National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman announced today that the NEA plans to award 928 grants totaling $77.17 million to not-for-profit organizations nationwide. These grants support exemplary projects in arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, opera, presenting, theater, musical theater, and visual arts, and provide support to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations.
Grantmakers in the Arts
by Steve
From Kathleen Sharpe, president of the Canadian Conference of the Arts:
After months of silence, we finally know where we stand: the federal government has confirmed officially it will put an end to 46 years of funding to the Canadian Conference of the Arts by March 31, 2013. The good news is: we can count on some transition funding. We trust that Minister Moore’s decision to grant final funding to the CCA is an acknowledgment of the pertinence of our business plan and of our serious intent to transform the organisation.
by Steve
Today, Janet Brown, the executive director of Grantmakers in the Arts made the following statement regarding the announcement on school turnaround and arts education by the President's Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The Arts Education Funders Coalition, a project of Grantmakers in the Arts, is seeking to expand the role of arts education in federal education policy.
by Steve in Arts Education
Presidentially-appointed artists Chuck Close, Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington, Forest Whitaker, Damian Woetzel and Alfre Woodard to work with schools in eight states as part of the program
See also, GIA Executive Director Janet Brown's response to this announcement.
Today the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced the launch of a new arts education initiative to help turn around low-performing schools, developed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education and the White House Domestic Policy Council. The Turnaround Arts initiative is a new public-private partnership designed to narrow the achievement gap and increase student engagement through the arts. Working in some of the nation’s lowest-performing elementary and middle schools, this program will test the hypothesis that high-quality and integrated arts education boosts academic achievement, motivates student learning and improves school culture in the context of overall school reform, announced the committee’s co-chairs, George Stevens Jr. and Margo Lion.
Turnaround Arts will work in eight “turnaround schools” across the country—public schools in the lowest-achieving five percent of their state that are receiving School Improvement Grants through the U.S. Department of Education. Over the course of two years, Turnaround Arts will bring intensive arts education resources and expertise into these schools and support the school leadership in using the arts as a pillar of their reform strategy. An external evaluation of the program will measure the impact and effectiveness of this approach.
by Steve
Three new models designed to strengthen local arts coverage will soon launch with funding through the Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge, which sought innovative ideas for informing and engaging people in the arts. The challenge winners were announced today at a virtual press conference. They will each receive up to $80,000 to launch their ideas.
by Steve
Today, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation announced the first class of recipients in the Duke Performing Artists Initiative. The initiative was announced last fall when the foundation allocated $50 million additional dollars to performing arts funding. From Ben Cameron, director of the Arts Program at Duke:
The Doris Duke Artist Awards recognize artists who have produced a significant body of work within the past decade—work that has already been supported and recognized by national citations, awards, prizes and/or grants, including at least one grant supported entirely or in part by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
by Steve
From Alex Aldrich, executive director for the Vermont Arts Council:
A recent post by Brooklyn Philharmonic CEO Richard Dare set the nonprofit arts world all abuzz. It gave a lot of statistics about the number of orchestras that are failing and the general fragility of the non-profit art sector—in short, the kind of alarm-ringing I, for one, have heard since the early 1970s when I began my career in the arts.
by Steve
From Bob Booker, executive director of the Arizona Arts Commission:
On Tuesday, April 17, 2012, Governor Jan Brewer signed HB2265 into law, reauthorizing the Arizona Commission on the Arts for 10 years.
HB2265’s success is attributable to a monumental statewide effort: a yearlong collaboration between artists, arts educators, administrators, board members, advocates and bipartisan elected officials.