GIA Blog

A Global Nonprofit Ponzi Scheme? Lessons Learned from a Fiscal Sponsor’s Collapse
Posted on by Steve

From Rick Cohen at Nonprofit Quarterly:

When a nonprofit implodes, the tendency is to avert one’s gaze and hope that it was simply that one nonprofit or its specific cast of characters that made it a “one-off.” When the nonprofit International Humanities Center (IHC), a fiscal sponsor for over 200 projects around the world, imploded, it’s estimated that it took with it more than $1 million in donations that never made it to the intended recipients in what begins to look like a nonprofit version of a Ponzi scheme.
New from the Cultural Data Project: Grantmaker CDP
Posted on by Abigail

Grantmaker CDP is a new online interface designed by the Cultural Data Project (CDP) to provide strategic planning and program evaluation tools to help funders in the arts and cultural sector.

Arts Policy Library: Investing in Creativity
Posted on by Steve

Katherine Gressel, who has just completed her stint as a Writing Fellow for the blog Createquity, published last week a deep-dive review and analysis of the Urban Institute report from 2003, Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structures for U.S. Artists (full report is here). The research and publication of the report, as Katherine explains in her review, led to the formation of the 10-year national initiative Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) that is in its final stages now, as well as the expansion of NYFA Source into the online database we know today.

Boston Schools Get $4m Arts Programs Boost from Wallace Foundation
Posted on by Steve

From Colin A. Young at The Boston Globe:

The Boston public schools have received a $4 million grant to maintain and expand arts education for students across the city.

Superintendent Carol R. Johnson said the grant, from the Wallace Foundation in New York, will greatly enhance an initiative launched three years ago by the school district, the city, and outside partners to provide more instruction in the visual and performing arts.

Arts Grantmakers Dedicated to Vibrant Community and Individual Artists
Posted on by Steve

The Minnesota Council on Foundations Philanthropy Potluck blog provides an overview of a recent webinar with arts grantmakers who focused on community vibrancy, support for individual artists, and avenues of non-cash support for organization:

Yesterday in MCF's fourth – and final – webinar in our 2012 grantmaking outlook series, leading arts grantmakers expressed their dedication to supporting the arts and individual artists. Recent giving trends show that grantmaking to arts has declined 7.6 percent since 2004. MCF’s outlook for 2012 indicates that arts funding will remain relatively stable. Bill King, MCF president, discussed arts funding challenges and opportunities
Philanthropy’s Unanswerable Question(s)?
Posted on by Steve

From Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center on the PhilanTopic blog:

Q: Exactly how much do America's foundations spend each year to benefit Hispanic and Latino populations?

A: We don't really know.

McKnight Foundation Launches State of the Artist Blog
Posted on by Steve

The McKnight Foundation has a new blog for the community to follow. State of the Artist made its first post today from Laura Zimmermann. Here's a bit about the blog's focus:

Within the cultural sector, conversations about artists often derail in one of two ways: Either the discussion quickly turns to one about “the arts” rather than artists, spinning unspecific platitudes about “intrinsic value” or building wobbly arguments about the economic benefits of having a big theater next door to your restaurant.
Berry named Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities
Posted on by Steve

Wendell E. Berry, noted poet, essayist, novelist, farmer, and conservationist, will deliver the 2012 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Network lessons from the Pink Ribbon Rebellion
Posted on by Steve

From Seth Cohen, the Director of Network Initiatives for the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, for Working Wikily:

There is no question that there are many lessons to be learned from Komen’s unplanned Planned Parenthood experience. Politics aside, even while assessing all of the steps and missteps Komen has made (and, we hope, continues to learn from), the Pink Ribbon Rebellion demonstrated one thing Komen actually did right: it built a social network of activists bound together by a collective identity built on education, empowerment and interconnectedness. And this network, as we saw, doesn’t need Komen at its center—it is quite capable of taking on a life all its own.
Walking The Tightrope of Leadership
Posted on by Janet

The role of a chief executive officer (CEO) of a nonprofit organization is challenging in very interesting ways.  We are asked to lead an organization without actually being the leadership or governing entity of the organization. We are asked to be visionaries and managers, transformational and transactional leaders at the same time.