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Stanford Hosts Symposium on Equity in Entertainment
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From Jenna Shapiro at The Stanford Daily:

“Getting Played,” Stanford’s “first annual symposium on equity in the entertainment industry and awards” took place on Feb. 21 in Annenberg Auditorium. Leaders in the industry discussed issues of diversity and equality as part of the event, which also honored individuals who have advanced equity in entertainment. The symposium’s organizer and moderator, Kathleen Tarr, is a lecturer in Stanford’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric. She created the symposium to open up discussion about how the entertainment industry treats and represents people of color.
Ron Chew’s Keynote Speech at National Guild for Community Arts Education Conference
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Ron Chew, a leader in the community-based model of museum exhibit development, delivered a keynote address to the Conference for Community Arts Education in November 2014 called The Five Essentials: Arts and the movement for social justice. The text of the keynote is published at Northwest Asian Weekly:

How Art Morphs in Pursuit of Money
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From Peter Dobrin, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Is the act of funding great art its own reward? Or does the funder have the right — or even the responsibility — to make sure that what gets produced accomplishes a set of objectives for both the giver and the recipient? It is a given now that in order to get a foundation grant, it’s often not enough to simply apply for funding of what you do day in and day out. What do funders want? Innovation! New ways of “engaging” younger audiences! High-impact special projects that others will want to emulate!
Partnership Explores Role of Arts in Health Care
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From Naseem Miller, writing for the Orlando Sentinel:

The Dr. Phillips Center Florida Hospital School of Arts and Wellness, unveiled on Thursday morning, aims to integrate various forms of art into wellness, whether it’s in the community or in health-care settings to help families, caregivers and people with conditions such as autism, dementia, trauma or anxiety… The center’s effort is part of a national movement — from the military’s National Intrepid Center of Excellence that integrates arts into care of returning soldiers to the Arts & Medicine Institute in Cleveland Clinic — but data and standards are still emerging.
Creative Minnesota Reports on Health and Impact on State Economy, 2015
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Creative Minnesota: The Impact and Health of the Nonprofit Arts and Culture Sector is a report and accompanying website that breaks out data both statewide and regionally and serves as a snapshot of spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences, as well as other indicators of the sector’s health and impact on the economy in 2013. The broader initiative called “Creative Minnesota” is a new effort to fill the gaps in available information about Minnesota’s cultural field and to improve our understanding of its importance to our quality of life and economy. It kicks off a new centralized, concentrated and long term endeavor to collect and report data on the creative sector every two years for analysis, education and advocacy.

Explore the website.

While Large Operas Flounder, Small Companies Flourish
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From Theresa Agovino, writing for Crain's New York:

In contrast to the troubles at bigger institutions, many small opera companies are flourishing, and their numbers are expanding. Some 33 such companies exist in New York City today, more than double the number a decade ago, according to Opera America, a membership organization that promotes the art form. They are surviving and thriving because their budgets and number of staged productions are only a fraction of that of the big boys, and they specialize in niches. LoftOpera presents scaled-down versions of classic operas staged in nontraditional settings, such as former factories. Gotham Chamber Opera sets itself apart by featuring seldom-performed compositions created for smaller venues.
Kristen Madsen Joins Sonoma County Economic Development Board as Director of Arts
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Kristen Madsen, a current member of the Grantmakers in the Arts Board of Directors, and Senior Vice President of the GRAMMY Foundation and MusiCares Foundation, has been appointed the new Director of Arts at the Sonoma County Economic Development Board. She will be responsible for the Creative Sonoma program, which was adopted by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors in June 2014 and seeks to boost the nonprofit arts community and the creative for-profit arts sector. The Arts Action Plan, which established the Creative Sonoma program, explains the development path for cultural and economic development, including funding and structural plans. Kristen will join the Sonoma County Economic Development Board initially on a part-time basis March 16, 2015 and will assume full-time employment starting April 1, 2015.

NFF Funder Dialogue with Ben Cameron
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Nonprofit Finance Fund has posted an interview with Ben Cameron, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. It is the second in their interview series with foundation leaders about the intersection of philanthropy and financial strategy:

Art and Trauma: The Soldier Art Workshop
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By Susan Raab, for Nonprofit Quarterly:

Art may not be the first therapeutic tool that comes to mind when treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but it has proven to be effective and is being used in a number of places to help returning soldiers. In El Paso, a new collaborative project called the Soldier Art Workshop Program will be launched by the El Paso Art Association in March. The volunteer effort brings local artists together with area soldiers and their families and is designed to teach art to the soldiers as they “make the transition to normal military and family life after deployment.” Twelve workshops will be held at the El Paso Museum of Art and the Fort Bliss Family Center over the course of a year. They will focus on visual arts, including oil and watercolor painting, mixed-media encaustics, and digital photography.
The Legacy of Architecture for Humanity
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From Jessica Garz, writing for The Architects Newspaper:

The recent closure of Architecture for Humanity, the San Francisco–based nonprofit known for its post-disaster rebuilding projects, had a distinctly funereal feeling. Founded by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr in 1999, Architecture for Humanity was guided by the tagline “Addressing global humanitarian challenges with architectural solutions.” In addition to managing the design and construction of specific projects in the U.S. and abroad, the organization was known for its international network of local, volunteer-run chapters and its high profile publications including the book Design Like You Give a Damn and associated museum exhibitions.