Featured in the current Reader is Capitalization and Risk, an article from San San Wong, Laura Sherman, Susan Nelson, and Ashley Berendt that looks at how capitalization supports grantees’ ability to both take and manage risk.
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From Sara Guaglione at iSchoolGuide:
A new NAMM Foundation study reveals a majority of teachers and parents believes music and arts education is important for children, and most even believe that music education should be required in middle school. A nationwide study, titled "Striking a Chord: The Public's Hopes and Beliefs for K-12 Music Education in the United States 2015," surveying 1,000 teachers and 800 parents found strong support for music education at all grade levels.
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From Mike Boehm, reporting for the Los Angeles Times:
California has long ranked at or near the bottom nationally in per capita taxpayer funding of its state arts agency. The $5-million increase from the $1.1 million in Brown’s initial arts budget would push the state’s arts spending to about 24 cents for each state resident. The national per capita average is $1.09, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. To reach it California would have to increase the arts council budget to $42.3 million.
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The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has announced that Jessica Mele will join the Foundation as a program officer for Performing Arts. Mele will begin work at the Foundation in early August were she will work to provide philanthropic support to arts organizations throughout the greater Bay Area. As a program officer, she will manage approximately 80 grants, including many focused on arts education delivery, advocacy, and policy.
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The Spring 2015 edition of Responsive Philanthropy is just out from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), and it delivers a great set of article covering Racial Equity issues and bias in philanthropy and grantmaking. From Aaron Dorfman’s introduction:
Like most white people in the United States, I grew up completely oblivious to the many privileges I enjoy because of the color of my skin. It wasn’t until I took courses in college like “Race, Power and Inequality in America” from Paul Wellstone or “Race, Reform and Rebellion” from Manning Marable that I began to develop an understanding of how our nation, its institutions and the experiences of its people are overwhelmingly shaped by race and racism. Serving as a community organizer for 15 years, primarily working with communities of color, deepened that understanding.
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Featured in the current Reader, Lynne Connor, Ph.D., from the Department of Theater and Dance at Colby College, explores the recent evolution, and possible future, of audience engagement in her essay, Replacing Arts Appreciation with Arts Talk.
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The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance has just released an in-depth study of patron loyalty in the arts. The new report, 2014 Patron Loyalty Study: Loyalty By the Numbers examined the financial transactions (including ticket sales, memberships and donations) of almost a million Greater Philadelphia households, using seven years of data from 17 major cultural attractions in the region. One of the key findings of the report is that, despite the sector’s focus on developing new audiences, the erosion of current audience loyalty represents one of the most significant financial risks for cultural groups.
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From Peter Dobrin at The Inquirer:
When it comes to insuring a healthy future for arts and culture in Philadelphia, does it really matter who becomes the next mayor? The answer is important because, like a prospector who discovers a gold mine then watches others pull riches from it, the Philadelphia arts and culture community has been looking around and wondering when its turn will come.
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From Colleen Dilen at her blog Know Your Own Bone:
Personalization has been an increasing and unrelenting theme in much of the data collected regarding visitor-serving organizationsand it is begging for more attention in the world of cultural centers. Typically, conversations about personalization within these institutions are interpreted as a need for crowd-sourced exhibits/programs or more creative, online initiatives. And those can be excellent ways to actively incorporate personalization into an engagement strategy! What’s decidedly NOT excellent is assuming that personalization doesn’t affect nearly everything in regard to operations and engagement these days.
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The New England Foundation for the Arts has received a grant of $1,700,000 from the Barr Foundation to launch Creative City, a three-year pilot that will make grants to Boston artists to create works that integrate public participation. Creative City will provide new resources to artists to bring their creative voices to Boston neighborhoods, and to further enliven the places where they live, work, and play with culture and creativity.