Category: issues

“Three not-for-profit theatres have arrived at the final round of the third National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations, a project of the Yale School of Management-The Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures.”

“The toppling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 recast daily life, as the two halves of the country awkwardly reunited. A capitalist gentility took hold in the historic Scheunenviertel, a district of the old East Berlin, as courtyards along Sophienstrasse and elsewhere were tidied up and residential buildings converted into showcases for art. Today, what Prague and London were in the 90’s, Berlin has now become: a magnet for anyone who wants to live and work in a city that is humming with cultural energy and, by contrast with the rest of northern Europe, an insane bargain.”

Eileen Mackevich forced departure from the helm of the Chicago Humanities Festival has left the event at a crossroads. Mackevich, who co-founded the festival, was known for crafting a high-minded series that somehow never smacked of elitism, and her ouster was widely portrayed as a purely political move by her enemies on the board. Regardless of the circumstances, the festival will have its hands full as it tries to regroup under new leadership.

Cleveland arts organizations are looking for big money. Can they find it? “Three of Cleveland’s nonprofit institutions have campaigns that together hope to raise more than $700 million. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s $300 million effort is the newest, seeking money to expand and renovate the University Circle museum.”

Lincoln Center is growing. “With jazz after midnight and late-morning, breakfast concerts of classical music, Lincoln Center is evolving into an almost “24-7″ performing arts hub. As it adds edgy creativity to its mainstream fare, the centre is expanding culturally and physically. It also has enlarged its board of directors to include leaders in non-artistic fields raising money from donors who might never before have given to the arts.”

“On the occasion of Women’s History Month, Back Stage talked with the heads of several women’s organizations for their spin on the challenges facing women in the arts and media today and to learn what they’re doing about them. A repeated refrain is that while the status of women has improved enormously, there is still a lack of equality in terms of clout and pay. Men continue to outnumber women in positions of power behind the scenes, get better roles on stage and screen, and generally earn more money than their female counterparts of equal competence and experience (at any level above scale).”

Arts advocates have been touting the arts’ economic benefits in making their case for the arts. But a new RAND study wonders if arguments for the arts shouldn’t bebroadened…

After months of wrangling over zoning codes and property rights, the Dallas city council has voted to expand the city’s downtown arts district. The move is largely an effort to bring several “weed-choked lots and run-down gas stations” into line with what has become one of Dallas’s most elegant and well-designed neighborhoods.

Getting money from foundations and government is usually a log complicated process. by contrast, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, a charitable trust established by the banking family that owned M&G takes a simple approach. “The foundation spends more than £5.5 million a year on the arts and heritage. It shows how money can be delivered quickly and productively to places where it can stimulate and support good art without socio-political agendas getting in the way.”

The UK government spends 412 million on arts and culture this year. Here’s how it’s spent…