Our Taos Journey essays depart by looking back at philanthropy's recent past. As the field has become more formalized as a profession, it also has attracted exposés and critiques. Many have called for greater accountability, transparency, and proof of effectiveness. While the critique is worthy and perhaps overdue, historian, philanthropist, and former GIA board member James Allen Smith calls for a deeper, shared understanding of professionalism.
Another project underway for historian Jim Smith, author of the preceding “A Profession of Philanthropy,” is a new piece, commissioned by the Aspen Institute, that examines the ways that foundation giving to arts and culture is fundamentally different from giving to other fields. We coaxed Jim to contribute a brief preview of this line of inquiry. Excerpts from this nascent work in progress have been woven together by Jim and Anne Focke into this brief, provocative piece.
As we were recruiting writers for this issue of the Reader, we learned that John Rockwell was retiring from his position as arts critic for The New York Times. It was all too tempting to ask Rockwell to reflect on the arts as he has chronicled them through his career. His response was to address the relationship between culture and classboth in history and in the presentraising questions about patronage and access, and the differences across classes in the kinds of art that are supported and accepted.
Nonprofit organizations face a growing challenge of identifying sufficient numbers of future leaders and passing on leadership responsibilities. For a story about the needs of emerging leaders, we approached Alvin Warren, a young tribal leader and lieutenant governor of Santa Clara Pueblo, who played a seminal role in his Pueblo's success at recovering part of its ancestral land. Many funders who are concerned about the challenge of developing future leaders are addressing it by supporting workshops, training, and coaching.
In the Reader last issue I reported on the Cleveland Foundation's decade-long effort (in partnership with other area funders, cultural institutions, and the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture) to make the case for local public support for the arts here. At the GIA conference last November, anyone within shouting distance of those of us from Cleveland must have heard that we were suc-cessful. The grins on our faces lit up the host celebration that first night.
