The South Carolina Arts Commission’s Folklife and Traditional Arts Program, in collaboration with the University of South Carolina’s McKissick Museum, has launched the third phase of the Survey of South Carolina’s Tradition Bearers. Tradition bearers practice traditional arts handed down from generation to generation in an informal manner and not in a classroom.
Grantmakers in the Arts
by Steve
From Barry Hessenius at Barry's Blog:
This is the fifth annual Barry’s Blog listing of the Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts. It has become far and away the most popular of my postings (last year it attracted 5,000 page hits in addition to the subscriber base circulation)... This year there are a couple of changes in the format. First, this year’s list includes 50 people. And rather than do a rigid ranking (in past years the list has been a ranking of 1 - 25 — including in the past couple of years — multiple people under some of the numbers
by Steve
The James Irvine Foundation has reinvented their annual report with an interactive design intended to be more inviting and accessible.
At the heart of the report is the Program Impact section, which offers highlights of key developments in each of our three grantmaking programs and Special Initiatives. In the Leadership section, we describe ways we have used Irvine's voice to enhance the work we're supporting through grants. And finally, we look at Irvine's financial and organizational health using a variety of quantitative measures.
by Steve
Philanthropy Northwest will host a four-session series of webinars this Fall to explore in depth issues of evaluation. The series, Embedding Evaluation Thinking & Practices into Your Strategy and Programs begins Wednesday, September 19, with the session Current Thinking and Practices in Evaluation.
by Steve
From Kim Cook, Nonprofit Finance Fund, for #artsmgtchat:
In a recent Huffington Post exchange, Michael Kaiser, President of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Adam Huttler, Executive Director of Fractured Atlas squared off on the topic of new business models in the arts. As a colleague (and I hope friend) of both, I thought I might navigate the “both are true” spaces between their arguments. While Adam is careful to say that he does agree on some points with Michael, they diverge when it comes to thinking about institutions.
by Steve
From Rinku Sen at Colorlines:
I was at the Sundance Resort in Utah recently, attending the annual Creative Change retreat that the Opportunity Agenda hosts for people working at the intersection of arts and social justice. Lots of interesting discussions took place about the purpose of art, the differences/similarities in artistic process and political process, and what makes good/effective political art—or if there is even such a category.
by Tommer
The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, which has been gathering data on arts graduates since 2008, has published its annual update, accessible through a cool online dashboard. Or, there's a quick executive summary by Sally Gaskill on ArtsBlog.