Days One and Two at the 2014 GIA conference in Houston have gone by quickly — jam packed days with sessions from early morning (8:00) through evening (9:00 or 10:00 + socializing) and almost no breaks... On Monday the very first session I attended was Art and Tech: Bending New Technologies to Native Traditions, organized by Wendy Red Star, Program Associate, and T. Lulani Arquette, President and CEO, of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, based in Vancouver, Washington.
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With the GIA 2014 Conference well underway in Houston, you can follow the thoughts and observations of the three conference bloggers at blogs.giarts.org/gia2014/. Barry Hessenius has posted his day one experience:
Note: There is no way I can possibly cover all the material I absorbed in today’s sessions and do justice to it all tonight. So, I am going to hit a couple of highlights and then come back later in the week and cover the rest, together with some personal comments and insights. And that is likely to be my approach tomorrow as well. I also plan on a separate post on the GIA Preconference on the Unique Practice of Arts Grantmaking this weekend.
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The Governor of Kentucky has announced that Judi Jennings, former executive director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women and a GIA Board Member, has been given the Milner Award. The Milner Award is presented for outstanding philanthropic, artistic or other contributions to the arts. The Milner Award is the most prestigious of the Governor’s Awards in the Arts, and was established in 1977 in honor of B. Hudson Milner, a Louisville utility executive and civic leader, whose contributions to the arts in Kentucky remain important to this day.
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From Jess Bidgood, writing for The New York Times:
Between 2006 and 2012, the wealthiest Americans became less generous with charitable donations, as a share of their total income, while lower- and middle-income Americans reached farther into their pockets as they witnessed the need for charity in their communities, a study says.
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From Randy Kennedy at The New York Times:
If you say you are an artist, but you make little money from selling your art, can your work be considered a profession in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service? In a ruling handed down late last week by the United States Tax Court and seen by many as an important victory for artists, the answer is yes.
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Gregory T. Rowe of Berwyn, Pa., passed away at home on Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, after a 14-month battle with cancer. He was born on Sept. 17, 1951 in New Bern, N.C. Greg was the director of culture initiatives and deputy director of the Philadelphia program at The Pew Charitable Trusts from 2009 to 2012. He began work at Pew in 1997 as a program officer in culture. His vision and the strategies that were implemented under his leadership continue to be contributing factors to Philadelphia’s cultural revitalization. He also oversaw special culture projects such as the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s program Engage 2020, and played a key role in supporting initiatives that reinvigorated the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance as the region’s primary advocate for arts and culture. Greg was involved in developing the Cultural Data Project from its inception in 2001 through 2011. The CDP is now used by thousands of cultural organizations and more than 100 funders throughout the country.
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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Board of Trustees has approved a strategic plan intended to guide the foundation’s philanthropic work in the coming years. The foundation is merging the separate programs focused on liberal arts colleges and research universities into a single program for Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities. Also, the programs for the performing arts and for art history, conservation and museums will be consolidated into a single program for Arts and Cultural Heritage.
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The Wallace Foundation has announced a six-year, $40-million arts initiative, Building Audiences for Sustainability, designed to help about 25 outstanding performing arts organizations across the United States create programs that attract new audiences while retaining existing ones. This initiative aims to provide meaningful support to arts organizations whose artistic vision and mission involve building audiences. The foundation also seeks to understand and share evidence and experiences from these organizations on whether and how they can achieve and sustain audience gains, and whether these gains improve their overall financial health.
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A certified media junkie, Latoya Peterson provides a hip-hop feminist and anti-racist view on culture with a special focus on video games, film, television, and music. Skilled in interviewing and creative non-fiction, Latoya Peterson spends her time editing the award winning blog Racialicious.com – the intersection of race and pop culture. She is a Contributing Editor for The Root.com and Content Producer for the Online News Association.
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Sarah Lutman is principal at Lutman & Associates, a consulting and program development enterprise working with cultural, public media, and philanthropic organizations nationally. As an entrepreneur she creates civic projects designed to spark discovery, debate, and dialogue, and writes extensively about ideas and trends in the nonprofit sector and the culture at large.