Family Foundation

October 1996, 30 pages, The Aspen Institute, Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Suite 1070, Washington, D.C. 20036, 202-736-5800.

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.

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.

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

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 Council on Foundations' 1998 Family Foundation Conference was held February 22-25 in Los Angeles. For the first time in the recent history of this conference, family foundation trustees and executive staff lobbied and succeeded not only in including arts on the conference agenda, but in having an entire day devoted to elective arts sessions. Arts funding was one of five "spotlight sessions on critical issues." Mercy Pavelic, president of the Heathcote Art Foundation, participated on a panel on Arts Funding and the Future.

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, 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.

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.