GIA Blog

As you may know from one of GIA’s previous webinars, “New Horizons in Arts Education: The Student Support and Academic Enrichment program,” the Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) program provides key federal resources that can be used by States, school districts, and schools to provide access to and courses in the arts for our nation’s public school students.

Congress gave final approval on Friday, March 27, to a $2 trillion measure that will deliver "direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states, and a huge bailout fund for businesses" battered by coronavirus crisis, as The New York Times reported.

Arts philanthropy, while not leaving legacy gifts behind, is shifting toward "impact and engagement and making a difference,” says Anders Petterson, founder of ArtTactic and author of the report TEFAF Art Market Report: Art Patronage in the 21st Century, Barron's reports.

London N. Breed, San Francisco mayor, announced an Arts Relief Program to invest in working artists and arts and cultural organizations financially impacted by COVID-19.

Lisa Pilar Cowan, vice president of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, shared recently how the foundation has started to take action in light of the ongoing impact of the coronavirus "to reflect where we are – off a cliff."

"As a woman of color leading a nonprofit, I am no stranger to mansplaining," shares Sarah Iddrissu, executive director of E4E-Boston, in an article in Educators for Excellence that stresses that nonprofits need women of color in leadership and the need to disrupt the structural barriers to their advancement.

COVID-19 is hitting investment portfolios with "a series of plunges in asset values not seen since the market meltdown of 2008," Debra Moniz, director of administration and finance at the Cedar Tree Foundation, writes in Exponent Philanthropy.

Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” a bill that "has strong implications for the artist residency network," as the Alliance of Artists Communities noted recently.

In moments when the COVID-19 virus is part of our daily conversations, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, in partnership with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), launched recently a new program for emergency medical grants, artnet reported.

Grantmakers in the Arts is sharing resources and guidance on COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) and encouraging grantmakers to support their grantees by treating their funding flexibly in these difficult and rapidly shifting circumstances.