The Dana Foundation recently convened a symposium in New York on “Transforming Arts Teaching: The Role of Higher Education” as part of their ongoing commitment to arts education, as well as to the role the arts play in the development of the brain. Participants included a wide array of people from around the country who are leaders in arts education, including people from arts organizations, academia, government and the funding community. [The link above takes you a page on the Dana Foundation site that includes some video excerpts from the Symposium.] I had the pleasure of participating as well, and found it particularly relevant to the work we are doing in linking the arts and arts education to workforce development issues. The better job we can do of getting business to be active advocates for arts education because they see it of benefit to their bottom line, the more effective we can be at getting greater recognition and funding of arts education in our educational system which has been so damaged by the relentless focus on measurement of a handful of subject area skills. I thought it would be helpful to share some of the Symposium conversation through this Blog. It is a longish entry so please remember to click the “more” link to read the whole report! Dr. David J. Skorton, President of Cornell University, gave a stirring opening keynote on the importance of the arts in education. He is trained as a musician, and supported himself performing jazz while pursuing his education as a scientist, doctor, biomedical research and academic. His talk wove actual examples of music of different genres into his speech, as well as snippets of video from musical performances. He talked with passion of his belief that arts exposure, participation and training results in graduates who are both better human beings and better workers and contributors to society. (more…)
Tagged with: AdvocacyArts-EducationBusinessPartnershipsResearch
May 29th, 2007 at 09:53am
Gary Steuer
We are pleased to share with you the news that the Americans for the Arts Action Fund ArtsVote initiative was launched on Wednesday, May 23, 2007.
ArtsVoteis a national initiative to help the arts impact the presidential election. In New Hampshire, the Arts Action Fund has partnered with New Hampshire Citizens for the Arts (NHCFA) to identify, educate, train, and mobilize likely arts voters to help influence candidates to take strong positions for the arts. Through this partnership, ArtsVoteNH was launched.
This is an exciting effort and already is being noticed by the New Hampshire press and by presidential campaign staff. Check out the press clippings below:
05/10/2007: Hippo Press: “They’re Artists And They Vote”
05/17/2007: Concord Monitor: “Putting New Color Into the Primary”
05/20/2007: Nashua Telegraph: “Primary Mission: Promote the Arts”
Tagged with: About-UsAdvocacy
May 25th, 2007 at 02:15pm
Chad Bauman
I recently asked members of the Emerging Leader and Student listservs which convention sessions, speakers, and events they were most excited about. Below are their responses. Does their list match yours? Add a comment now!
NOTE: Registration for convention has closed, but we will be accepting on-site registrations in Vegas.
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I’m looking forward to hearing the Cirque du Soleil’s Creative Director speak. I’m excited about the civic engagement and leadership sessions. Since I registered so late, I did not have an opportunity to schedule myself for a tour. Those sound awesome!!
-Janine Flores
I am interested in the following sessions…Especially the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” session on enterprise/earned income at arts nonprofits since currently I am writing my thesis on that topic!
Documentary - Class Act
Urban Arts: How Large Cities Get Creative
Innovative Models: Teaching Artists and Shared Values: An Approach to Building a Community of Arts Educators
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Making Money Inside Nonprofits
Emerging Vision-An Intergenerational Exploration of Our Collective Future
Innovative Models: Changing New Orleans Communities through Arts Integration
~Marisa Catalina Casey (Marisa is one of five recipients of the Underserved Communities full convention scholarship)
Sir Ken Robinson–a great guru of arts and creativity in education, and a very engaging speaker!
~Anne Katz (Anne will be blogging the Public Advocacy Track at convention).
I’m most excited about the following sessions:
The Performing Arts Center of 2032
Out of the Box: Coaching Leaders toward Balance, Fulfillment and Success
Maps to the Future: Mentoring in the Arts
Emerging Vision
Arts Giving from Small Businesses
Trends in Foundation Giving
Trends in Corporate Giving
Advocacy in Action
I’m also excited to meet people and network.
~Brenda Lee Johnston, South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center
I am excited about many things. I love the opportunity to connect with my colleagues, the emerging leaders in particular, and can’t wait for all the great leadership sessions, peer group meetings and the EL reception to meet up with the EL folks. I am also tremendously excited about the great guest artists, but Jenny Holzer in particular. I’m a huge fan of her work; in fact, back in my art history undergraduate days, I wrote about her in my culminating thesis. And now I get to see her work first hand. I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I think we’re all going to come away with some great experiences and knowledge to bring back.
~Robin Iten Porter
After several hours of going through all the sessions, this is what I have come up with. Ugh, It’s so hard having to decide between so many good options! It’s like choosing between Double-Mint Chocolate or Rocky Road!
~Nicolle Gordillo (Nicole is a Summer Scholar at Americans for the Arts).
WARNING - shameless plug follows!
Mitch Menchaca and I are leading a convention session with Bill Moskin and Nancy Glaze on the last afternoon of the convention. Don’t leave the early, because you’ll miss out on the most lively discussion of the weekend!
The title of the session is Emerging Vision: An Intergenerational Exploration of our Collective Future. We are going to bring many of our list serv conversations into one space to see what it means to our future when you link it all together. Generational change, not-for-profit model, changing demographics, technology, professional development, attracting and retaining leaders and more, will provide greater insights, spark a dialogue, and hopefully lead us to develop some suggested strategies to move forward. Bill and Nancy have actually just finished a related Monograph that you can purchase at the convention as soon as you check in. It’s a great read that helps provide further context for the session. We hope to see you there!
~Jennifer Armstrong
Putting Cultural Assets to Work
Fostering Cultural Citizenship — How Can snd Should We Support the “Informal” Arts?
Arts and Econ Impact III
Econ Revitalization in the Northeast
Emerging Arts Leaders morning meeting
Future of Private Sector giving to the Arts
Artist Fellowships: Values and Vision
How to work effectively with your Local Government
Nontraditional sources of Federal Arts Funding
New Executive Directors
Making Money inside Nonprofit Organizations
~Nat May (Nat is one of five recipients of the Emerging Leader full convention scholarship)
I’m really excited about attending Dave Hickey and Rha Goddess’s sessions. Also excited about the Emerging Leaders Recption since this is my first convention and I’m looking forward to meeting some other individuals on the listserv.
~Jessica Thompson
Tagged with: About-UsEvents
May 25th, 2007 at 11:08am
Rebecca Borden
Exciting news from our Government and Public Affairs Department…
Yesterday afternoon the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which sets the initial funding level for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), approved a $35 million increase for the NEA for its FY 2008 spending bill.
If this funding level is maintained by the Senate and signed into law by President Bush, it will represent the largest increase in NEA history. The agency, currently funded at $124.4 million has only seen increases of under 3% for the last several years.
In his first public action on arts issues as chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) invited Americans for the Arts to organize a high profile panel of witnesses to testify at a congressional hearing “Role of the Arts in Creativity and Innovation,” in conjunction with Arts Advocacy Day on March 13, 2007. This was the first hearing in over 12 years held on the importance of investing in the arts.
We want to extend a special thanks to all of Americans for the Arts grassroots activists for your letters and calls to Congress. It’s working!
Continue to help the arts by becoming a member of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund today!
Tagged with: AdvocacyMembership
May 24th, 2007 at 09:47am
Chad Bauman
Recently Americans for the Arts released The Future of Private Sector Giving to the Arts in America, a report on the proceedings of the 2006 National Arts Policy Roundtable, produced in partnership with The Sundance Preserve. I encourage everyone who cares about the arts to carefully read this report. In addition to reporting on the recommendations of the Roundtable, it also provides a summary of the research that was done as part of the process. In a nutshell, private sector giving to the arts, as a percentage of all private sector giving, has declined from 8.4% to 5.2% since 1992. If we had maintained an 8.4% share of giving, the arts would now be receiving $8 billion more in philanthropy. This market share decline has been masked somewhat because giving as a whole has been growing steadily so that even with a declining share, the total dollar amount of arts giving has grown, from $9.96 billion in 1995 to nearly $14 billion in 2004. However, in 2005 even the dollar amount of giving to the arts declined by half a billion dollars, or 3.4%. So a review of all the data out there seems to paint a picture of some real challenges in private giving to the arts. Read the Roundtable report for an overview of the recommended solutions. (But more on that at another time!)
Now the Foundation Center has just issued a new study of giving by corporate foundations that shows an increase of about 6% for the second consecutive year. So what gives-is the picture rosy, or gloomy? Well, the answer is,both, or perhaps muddy. First, this new research covers only corporate foundations, not direct corporate giving, and there seem to be sharp differences between the respective patterns. Corporate foundations direct 11% of their giving to arts and culture, according to the new Foundation Center figures. This is much higher than the roughly 5% figure reported by the Conference Board and the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy which study mostly large corporations, a figure that combines corporate foundation giving with direct corporate giving. The Foundation Center statistics also don’t count the in-kind giving of pharmaceutical companies through special foundations, which was $3.2 billion in 2005, a 90% increase over 2004. Other corporate research does include these in-kind gifts of drugs. In other words, the total corporate giving pie is growing dramatically, but this growth is being at least partially driven by donations of drugs that arts groups don’t compete for (OK, on bad days with major grant proposal deadlines looming, maybe we wish we DID have some of those drugs). The growth of the pie makes it look like our market share is shrinking worse than it really is.
HOWEVER, the fact that the Foundation Center is finding a 6% growth in corporate foundation giving, and the arts are clearly not seeing corporate giving growth that is comparable, shows that the problem is still very real and must be addressed. To be continued in future blog entries, because there is much complexity and nuance in this issue.
Tagged with: AdvocacyBusinessFundraisingResearch
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:04am
Gary Steuer
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