501(c)(3) non profit grantmaker

"It takes thirty leaves to make the apple."
— Thich Nhat Hanh

May 29, 1998, 116 pages, Theater By The Blind (TBTB), 306 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, 212-243-4337, ashiotis[at]panix.com

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.

There are an abundance of theories — and even more clichés — about why the arts should be in young people's lives. However, academically rigorous research that demonstrates the power of the arts is scarce. This article summarizes a decade of research by a team of anthropologists in after-school programs identified by young people themselves as high quality. The researchers found common characteristics that made these programs successful, whether their focus was academic, sport, community service, or the arts. The balance of these characteristics differs among programs, though.

1996, 142 pages, National Endowment for the Arts, Seven Locks Press, Santa Ana, California, 800-354-5348

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.

Foundation grantmakers are investors. The endowment that sustains a grantmaking program demands the same concentrated, strategic thinking that developing a focus for a giving program entails. The challenge addressed in this essay is to bring together these two basic functions — investing and grantmaking. The context for doing so is socially responsible investing. My purpose is to take an expanded definition of socially responsible investing and see if it has a meaningful role to play in arts philanthropy.

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.

New England Builds Communities through Culture

Building Communities through Culture (BCC) fosters and encourages community-building projects in New England by linking arts and non-arts partners in select areas in the region. Established in 1995 as an initiative of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), BCC is supported by The Boston Foundation, the Fund for the Arts, and a 1997 NEA grant of $200,000 for Leadership Projects in Underserved Areas.

Typically when businesses decide to support the arts they do so through a grant-giving mechanism or through a program that places employees as volunteers and consultants in arts organizations. But, I've noticed a different kind of interaction between the profit-making and not-for-profit art worlds in recent years. Some business people have set up foundations dedicated to improving the ethical and cultural context in which their own professions practice.