State & Local News
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Last month Oklahoma’s Rep. Josh Cockroft proposed legislation that would eliminate all state funding to the Oklahoma Arts Council. Now Rep. Cockroft says that House Bill 1895 has been assigned to the House Rules Committee, where it is unlikely to get a hearing this year. "I'm OK with that," said Cockroft, R-Tecumseh. "It's to merely point to a bigger conversation which I think we need to be having - which is, can we make sure that every dollar's going where it absolutely needs to go?" The bill was assigned to the Rules Committee because Cockroft listed it his ninth priority. House members are limited to filing eight bills in a session, and all subsequent bills go to the Rules Committee.
According to the Utah Education Association, school districts across the state lack funding for art or music teachers in elementary schools. Thomas Herb, an assistant professor of music education, says that in his experience of working in 10 different states, Utah has the weakest elementary arts education program. “I base this on the fact that all of the states I worked in previously had government requirements that students get a certain number of minutes a week of arts instruction from a full time teacher with salary and benefits, who is certified with an Arts Education degree and licensure,” he said. “Utah does not have this requirement.”
Last Thursday, arts advocates swarmed the Texas State Capitol to express the need for Texas Arts Commission funding to lawmakers. About 100 volunteers with Texans for the Arts went door-to-door with information about this industry’s economic impact. The arts commission has had several challenging years in recent history, with Gov. Rick Perry suggesting zeroing out the state agency in his last budget. Folding the commission into the governor’s office was another idea, but a recent Sunset Advisory Commission review recommended the continuation of the independent agency for another 12 years. While arts supporters are hoping to at least maintain funding this year, the current House and Senate budget proposals look promising with a suggestion of $4.8 million (up from $3.7 million) and the governor’s office has suggested “approximately $5 million.”
In Grand Rapids, Minnesota the Region 2 Arts Council, the Bemidji Community Arts Center and the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts hosted a “coffee party to advocate for the arts” with State Sen. Tom Saxhaug. He is chair of the committee that decides funding which goes toward the state arts board and the regional arts councils. He is also a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Legacy, which decides Arts Legacy funding through the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment. Attendees introduced themselves to the state senator and explained why they were there to meet him and how the arts impacted their lives and careers. The event also turned out to be a chance for those involved in the arts and those who have received grants to publicly thank a state senator for the economic support. Those public statements hit the mark with Saxhaug, who said he was impressed not only with the large turn-out, the eclectic make-up of the group but also the fact that people actually took the time to publicly thank a member of the legislature.
Arts funding task force members in Fort Worth, Texas have been examining the city's culture and tourism fund, budgeted at $33.4 million in 2013 revenue and funded in part by the hotel tax, as a potential landing spot for arts funding. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, who formed the task force to seek alternative funding for the arts, said that she is "not real comfortable [culture and tourism is] a very stable fund for the arts. It's just like the general fund. It has its ups and downs. Not everything in it is eligible to be used [for arts grants]. The task force is considering ideas such as gas well revenues and the hotel tax as potential sources for arts grant funding. The task force is also charged with finding alternative funding for Fort Worth Sister Cities, whose funding was cut to zero in the 2013 budget
Massachusetts legislators are proposing a tax credit to bring big-name Broadway musicals to Boston and would grant up to $3 million to a production that plays in Massachusetts before opening in New York or to a touring show that starts here, reimbursing up to 35 percent of its state labor costs. Advocates of the proposal say the credits would create hundreds of jobs and drive millions of dollars of business into Massachusetts. Critics of the bill compare it to the state’s controversial film tax credit program, arguing that the costs are not worth the benefits. There is also some question about how much business would actually be spurred through credits.
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As a new legislative session gets underway, students are taking a creative approach to advocating for the arts in California public schools. The Student Voices campaign, launched by the California Alliance for Arts Education on January 22, provides a platform for young people to create videos that demonstrate their creativity and passion for the arts and share them with their elected officials. Through partnerships with Adobe, the Berkeley Rep Teen Council, Inner-City Arts and Shine Global’s Academy Award-nominated documentary, Inocente, the Alliance will engage students statewide in a ten-week advocacy campaign. Young advocates can offer powerful evidence of the ways that arts education benefits their learning, academic achievement and self esteem.
"Creative Birmingham” is a three-year project led by the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham (CAGB), Alabama. The project is designed to build partnerships between arts organizations and businesses and institutions in sectors such as tourism, science and engineering and education. Birmingham Mayor William Bell stressed the importance of the arts on attracting businesses to the city. “Businesses that are looking for a place to locate should understand that Birmingham has a thriving arts community, a symphony, a ballet and a theater district, and that the entire metropolitan area supports the arts." Consultants Stuart Rosenfeld and Michael Kane will be implementing the study first phase of the project, a study which will include several months of interviews with business and arts leaders and individuals to create a blueprint. Rosenfeld is the founder of the North Carolina-based Regional Technology Strategies and Kane heads Michael Kane Consulting in Northampton, Mass. The two have implemented similar projects in Mississippi, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Carolina and many other locations, evaluating creative economies from large metro areas to rural communities
The debate over STEM or STEAM only marks the beginning of what needs to happen in education, says Harvey White, founder and former President of Qualcomm (a leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies). White believes that both the STEM and STEAM concepts are really "placeholders" for something else that needs to be done in K-12 education and the universities: elimination of the silos and a renewed focus on interdisciplinary learning. Arts integration is growing in importance and essentiality because both hemispheres of the brain are nurtured and the student begins the process of acquiring new thinking skills.
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Wondering how branding can help your fundraising? Based on Sarah Durham's book "Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications", this session will show how effective brandraising will help you spend less time reinventing and more time reinforcing the right messages so your prospects are more likely to understand what you do and why you do it. Sarah will show how an effective brand can make it easier to create compelling fundraising campaigns that do more with less.
Attend this webinar and take away the following:
§ How to build a solid communications foundation to benefit your organizations future fundraising campaigns
§ How to use positioning and personality to help keep all your work on track
§ How to speak with a unified organizational voice across all channels, in all tools
Webinars hosted by Americans for the Arts
New Responses to Old Complaints: Addressing Changing Customer Expectations Using New and Old TechnologiesFebruary 12, 2013 at 3:00 PM EST
Remember the days when all your ticket buyers called you when they wanted tickets? Remember when you had to pick up the phone to call them when you wanted something? Many subscribers and ticket buyers still respond to this traditional model but many of your website visitors and those aware of your organization's presence on social media have different expectations. Some of them buy and some of them don't. Learn from some real-life customer service challenges and nightmares and how you can use some new (and some old) technologies to holistically respond to these differing expectations.
Presented by: Joseph Yoshitomi, Marketing Director, Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, CA
The Evolution of Local Arts Grantmaking Series Are you an organization or agency that makes grants? Then join us for this series that showcases arts funders who are refreshing, modifying or changing grantmaking policies and strategies to support the full cultural ecosystem of their cities, towns and regions. Learn how LAAs are shaping grant programs to stimulate and support arts creation and participation in response to shifting demographics and cultural landscapes.
§ The Evolution of Local Arts Grantmaking: Technology, Systems, and Capturing Data.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 3:00 PM EST
§ The Evolution of Local Arts Grantmaking : Leveraging Investments in Creativity – What’s Next?
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at 3 PM EDT
Business Speak: Can We Talk? SeriesWith the launch of The pARTnership Movement in 2012 we explored mutually beneficial ways of partnering with business to further both arts and business goals. With this series we will provide detailed instructions for the methods and models to create successful partnerships.
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Nominate Your Favorite Business with Outstanding Arts Partnerships Today!The BCA 10 recognizes businesses of all sizes for their exceptional involvement with the arts that enrich the workplace, education, and the community. Know of a business with exemplary support of the arts in your local community? Work for one? Nominate them now for The BCA 10: Best Companies Supporting the Arts in America! Past winners include a leading animal health care company who began a vocal scholarship competition, a bank who sponsored a photo contest and commissioned artwork for their local branches, and an architectural firm who provided pro-bono design services within their community. Winning businesses will be honored at the BCA 10 Gala in New York City on October 3, 2013. Nominations for the BCA 10: Best Companies Supporting Arts in America close Friday, February 1. For more information visit the website or contact Patrick O’Herron at poherron@artsusa.org.
Register Now for Arts Advocacy Day April 8–9, 2013
The 2012 election has made a dramatic impact on Congress with more than 80 new members of Congress taking office in early January. The 113th Congress will renew the focus on reducing the federal deficit through program cuts and revenue raisers that could detrimentally impact nonprofit arts organizations. It is imperative that arts advocates work together to help educate members of Congress about the role the arts play in spurring economic growth and job creation. Register Now!
The Americans for the Arts 26th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall Washington, DC, April 8, 2013, 6:30 PM
Grammy Award®-winning musician Yo-Yo Ma will deliver the Americans for the Arts 26th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. Receive two free tickets to the lecture with your Arts Advocacy Day registration or reserve your general admission single ticket online today.
National Endowment for the Arts Announces Funding Guidelines Available for Fiscal Year 2014 Grants Art Works is the NEA's largest funding category, supporting the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. The deadlines for Art Works applications are March 7 and August 8, 2013.
The Challenge America Fast-Track category offers support primarily to small and mid-sized organizations for projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations -- those whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability. These grants feature an expedited review process with approximately six months from application to notification. The deadline for Challenge America Fast-Track is May 23, 2013.
For guidelines and application materials visit the NEA website.
The Big Read Returns for 2013 Deadline: February 5, 2013
The Big Read is accepting applications from non-profit organizations to develop community-wide reading programs between September 2013-June 2014. The Big Read is a national program designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. Organizations selected to participate in The Big Read receive a grant, educational and promotional materials, and access to online training resources and opportunities. Approximately 75 organizations from across the country will be selected. To review the guidelines and application instructions, visit The Big Read website.
SphinxCon, an inaugural convening on diversity in the performing arts, will be held February 15-17, 2013 at the Marriott Renaissance Center in Detroit. Attend to be inspired by leaders from the world of business, academia, and the arts as they share strategies to address issues of diversity in their communities and across all disciplines. Come share, inspire, and promote your ideas! |
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Leading up to Florida’s Arts & Culture Day at the state capitol, the Florida Cultural Alliance has released their 2013 Legislative Platform for Arts & Culture. The goal is to spotlight a single message at the capitol this year: Restore Florida’s investment in the arts by implementing minimum appropriations for core grants and programs. Since FY 2006- 2007 there has been a 73% reduction in Florida’s investment in its arts and culture industry.
The three categories identified as first priority for funding are Cultural Museums Grants, Culture Builds Florida/ Specific Cultural Projects grant program and the State Touring Program to bring performing and visual artists to every corner of the state. Each item is supported with a sentence explaining how the program generates funds and jobs in the state. Additionally, quotes are pulled directly from the state’s strategic plan that support making investments in the arts and culture.
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