Grantmakers in the Arts

"Preserving the Ephemeral" Theater Survey
by Steve

Theatre Communications Group has joined with the University of Minnesota Libraries Performing Arts Archives and the American Theatre Archive Project to examine how theaters think about their cultural legacy and what they do about their archives. An online survey is now open to gather data on the subject:

We want to know how your theater companies are (or aren’t) documenting your productions for future use. We hope to hear from as many people as possible who are working in theaters. If you know of other theater companies who could contribute to this discussion, please share the survey link with their directors. We are particularly interested in hearing from theaters of color, whose history has been most at risk of disappearing without a full or reliable story, but we are interested in hearing from everyone.
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Social Impact Games: Do They Work?
by Steve

In 2010, Knight Foundation funded two social impact games as pilot projects in two cities – Macon Money, in Macon Ga., and Battlestorm, in Biloxi, Miss. Unlike past foundation support for digital games, these took place in real-time with real people in the real world and they supported ongoing efforts to tackle local issues. There is already an existing body of research about how digital games have the potential to improve learning and influence behavior. But less attention has been paid to the effects of real-world games – i.e., games that are played out in the physical world. Knight wanted to explore which aspects of real-world games were most effective in addressing community issues.

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Michael Norton on Money and Happiness
by Abigail

New this week to the TED website, a brief talk by social science researcher Michael Norton on the benefits of spending pro-socially, which is spending on others and spending to benefit a group. A little insight into why we love working in this field.

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Artists and Crowd-sourced Funding
by Steve

From Jonathan Zwickel at City Arts:

Americans have rarely come close to agreement about the role of art in society, let alone how to fund it. But a growing consensus in the media and the general public contends that crowd funding is a democratizing force, a peer-to-peer system of market-driven benevolence far more fair and efficient than the traditional, top-down model of government and foundation support.

For better or worse, the rise of networked culture over the past decade has changed the way artists approach their art. Crowd funding further clouds the issue. More than pure creative talent, marketing and promotion skills are part of a successful crowd funding campaign: Those who can sell their work before it’s even made are the ones that receive the most funding.

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Money For Arts Journalism, In Three Cities That Need It
by Steve

From Laura Pellegrinelli at NPR:

Most people who haven't been living under a rock are aware of the newspaper industry's precipitous decline. And even the least media savvy surface dwellers could guess that this sorry state of affairs has disproportionately impacted arts journalism. In comparison with the one in four newsroom jobs that have been lost in the last decade, approximately half of all arts writing staff positions and beats have disappeared, according to estimates by Arts Journal editor Douglas McLennan.
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Can We Break the Glass Ceiling of Arts Leadership?
by Steve

From Elenor Whitney at ArtsFwd:

Gender inequality is not ignored in the arts world, but the underlying causes behind it, and the effect that has on the structure of arts organizations, is not deeply discussed. I would like the field to directly address these questions: why are so many directors men when a majority of women work in the arts in entry and middle management-level positions and have strong professional experience and education? And how does this impact arts organizations’ capacity for innovation and dynamic change?
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Federal Arts Endowment Sharply Cuts PBS Grants
by Steve

From Elizabeth Jensen at The New York Times:

The National Endowment for the Arts made sweeping cuts in its support of established PBS shows on Wednesday, and for the first time awarded significant grants to an array of gaming, mobile and Web-based projects. Among the PBS programs receiving significantly less financing under the 2012 Arts in Media grants were “Live From Lincoln Center,” which was awarded $100,000 last year and nothing this year.
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Documentary Filmmaker Wins Against I.R.S., Which Saw Her as a Hobbyist
by Steve

From Michael Cieply at The New York Times:

(Lee) Storey went to court after the Internal Revenue Service tried to disallow her deduction of expenses incurred while making and marketing the film “Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story.”

The movie played the festival circuit after it was finished in 2008, but has yet to become a money maker. So the tax collectors contended that Ms. Storey, who is a practicing lawyer when she is not making documentary films, was engaged in a hobby, not a business, because she enjoyed filmmaking, and wasn’t turning a profit, despite some considerable efforts to do so.

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