Arts Intranet

Overview of nonprofit cultural heritage organizations in the and a snapshot of their structure, finances and programs.

Little has been heard from the front lines, from the people who have been targeted by censorship and the arts advocates who have spent enormous energy and time working to defend freedom of expression. In [this book], we have gathered those voices together for the first time to tell their very personal side of the story. (from abstract)

Identities are collective before they become individualized, and the arts have always been used to establish the parameters of identities. The question then arises; what and whose memory and history are to be included or excluded, defined and sacralized, by and through the arts? The answer to that inherently political question sets the boundaries of the collectivity, be it nation, ethnic group or the arts community itself.

Children's personal skills are increasingly likely to influence their future earning potential, not just exam results, a think-tank suggests. Failure to teach key skills such as communication is widening the gap between rich and poor, says the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Bool edited by Sue Vineyard, a compilation of essays about volunteer diversity, leadership, and management.

Attracting more people to the arts is a major goal of museums and orchestras throughout the country. As Feldstein (1991, 9) has commented in his volume on the economics of art museums, too little is done to attract members of the public who normally do not come to the museum, too little is done to educate those who do come, and too few specialized exhibitions are presented for relatively well-informed museum visitors.

Arts and culture not only attract creative workers but also have a positive impact on the community. Researcher a the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impact of the Arts Project found that the presence of art and culture offering in a neighborhood has a measurable impact on the strength of the community. (p.1).

A strategic business plan, based on current research data, designed to address the needs and issues facing arts and cultural organizations and constituents in the Sacramento Metropolitan area.

The Mississippi Arts Commission Strategic Plan for 2003-2008 summarizes the agency's six primary goals to improve and expand arts participation and activities in Mississippi.

The authors use the examples of the National Council on the Arts (NCA) and the California Arts Council to show the magnitude of official opposition to reforming cultural policy in the . Cultural policy, they argue, has been left entirely to vested interests, and it has been virtually ignored by the press. They use both state and national policy examples to show the extent of opposite and degree of red-baiting.

The author's essays discusses and defends music and culture in the United States. Of particular importance is the author's emphasis on American music: the problems of maintaining American compositions in the repertory, the fate of orchestras and opera companies, the role of public and private funding, the destinies of performers, the nature of arts administration, and the hunt for the wider audience.

The arts can flourish in democracy but have often developed with remarkable vibrancy as part of a culture of dissent or rebellion in autocratic societies. Democracy needs the arts (and the humanities which they anchor), for they constitute a crucial element in civil society's cultural infrastructure. Yet the democratic impulse has sometimes found itself at odds with artists and felt threatened by the avante garde or anti-majoritarian or the aristocratic in culture. (from abstract)

The Arts and Civic Engagement demonstrates with statistically reliable data that arts participation overwhelmingly correlates with positive individual and civic behaviors. Put simply, Americans who read books, visit museums, attend theater, and engage in other arts are more active in community life than those who do not.

The 1997 Program Prospectus is a summary of Very Special Arts program activities in the , planned for the period from October 1, 1996 through September 30, 1997. This publication reflects the creativity and diversity of arts programs throughout the VSA network.

Published by FEDAPT, the Foundation for the Extension and Development of the American Theatre. Explores the role of arts in community activism on an international level.

Of course this is not a new idea. Over the past two decades some of this country's finest artists and arts organizations have been quietly establishing a remarkable record of innovation and success in institutional and community settings.

Informed Americans are all too familiar with the list of grim problems facing this nation today. To mobilize the required resources and bear the necessary sacrifices calls for a high level of motivation. How can we regain motivation, the will, the vitality to deal with the challenges ahead. That is the issue that is addressed in this paper.

The author examines the concept the arts of social change or ASC with examples drawan primarily from groups active in Washington, D.C. Working with various at-risk populations, in a variety of programs and media, such programs are eligible for public and foundation funding and have to deal with issues of bureaucratic management and accountability that never occurred in an earlier period.

The Teaching Artist Companion to Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change, written by Dennie Palmer Wolf and Jeannette Rodríguez Píneda with contributing teaching artists, shares how teaching artists, and the programs and institutions that support them, embody and activate the values in the Aesthetic Perspectives framework.

As definitions of public art broaden to include social and civic practice, cultural agencies and funders are responding by supporting more place- and issue-specific work as well as cross-sector collaborations. The Scan offers snapshots of 28 programs supporting and building capacity for artists to work in the public realm and highlights overarching themes. Detailed summaries from interviews with seven selected programs provide additional insights.   The report is offered in the spirit of advancing field dialogue about supporting artists working in the public realm.

A Blade of Grass (ABoG), launched in 2011 as a service organization, supports socially engaged artists working in partnership with communities to create social change. While it isn’t primarily a grantmaker, each year ABoG makes fellowship awards—$20,000 stipends for specific projects paired with strategic support, assessment tools, video documentation, and other tailored resources—to up to 10 artists or artist collectives. In 2013, ABoG inaugurated a second program of Distinguished Artist Fellowships to make

The Orton Family Foundation integrates art and artists into its community planning work with small towns in New England and the Rocky Mountain West. As foundation staff helps small town residents plan for and control future growth through their signature Heart & Soul Community Planning grants, they’ve found that using art projects—radio stories, intergenerational sculpture projects, illustrated recipe books—to discover and highlight stories about what makes their town special is an effective civic engagement and community building strategy. As residents are engaged

This piece sheds light on the philanthropic sector’s efforts to improve measurement and evaluation (M&E), specifically within the context of foundations involved in social change work. The broad observations of the six contributing authors are that purpose; cost-benefit ratio; culture, context and capacity; unit of analysis; timing; feedback; and transparency matter to measurement and evaluation. Luis A. Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation, discusses how an organization’s results-focused climate is established and can be used to “define, promote and reinforce a