstrate innovative and thought-provoking ideas in architecture. The grants will provide direct support to individuals for the research, development, and presentation of publications, exhibitions, films, new media initiatives, and other programs.
Emiko Ono writes for ArtsBlog:
In the past, a productive arts organization was understood to contribute to a community’s quality of life and help drive its economy — it was inherently perceived to be a public good. This “social contract” is fraying based on a growing awareness of the very real inequities that exist in the United States... The nonprofit arts sector, including its funders, is increasingly expected to do more for distressed and marginalized communities if it is to merit designation as a public good.
Creative Capital has announced a gift of $1 million from the estate of photographer Theo Westenberger. The gift will be used to establish Theo Westenberger Awards for Creative Capital artists; a loan fund for Creative Capital alumni in literature, film/video, visual arts, and emerging fields. A new program in estate planning, initially designed for Creative Capital artists, will eventually be made available to all artists funded through Creative Capital’s ancillary programs, as well as participants in Creative Capital’s Professional Development Program for artists.
The Next Gen Arts Leadership Initiative was jointly established by the James Irvine Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to promote the leadership development of younger arts professionals (aged 20 to 35) in California’s arts community. Initially planned in 2009, and launched in 2010, the initiative includes four formal emerging arts leader Networks in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley, as well as statewide regranting programs (managed by the Center for Cultural Innovation) to support professional development scholarships and innovative organizational practices. This assessment, The Faces of the Future: An Assessment of California’s Next Generation Arts Leadership Initiative, employed web-based surveys of participants in Network activities, as well as interviews with Network leaders, Innovation grantees, and outside experts in the area of nonprofit leadership development with a focus in the arts. It shows that the Initiative has been successful in achieving its early implementation goals.
A national research study commissioned by CERF+ (Craft Emergency Relief Fund + Artists’ Emergency Resources), and conducted by Dreezen and Associates with grant support from the Windgate Charitable Foundation, is now available. Sustaining Careers: A National Study of the Status of U.S.
During the month of March, our photo banner features grantees of GIA member The Herb Alpert Foundation. Founded by musician, producer, and artist Herb Alpert and his wife, Grammy-award winning singer Lani Hall, the Foundation’s mission is to support young people in the discovery and development of their creative potential, an objective they achieve through the Herb Alpert Scholarships for Emerging Young Artists, a program administered by the California State Summer School for the Arts, and support of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, which is devoted to the performance and study of music in all of its global diversity.
One of the most interesting aspects of GIA’s Research Initiative on Support for Individual Artists has been the opportunity to delve deeply into funders’ programs and practices. By its very nature, data collection requires creating categories and standard definitions, and then using this vocabulary to quantify what funders are actually doing.
This article, examining the ecology of funders’ use of intermediaries and regranting organizations, came about as a direct offshoot of GIA’s Research Initiative on Support for Individual Artists, begun in 2011. As the research team worked to map the pathways that support followed from funder to artist, a complex map of options and routes began to emerge, and intermediaries and regranters were often part of that picture. It became increasingly clear that this was an essential and important part of the overall system.
Arlene Goldbard reports from the Staging Sustainability 2014 conference, recently held in Toronto:
In her concluding keynote for Staging Sustainability 2014, Adrienne Goehler exhorted conference attendees to support a “basic income grant” as a universal right. She put it succinctly: the current system forces overproduction in all realms, even art. The current system of grants for artists, inadequate in so many other ways, operates almost exclusively on a project basis, forcing artists who seek support to think in terms of novelty and output rather than allowing adequate time for work to evolve and emerge organically.