Grantmakers in the Arts

(8-1-10) Here's a summary of an interesting interview on the BBC with Joi Ito, Internet guru, and keynote speaker at the upcoming GIA conference.

And here's the audio of the complete interview.

(8-1-10) In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

For a national reading program, $1 million isn't a lot of money, but that's all the National Endowment for the Arts will spend this year on its once highly hyped Big Read. It's a 73 percent reduction.

(7-28-10) Yesterday, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation announced three one-year, general operating support grants totaling more than $3.2 million. The Flint Cultural Center Corporation will receive $1.35 million, the Flint Institute of Arts $1.25 million, and the Flint Institute of Music $650,000. This round of grants marks the eighth consecutive year of general operating support, totaling more than $21 million, provided by Mott to these organizations.

From the Mott Foundation press release:

(7-26-10) July 25, Drake Bennett for The Boston Globe:

...Ivey has an ambitious proposition: create what he calls a “cultural EPA.” His vision is not a European-style culture ministry, but a federal agency that would make sure no one gained too much control over the nation’s cultural assets: Just as the Environmental Protection Agency was created to regulate any activity that exploited the nation’s environmental resources, so would a cultural EPA regulate activities that affect the nation’s cultural riches.

(7-22-10) Bad Culture caught wind of Medici's Lever via John Kreidler's GIA Guest Blog and set up an in-depth interview that you can read here.

John Kreidler will continue to discuss Medici's Lever, a web-based tool designed to model the dynamics of cultural policy in an urban environment, on his GIA-hosted blog—the first in a series of guest blogs that GIA will roll out over the course of the year. Check back often and feel free to post questions and comments.

(7-21-10) From the Washington Post:

In a White House where first lady Michelle Obama's relationship to the arts strives to be both rarefied and common, cerebral and pragmatic, the cultural program is dictated by tradition, personal life story... and an unabashed desire to shake things up.

(7-21-10) The Performing Arts Alliance reports, "According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), processing times for regularly-filed artist visa petitions will not exceed 14 days.

(7-21-10) From Open Society Institute:

To give a boost to New York City arts organizations hard hit by the financial crisis, the Open Society Foundations today announced $11 million in grants to support community and educational arts initiatives...