Community Foundation

New resources and forums inspired this effort to digest significant readings in cultural participation. Researchers at the Rand Corporation, for example, have been compiling a comprehensive literature review of readings in cultural participation and audience development for the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund. The review will soon be available on the World Wide Web and will expand on the helpful bibliography previously created by Becky Pettit and Paul DiMaggio.

Grantmakers interested in school-based arts education will be interested in two recent reports.

Gaining the Arts Advantage
Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education
Laura Longley, editor/writer
1999, President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 526, Washington, DC 20506, 202-682-5409.

1997, 20-25 pages in each of three papers, Lila Wallace Readers' Digest Fund, Two Park Avenue, 23rd Floor, New York, New York 10016, 212-251-9800.

The UNUM Foundation operates as a private foundation supporting organizations in the Greater Portland (Maine) area. The foundation has six target areas of interest: aging, disability, education, family issues, AIDS, and economic development and the arts. It is funded by the UNUM Corporation, the world leader in disability insurance and among the world's leading special risk insurers. The UNUM Foundation was established in 1969. The original corporate entity was the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, founded 150 years ago this year. The company name became UNUM in 1986.

A rather widely shared belief within the foundation community holds that philanthropic resources cannot, will not, and perhaps even should not, be expected to keep up with the growing and changing resource needs of the not-for-profit arts industry. This belief has generated lively discussion among arts grantmakers about the future role of foundations in supporting a healthy nonprofit arts sector in this country.

1999. 48 pages. National Center for Family Philanthropy, 1220 19th Street NW, Suite 804, Washington D.C., 20036, 202-293-3424.

December 1997, 77 pages, The Rockefeller Foundation Arts and Humanities Division, 420 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10018-2702, 212-869-8500

People are betting on the renewal of Washington D.C. Without doubt, Washington is struggling with profound structural, financial, and governance challenges including the lack of voting representation in Congress. However, another District story is starting to be told — the story of the District as the home of thousands of dynamic and effective nonprofits and others who are renewing neighborhoods, investing in families and cultural life, and bringing life and leadership to the District.

Richard Hugo House is a two-year old literary arts center in Seattle named after the Seattle-born poet and creative writing teacher Richard Hugo who wrote squarely and poignantly about people and places often overlooked. Hugo House offers classes, workshops, events, performances, meetings, as well as simply the time and space to read and write.

1999, 556 pages, Alpert Award in the Arts, 1414 Sixth Street, Santa Monica, California 90401.

"Somewhere between tête-à-tête and performance” is the way Irene Borger, program director of the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, describes the interviews with twenty award recipients that are featured in this volume marking the program's fifth anniversary.