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Wallace Report on New Concepts in Audience Development
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Arts organizations are looking for ways to develop their audiences. What works? What doesn’t? And how can successes be sustained? Building Arts Organizations that Build Audiences is a new report documenting a June 2011 Wallace conference of foundation-supported arts groups, marketing mavens, researchers and others, provides some potential answers, including encouraging organization-wide learning.

From the report:

How Grantmakers and Nonprofits Can Make the Case for Funding Policy Advocacy and Civic Engagement
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Register for NCRP’s next “Pulse” webinar, Leveraging Limited Dollars: How Grantmakers and Nonprofits Can Make the Case for Funding Policy Advocacy and Civic Engagement on Monday, March 26, at 2:00pm EST, to discuss the newest findings from NCRP on the impacts of foundation-funded policy and civic engagement and share innovative ways that grantmakers and nonprofits are using this information to increase resources for advocacy and community-based problem solving.

New Website at Durfee Foundation
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Executive Director Claire Peeps announced today that the Durfee Foundation has launched a new website. Check it out at www.durfee.org.

Better Test Scores Lead to Better Lives and Strong Economy: Fact or Hunch?
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Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

It is rare that a pundit (and ardent reformer) lays out clearly and crisply the core assumption driving the past thirty years of school reform. It is not only rare but startling when that insider then questions the assumption, suggesting that it is a hunch, not a fact. That is what Mike Petrilli does in his recent posting, “The Test Score Hypothesis.”
NYTimes Data Artist Jer Thorp on Humanized Data at the Intersection of Science, Art, and Design
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Maria Popova at Brain Pickings:

In his fantastic recent talk from TEDxVancouver, my friend Jer Thorp — data artist in residence at The New York Times and Brain Pickings regular — takes us on a sweeping tour of his work and ethos, living at the intersection of science, art, and design... Underpinning Jer’s examples is a powerful common thread of humanizing data and making it a living piece of our personal histories and cultural poetics.
Fighting Flattening of Culture in Newfoundland
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From Keith Bellows at National Geographic:

Zita Cobb is building a future that respects the past. Her Shorefast Foundation, founded in 2006 on Newfoundland’s rugged Fogo Island, aims to parlay 400 years of local culture, centered historically on fishing, into a thriving economy bolstered by the arts and tourism. To that end, the foundation is funding the construction of art studios—complete with a residency program for guest artists—and a 29-room inn, set to open this year, where visitors and locals will mingle in common areas. The foundation will also grant micro-loans to help locals start their own businesses on the 92-square-mile island. Cobb, who made her fortune in the high-tech industry, is at the vanguard of a culturally responsible form of entrepreneurship.
Seeing Anew: How Serving on a Selection Panel Changed My Perspective
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John Killacky for ARTSblog:

Recently I served as a panelist for the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Forty-nine applicants wanted to be embedded in scientific research teams. They sought to explore the ethos, mythologies, and realities of this extraordinary continent.

Composers wanted to listen to the wind, water, animals, and shifting ice. Visuals artists hoped to delve into infinite striations of whiteness: the effects of transparency on ice, the glitter of ice crystals, and light and shadow patterns on the surface and internal features of the frozen landscape.

Bruininks Named as Interim Preisdent at Bush Foundation
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The Bush Foundation Board of Directors have announced the appointment of Robert H. Bruininks, Ph.D., to act as the Foundation’s interim president, effective March 1, 2012. Former president Peter C. Hutchinson stepped down in January.

Scientists Map The Brain During Dancing
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From Huffington Post:

We can guess what our brains go through while we're dancing; we experience euphoria, elation, happiness, and probably nervousness for those with two left feet. While we're just conjecturing, scientists at Bangor University are discovering precisely what goes through the brain while we're shaking our groove thing. Dr. Emily Cross enlisted the help of contemporary dancer Riley Watts to examine how the brain responds to movement, both choreographed and improvised.
Arts Programs Help Students Improve in All Areas
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From Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah at the Chicago Tribune:

Arts programming was a factor leading to improved standardized test scores at three schools in Chicago over three years, according to a report released today by the educational arts non-profit Changing Worlds and Loyola University.

The study is just the latest calling for more arts education in Chicago Public Schools. With the district moving to a longer school day next year, the Chicago Teachers Union and parent groups like Raise Your Hand have called for more time devoted to enrichment classes like music and art and less time devoted to test preparation.