Arts Advocacy Day 2014 on March 24-25 brought together 500 arts advocates from 45 states to Washington, D.C., last month for National Arts Advocacy Day, which is organized by Americans for the Arts and cosponsored by more than 85 national organizations. In a time where the arts are currently facing many challenges and there are many voices competing for the same pool of money on Capitol Hill, the timing of this event couldn't have been better.

The Tennessee Arts Commission is offering grants to Tennessee-based arts organizations and individuals for Americans for the Arts' Annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee this June 12 - 15.

ArtsWave, one of the nation’s oldest united arts funds based in Cincinnati, announced that their recently completed 2014 campaign has been the most successful to date.

In March 2014, the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) published its annual State of the Nonprofit Sector. Our VP of Research, Randy Cohen, breaks down the findings for us on ARTSBlog. 

With less than 30 days left to reach its $1.70 million Campaign for the Arts goal, United Arts of Central Florida announced that it has attained 77 percent or $1.31 million. This places them ahead of last year’s campaign by 9.7 percent.  Additionally, United Arts is expanding its United ArtsCard donor benefit, a buy-one-ticket-get-one-free and discount card, to include Broadway Across America.

Since the onset of the euro crisis, Portugal’s government has shrunk in size and sold various assets amounting to about $11 billion. However, the plan to sell off a collection of works by Catalan artist Joan Miró faced much opposition and intense conversation. The debate about how much the state should be allowed to sell led to the question of whether a nation’s cultural heritage is out of bounds.

Today, the Obama Administration released its FY 2015 budget request to Congress, which includes funding for the nation's cultural agencies and programs, such as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Office of Museum Services, and the Department of Education's Arts In Education program.

Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts stated the following:

Things are looking up for the nation’s state arts agencies. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies reports that legislative appropriations increased 10.5 percent in 2014, to $306.6 million. This is the second year of growth following four Great Recession years of budget cuts.

KEY FINDINGS

1) State and jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) reported $306.6 million in legislative appropriations for fiscal year 2014.

This past month, 13 arts organizations in small and rural communities throughout the state of Arizona were awarded $111,000 in Community Catalyst Grants from the Governor-appointed Arizona Commission on the Arts. The competitive grant program was established by a one-time state budget allocation for Fiscal Year 2014 and awarded funding of up to $10,000 to support community-focused partnerships between arts and non-arts organizations in communities with populations fewer than 100,000.

With 2013 ending, we at Americans for the Arts find ourselves grateful for so many great arts achievements this year. There are so many partners doing amazing work in towns, cities, and states across the country--and in reflecting on this work, we wanted to especially thank the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and its staff for serving as the national lynchpin for the whole US arts field.

Jan Stevenson writes to the Post Gazette about the ways in which businesses help support the arts in the Fox Valley region. She sites one of Americans for the Arts' Business Committee for the Arts survey in stating cash and non-cash giving by businesses in support of arts programs between 2009 and 2012 has increased by 18 percent, which means they have returned to near 2006 levels.

Americans for the Arts' Vice President of Research, Randy Cohen, joined the National Endowment for the Art's Sunil Iyengar for C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal”  on Friday, November 29 to talk about federal arts funding.
 

As independent artists, it's always difficult to find enough funding to keep your work going. For Lisa Blayton, the generous grant she got from the South Carolina Arts Commission and the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund was about more than the dollars.

“What was really important was that someone thought my art was special enough to support it,” she said.

Congress returns from its August recess this week to a busy legislative agenda. The U.S. House is scheduled to be in session only nine days this month, and have a packed agenda with decisions looming over the outstanding funding legislation and potential default on the national debt. To allow for more time, they are expected to pass a short term funding measure called a Continuing Resolution to keep the government operational by maintaining current funding levels.

Americans for the Arts' CEO and President, Robert Lynch, was selected to be on the 2013-2014 Advisory Committee for the Commitee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), along with 13 other members from the coporate, government, nonprofit, consulting, media, and academic fields.

The congressional debate has officially led to a government shutdown as of 12:01 a.m. this morning, after the House and the Senate were unable to come to an agreement over legislation for the 2014 Fiscal Year Budget over the weekend.

President Obama signs the American Tax Payer Relief Act of 2012 making permanent the Bush-Obama tax cuts for earners making below the income threshold of $400,000 (individuals) and $450,000 (families). While not the large grand bargain that would have established comprehensive tax reform and changes to dramatic sequester spending cuts, the legislation averts marginal tax rates being raised on 98% of the taxpayers.

Congress has passed the "No Budget, No Pay" Act (H.R. 325), which extends the nation's debt ceiling through May 18. As part of the legislation, each chamber is required to pass a budget by April 15 or have its members face a suspension of pay.

The Obama Administration released its FY14 Budget Request with proposed increases for the nation’s cultural agencies over last year’s appropriated levels. The National Endowment for the Arts proposed funding goes from $146.3 million to $155.5. Other agencies and programs saw modest increases as well with the Office of Museum Services receiving a $2 million bump to $32.9 million and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting staying level-funded at $445 million.

Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, was interviewed by Jeffrey Brown last week for the PBS program NewsHour's Art Beat segment discussing how the federal government sequestration is affecting the arts in the United States.

Bob describes in detail how funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is leveraged across the country on a state and local level. They also talk about the history of funding for the NEA and President Obama's proposed FY2014 budget. See the full segment below: