Family Foundation

Last month I was signed up by a colleague to give a lecture to a class of graduate students at New York University studying arts management, all of whom were intending to pursue careers as managers and administrators in cultural institutions, and most of whom already had some experience in line management under their belts. My session was slotted into the finance elective.

Although most grantmakers get involved in program development, it is rare to have the chance to build an entire foundation giving program from the ground up. However, that was exactly the challenge Olga Garay encountered three years ago as the first program director for the arts hired by the newly established Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF). The New York-based foundation was created in 1996 as part of Ms. Duke's estate, whose family wealth came from her father's tobacco company and Duke Power.

At the annual GIA conference last fall, a group of twenty or so participants gathered together for a roundtable session devoted to funding individual immigrant and traditional artists. Organized by staff or board members of the Bush Foundation and the Flintridge Foundation, the roundtable session provided one of the first opportunities for foundation program officers engaged in this type of support to share information and to identify common concerns and strategies to meet them. And, indeed, common concerns and themes did emerge in the discussion.

The Minnesota Regional Arts Councils (RACs) system is one of a kind. Established in 1977 by the Minnesota State Legislature, the Regional Arts Councils work in partnership with the Minnesota State Arts Board to share responsibility for equitably distributing legislative arts funding throughout the state. The result of this system is decentralized decision- making for providing arts grants, establishing programs, and providing services.

In a past report on challenges facing San Francisco Bay Area arts nonprofits (Reader, Vol. 11, No. 2), I wrote at length about space. Many nonprofits had been forced to seek new office, rehearsal, and storage space due to a steep rise in Bay Area real estate costs fueled by demand from a dot-com economy for start-up locations. The situation seems to have eased somewhat, in part due to funder- and municipally-driven programs as well as to a general downturn in the economy.

The Americans with Disabilities Act has been an important piece of legislation, opening doors to opportunities and enabling people with disabilities to gain access to employment, homes and quality of life. Since the passing of the ADA in 1990, the National Endowment for the Arts has been holding conferences with regional arts organizations to encourage access to the arts.

CLEA: Consortium for the Liberal Education of Artists

Here's a simple recipe for something magical: take a group of artists and educators with an unusual (and an unusually passionate) sense of mission, bring them to the exotic conference facilities of The Howard Gilman Foundation's White Oak Plantation in Florida, mix well. Then stand back to see what happens.

When we initiated an artist award program at The Durfee Foundation a few years ago, we decided to use financial need as one of several criteria for support. Durfee is a relatively small family foundation, and the trustees feel strongly that the foundation's modest resources should be applied where they will make the most difference. This is true across the board at the foundation, not only in the arts, but in our other programs as well.

In recent months, debate has been renewed over whether learning in the arts causes a "spill-over" effect on children's learning in other fields, directly or by transfer, and whether that "spill-over" is what should be measured. The discussion was heightened by the publication of a special issue of The Journal of Aesthetic Education titled "The Arts and Academic Improvement: What the Evidence Shows," with guest editors Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland.1

I have been an artist and arts administrator for over thirty years. Now that I'm on the other side of what painter Chuck Close calls "temporarily abled," I find my own profession not very accommodating. Unexpectedly,five years ago I was partially paralyzed from complications of surgery.

Museums seem to be the most problematic. My gallery visits are based on stamina, not driven by content. Are comfortable benches so contrary to the enjoyment of art? Group tours leave me behind: I often catch up just as the docent is leading the group on to the next room.