GIA Blog

Roberta Uno Stepping Down at Ford Foundation
Posted on by Steve

From Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation:

Dear Colleagues:

I am writing to share wonderful news regarding our extraordinary colleague Roberta Uno. In a continuation of the issues that she has worked on during her time at the Ford Foundation, Roberta will become the Director of Arts in a Changing America, a new national project engaging changing demographics through the lens of aesthetics, arts practice, cultural equity, and social justice which will be based at the California Institute of the Arts.

Tremaine Foundation, Herberger Institute Release Report on Arts Business Training
Posted on by Steve

A new report from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation examines how business training being delivered to artists across the U.S. and leverages research conducted in the inaugural year of the Tremaine Foundation Fellowship in Arts Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University. “How It’s Being Done: Arts Business Training in the US” seeks to move beyond identifying the programs and organizations that are providing business training specific to the arts. The research also explores how training is being delivered, and where there are gaps.

Future of the San Diego Foundation’s Arts Funding Questioned
Posted on by Steve

By Kinsee Morlan at San Diego City Beat:

There’s a shortage of arts-and-culture funding in San Diego. That’s why there’s been shock and concern in the arts community after the recent announcement that Felicia Shaw, longtime director of arts and the creative economy at The San Diego Foundation, had left her position. The foundation is the biggest and most influential grant-making community foundation in the area, and critics say that Shaw’s departure signals the organization’s waning support for the arts.
Opera Philadelphia Has Bold New Business Model
Posted on by Steve

From Francis Hilario at The Philadelphia Business Journal:

Opera Philadelphia is in the midst of rehearsing for the East Coast premiere of “Oscar,” a new American opera based on Oscar Wilde that’s set to debut in February. But the company is also in the midst of a changing business model. The upcoming “Oscar” is the first of two productions co-commissioned by Sante Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia as part of the latter’s American Repertoire Program. The program has the lofty goal of producing one new American opera for the next 10 seasons. The second commission, an opera based on Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain,” will premiere next year. Along with providing audiences with fresh material, the opera’s new American program has also allowed it to go from being a local company to one that’s global.
Governance Lessons from the SD Opera: Culture, Transparency and Bravery
Posted on by Steve

From Eileen Cunniffe, writing for Nonprofit Quarterly:

This weekend, the San Diego Opera will open its 50th anniversary season — a season that came perilously close to being cancelled when the company’s board voted last March to cease operations at the end of the 2014 season. Nearly ten months after the company and its board began a highly public meltdown, followed by a hard-won battle to re-engage the community and restructure the organization, San Diego Opera was featured at the 11th annual Nonprofit Governance Symposium at the University of San Diego on January 10. In a panel discussion titled “Saving the Opera: Lessons Learned from a Board Perspective,” current board president Carol Lazier, board members Linda Spuck and Joe Watkins, and new CEO Keith Fisher shared insights from the wild roller coaster ride they’ve experienced since last spring.
Catalyzing Culture and Community through CDFIs
Posted on by SuJ'n

Last week the US Department of Housing and Urban Development PD&R Edge magazine published “Catalizing Culture and Community through CDFIs.” In this article, Judilee Reed, director of The Surdna Foundation's Thriving Cultures Program, discusses the importance of community development finance institutions in the creative placemaking movement.

Reed writes:

The cross-sector nature of this work suggests the existing infrastructure in the community development field, like community development finance institutions (CDFIs), could play an important role in helping artists, arts and culture organizations, and non-arts organizations build their capacity to sustain creative production long after dedicated funding for specific projects has passed. For many CDFIs, the role they play in providing both financing and technical assistance to support neighborhood-based projects and the growth of small business in low income communities implies they may also have the potential to pivot their services to engage artists and projects that support the development of arts and culture.

Nonprofits Win Key Victory in Overhead Battles With Government
Posted on by Steve

From Tim Delaney at The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Rather than focusing on what Congress will (or won’t) do in the new year, foundations and other nonprofits would do well to take a close look at a little-noticed overhaul of federal grant-making rules — in the works for three years and that took effect the day after Christmas — that could provide meaningful traction for ending the so-called nonprofit starvation cycle.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Releases Investment Review on Creative Placemaking
Posted on by SuJ'n

The Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco recently published the Community Development Investment Review on Creative Placemaking. This anthology of articles and ArtPlace America profiles shares research and best practices in providing capital to low- and moderate-income communities through creative placemaking approaches.

NEA Releases Three New Reports on the Arts
Posted on by SuJ'n

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) releases three reports using data from 2012 to show the life of the arts and cultural sector from three perspectives. The first report, When Going Gets Tough: Barriers and Motivations Affecting Arts Attendance, uses data collected from a NEA-sponsored topical module in the General Social Survey to learn more about why people attend different types of arts events. The second report, A Decade of Arts Engagement: Findings from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, 2002-2012, investigates arts participation rates from 2012 and compares them with findings from previous surveys using 2002 and 2008 data. The third report in this series, The Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACPSA), analyzes the arts and cultural sector's contributions to the US gross domestic product (GDP), finding they exceed previous estimates of its impact on employment and the national economy.

NFF Begins 2015 State of the Sector Survey
Posted on by Steve

Nonprofit Finance Fund has just announced the State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey for 2015 is now open. NFF conducts the annual nationwide survey to examine challenges and trends in the nonprofit sector, and it has become an important source of information for arts and culture organizations. Last year, more than 900 arts and culture organizations responded to the survey, contributing a wealth of information to the field. With your help, we can do even better in 2015! GIA presented a Web Conference to examine last years survey findings. You can watch that Web Conference session online.