Funding Research

Two related sessions at grantmaking conferences last fall addressed important questions concerning the relationship of art, culture, and the environment. In each case, funders sought practical information about creative collaboration and successful cross-sector funding. Whether labeled "arts" or "environment" funders, grantmakers craved creative ways to attract new partners — both individuals and organizations — to their work.

September 2001, 20 pages. The Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago.

April 2001, 96 pages. The Urban Institute, 2100 M Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037 (202) 833-0687

2003, 336 pages, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

2002, 8-page executive summary. The Chicago Community Trust, 111 East Wacker Drive, Suite 1400, Chicago, Illinois 60601, (312) 372-3356

The Chicago Community Trust, interested in making its arts education grantmaking more focused and effective, decided to get a clearer picture of what was happening in the Chicago Public Schools and in the process created a methodology and reporting format that could easily be adapted for use in other communities.

2000, 47 pages. Council of Europe Publishing, Cultural Policies Research and Development Unit, (33) 03 88 41 25 81

2003, 107pages, Urban Institute, 2100 M Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037, (202) 833-7200, www.urban.org.

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2001, 116 pages. San Antonio Arts in Education Task Force, www.saysi.org

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   The Arts Dynamic (5Mb)

At the GIA conference in fall, 2002, we hosted a round table discussion with the euphemistic title "Adapting in a Time of Constraints." Essentially its burden was to ask: what should we, as funders, be doing for the cultural institutions with whom we work in the context of these extraordinarily difficult times?

Editors of the Reader invited GIA's research advisors to reflect on challenges facing arts grantmakers in light of current research findings on arts funding trends.

What do recent research findings suggest about the prospect for the support of arts and culture in the years ahead?

Ed Pauly: After a decade of dramatic growth in foundations' support for the arts, the funding news is now somber. Yet the meaning we make from the most recent study of foundation funding for the arts depends, as always, on the perspective we choose.