Category: issues

“Roughly 60% of the nonprofits said they plan to hire staffers in 2010, and more than half expected salaries to increase, according to the survey.”

David M. Rubenstein, ranked “No. 123 on last year’s Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, is co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group…. He has an impressive track record of generosity in Washington and elsewhere. In six years on the Kennedy Center board, he has given the center $3.5 million.”

“This year’s budget allocates $46.1-million [Cdn] for the arts, which includes $10-million in funding from a new 2010 Sports and Arts Legacy Fund. According to the budget, this marks a spending increase for arts and culture of just over $4-million from last year. But arts groups are upset that funding wasn’t restored to 2008-09 levels.”

“Concerts by Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethania and a talk by soccer-player-turned-activist Socrates are highlights of the Festival Brazil” this summer at London’s Southbank Centre. “HSBC, which wouldn’t disclose the cost of the sponsorship, is looking to boost business in Asia and Latin America.”

To observe the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the Kennedy Center will present a new Peter Lieberson score for the National Symphony based on the late President’s speeches; a program of First Lady Jackie’s favorite ballets, danced by ABT; recreations of the legendary White House concerts by Casals and Bumbry; and a three-week festival of arts from India, scene of one of the Kennedys’ most famous state visits.

“Honoring the wishes of the dear departed is trying enough among friends and family. (Can we sell the house? Should we put the cash into a college fund or splurge on the vacation of a lifetime?)” David Jays considers the questions faced, the power wielded, the approaches taken by the heirs of such artists as Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Beckett, and Vladimir Nabokov.

“On two occasions Don Snyder approached one of the nation’s largest private philanthropic organizations about supporting a performing arts center in Las Vegas. Both times, Snyder says, the foundation said it wasn’t interested in getting behind the project.” Ultimately, Snyder convinced the foundation to provide more than $150 million. How did he do it?

“The Performing Arts Blueprint warns that skills shortages and gaps are likely to result from under-investment in training,” leaving the sector less able “to fulfil its economic promise.”

“There is a European flavor to the funding of the arts in Puerto Rico,” including the fact that board members “are not routinely expected to make financial contributions or to play a central role in fundraising.” New “pressure to increase private funding dramatically” means that “boards will have to change their roles.”

“There’s a showdown brewing in Texas: between the neighboring cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. They’re not fighting over land, or water, or oil or gas rights; they’re fighting for cultural supremacy. Who’s got the best art museum? Who’s bigger in the music world?”