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Arts Education and Advocacy: An Investment in Every Child’s Future
Posted on by Steve

From Doug Herbert, writing for the U.S. Department of Education's Homeroom blog:

Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” April 9th was Arts Advocacy Day here in Washington, D.C., and thousands of advocates from across the country came to rally in support of arts education programs in our schools, pre-K through high school, that will solve the problem Picasso described.
Philanthropy’s Critical Moment
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From Vikki Spruill, writing for the Council on Foundations RE:Philanthropy blog:

We want the next generation to say: If you think the first 100 years of philanthropy were impressive, the next 100 years were even greater. For that to happen, though, we have to think differently about how we are going to work with each other and with the public and private sectors. Gone are the days of one-off transactions. Going forward, partnerships across our sector and other sectors will be at the core of the Council’s work. The new Council will be about connectivity, networking, trend and pattern identification, and leveraging the full talent and capacity of our field and other fields with which we collaborate.
Bob Lynch Addresses Sequester Cuts, Federal Funding on PBS NewsHour
Posted on by Steve

Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, was interviewed by Jeffrey Brown last week for the PBS program NewsHour's Art Beat segment discussing how the federal government sequestration is affecting the arts in the United States. Lynch explains how funding for the National Endowment for the Arts is leveraged across the country on a state and local level.

Obama's arts budget plan goes beyond restoring sequester cuts
Posted on by Steve

From Mike Boehm at The Los Angeles Times:

President Obama’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year would boost federal arts spending 10% above where it stands at the moment, lifting it to $1.58 billion for the 2013-14 budget year that begins Oct. 1 and more than compensating for cuts from the “budget sequestration” bill that went into effect last month. Those reductions sliced 5% across the board from three federal cultural grant-making agencies as well as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, lowering their combined spending from $1.51 billion to about $1.44 billion for fiscal 2012-13.
NEA Announces $350,000 in Grants for Research
Posted on by Steve

National Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced $350,000 in NEA support for 17 new research grants that measure different characteristics and contributions of the arts, which the NEA has mapped as a complex, dynamic system. This is the second annual round of Arts Works: Research grants, which encourage the public to propose research studies using new or existing data sets to measure the value and/or impact of the arts in the United States.

Thoughts For Those in Boston
Posted on by Steve

We extend prayers and thoughts of recovery for those directly affected by today's bombings and to all those who live and work in the beautiful city of Boston. We are thinking of our many GIA colleagues who will work diligently to bring the city back to normalcy after this tragic act of terrorism. Bostonians, you are in our hearts.     —Janet Brown

NFF Webinar to Examine 2013 State of the Sector Survey Data
Posted on by Steve

Nonprofit Finance Fund released its 2013 survey data late last month. They will discuss the survey and its results in a webinar that will take place on Monday, April 22nd at 3:00pm EST (noon PST). According to NFF, Nearly 6000 nonprofit organizations nationwide shared details of their financial and management practices in the survey. The webinar will dive into the data and identify the key trends to inform the most substantive discussions and thoughtful policy-making across the sector in the coming year.

How Norway Funds A Thriving Jazz Scene
Posted on by Steve

From Michelle Mercer writing for NPR's A Blog Supreme:

Did you hear about the Italian gallery owner who burned his gallery's paintings last year — with the cooperation of the painters? It was a sort of desperate smoke signal to his government; a means of protesting funding cuts. If there haven't been similar protests in the U.S. lately, it could be because we're used to declining arts funding.
The link between art and innovation
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Chris “Kiff” Gallagher, Jr. plugs Arts Advocacy Day in Politico:

Tuesday is Arts Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill. With so many complex challenges facing America — in education, public health and the economy — should Americans care? The answer is yes. Especially since addressing these problems will require continuous innovation.
Artists and Gentrification: Sticky Myths, Slippery Realities
Posted on by Steve

Anne Gadwa Nicodemus writes for Createquity:

We have an unfortunate tendency in the U.S. to view artists as special/different/other. Larry Gross likens it to artists being on a reservation or special island in his On the Margins of Art Worlds. As early as elementary school, teachers single out a few students with god-given talent from the apparently uncreative masses. This is a cultural construct. In Native American cultures, art is an integral part of life, not a separate vocation/occupation.