A continuation of the discussion on strategic operating support grants. Do these grants improve an organization's accountability and stability? How do private and public grantmakers sustain the arts ecosystem without creating an over-dependence on any one funder? When providing strategic operating support for organizational change, where does the funder's role end and the arts organization's board of directors' role begin and end?
A working session to review the Coalition's draft publication, "A National Blueprint for Emergency Preparedness, Relief and Recovery for Artists," and other Coalition works in progress. Also, discussion of a draft plan to give grantmakers better resources for learning about emergency readiness, response, and recovery, and to improve and coordinate safety nets for artists during regional or national emergencies.
Cornelia Carey, Craft Emergency Relief Fund (moderator); Carolyn Somers, Joan Mitchell Foundation (interlocutor).
A discussion of “The Grasshopper or the Ant: A Review of Endowment Giving Policy Options,” a paper by Russell Willis Taylor that challenges assumptions, examines costs and benefits of raising and managing an endowment, and considers the capacity and expertise needed to do it well.
Russell Willis Taylor, National Arts Strategies (presenter, moderator); Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Gene Lesser, Hans G. and Thordis W. Burkhardt Foundation; Gayle Morgan, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust (interlocutors).
Is a trend developing that favors drawing foundation leaders from the for-profit sector rather than from philanthropy or the nonprofit sector? If so, does it change senior grantmaking staff's challenges and opportunities? Would a more corporate view of private philanthropy affect how foundations view the arts?
When assessing the results of the work of arts organizations, do we measure the right things? Can we measure whether the art itself is good? This continues a dialogue that began in GIA Reader, Vol. 17, No. 3.
Bruce Sievers, Skirball Foundation; Diane Ragsdale, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (co-presenters, moderators); Suzanne Callahan, Dance USA (interlocutor).
When funders move into indigenous communities they tread a very fine line. On one side of the line they have a duty to undertake sufficient investigation to ensure that they properly understand a funding request and their own role in relation to it. On the other side, obtaining the information may conflict with the ability to acknowledge and give appropriate respect to the applicant's indigenous culture and its bounds.
