State & Local News
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A Las Vegas, Nevada councilman has proposed eliminating a program that has diverted city money to public art for nearly a decade. During a council meeting last week, Councilman Bob Beers said he plans to introduce an ordinance that would repeal the city's "1 percent for the arts" funding mechanism. Under the program, the city sets aside 1 percent of capital spending for creating and installing public art. Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has responded by saying, "I am 100 percent supportive of funding for the arts, and I am interested in continuing the dialogue. You can't have a city of any value if you don't have arts and culture." Since inception, the program has generated more than $1.3 million in funding for art projects.
The Alabama Department of Education is trimming its legislative budget request for fiscal 2014 by more than $231 million. The new budget proposal includes a 2.5 percent raise for teachers at a cost of $49.9 million, but cuts 248 teacher positions. Overall, the new request seeks $3.9 billion, up $174.9 million from fiscal 2013. State board of education member Mary Scott Hunter pushed unsuccessfully for the board to reinstate the $10 million increase for the Math Science Technology Initiative. The new budget reduces that to $5 million. The new budget proposal cuts the funding increases for arts education from $5 million to $1.5 million.
Arizona Sen. Al Melvin (R-Tucson) has authored legislation, SB 1242, to create an income tax credit for companies that produce multimedia in Arizona. The goal of the legislation, Melvin said, is to make Arizona more competitive with other states that offer similar tax incentives, thus enticing graduates of Arizona’s film schools to stay. One of Arizona’s largest production competitors is New Mexico, and proponents of SB 1242 say this is because New Mexico offers a 25 percent tax credit. While Arizona’s scenery can be spotted in movies such as “Oklahoma!” “Return of the Jedi” and “Piranha 3D,” New Mexico holds claim to titles such as “The Avengers” and “The Book of Eli.” Even the 2007 remake of “3:10 to Yuma” was filmed in New Mexico.
The City of Raleigh, North Carolina has launched a new coding tool that engages the community with the city's public arts scene. The city has about 300 works of art in the collection, and Raleigh’s public arts coordinator Kim Curry-Evans is launching the Q-Art Code Project, which will allow anyone with a smartphone or tablet that scans QR codes to access information about the art. For 12 special pieces, including the Shimmer Wall at the Raleigh Convention Center and the famous acorn at Moore Square Park, students at North Carolina State University interviewed the artists and created video presentations that will play when the QR code is scanned. "It helped us to document (the art)," Curry-Evans said. "(Now we) have it in perpetuity for people beyond our lifetimes." The project, which will cost the city $15,000, launches later this week.
Pennsylvania allocated $60 million in tax credits for FY 2012- 2013 with the allocation lasting a week, and the projects all ending halfway through the year, leaving a period of six months without any action. An increasing number of young people have been drawn to the city of Pittsburgh because of the growing number of movies being filmed in the city, and now many have already left to work elsewhere. Additionally, the films have brought money into Pennsylvania communities. Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “For example, last year they filmed ‘Out of the Furnace’ in Braddock, $40 million that they brought into a community.” Already local crews have has lost out on a Pittsburgh-based TV series that is being filmed in Providence R.I. And now is when film companies are trying to decide where to shoot this summer."
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New York Times best-selling author Susan Wels was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission to chronicle the role of the arts commission as the force behind the city's evolution into an urban center filled with world-class painting, sculpture, music, dance, literature and community arts programs. The book, San Francisco: Arts for the City-Civic Art and Urban Change, 1932-2012, will be released on April 1. The book begins with the building of one of the Arts Commission’s first projects, the Coit Tower, and describes how it set the tone for the next eighty years of public art.
When a senior center hosted a program with the title “Food Diaries” at Oakwood Village Prairie Ridge, in Madison, Connecticut, attendees figured they were in for a lecture about logging meals in a journal. They were pleasantly surprised to find, instead, a theatrical performance, a series of food-related monologues presented by actors from Forward Theater Company. Attendee Merna Volnec mused, “I would think half the people who were in there would not have been able to experience it, had they not brought it here.” The Forward actors' performance at Oakwood was designed to do exactly that: bring an arts experience from downtown Madison to the places where seniors live. Two new programs, one in collaboration with the public libraries and another led by the Overture Center, are aiming for an untapped audience of older arts lovers (if not a new crop of ticket buyers).
When a reporter asked the former The Voice competitor, Chris Mann if he thought there were too many singing competition shows on television, he shared how as a child growing up in a small town, he relied on televised music specials to replace major concert tours. Mann shared stories from fans who watched him on The Voice and then enrolled in music classes and says, “From these overwhelming audience responses I would argue The Voice, and the other singing competition shows, are a new form of arts education in America. If they can't get it at school, at least they can get it at home.”
The Twin Cities feature a host of Creative Placemaking hotspots, including an arts mall at the Franklin Avenue bus station. Years ago, the Northern Clay Center on Franklin Avenue was slated to become an equipment warehouse. Instead, the Seward Neighborhood Group, Seward Redesign, and the Northern Clay Center got together a successful community-development plan to rehab the building for the clay center. Today, the center is a major arts institution that draws people from all over the region to events, classes, and shopping — enlivening the Seward neighborhood every day.
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Are you working with your donor's (or volunteer's) brain, or just trying to change it? Major marketing dollars are wasted because campaigns fail to address the way our brains are wired. Trying to "sell" someone on your non-profit's cause is nearly impossible. Donating money or time is inherently "irrational" because there's no benefit to the donor, so totally rational appeals don't work. Nevertheless, non-profits can work with our hard-wired tendencies for altruistic behavior and, with the right "neuro-nudges," maximize the return on marketing dollars.
Join Neuromarketing expert and Brainfluence author Roger Dooley for a lively, information packed session on how you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Attend this webinar and take away the following brain-science-based tips:
§ How to use the simplest tools - images, words, even type fonts - to increase the potency of your message
§ What tweaks you can make to your print, web, and in-person outreach that will provide you with more efficacy
§ Why neuromarketing is appropriate for any organization, any size!
LinkedIn Groups and Company Pages for Nonprofits
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 1 p.m. Eastern
This webinar begins with a general introduction to LinkedIn, a social network with more than 200 million professionals worldwide. Nonprofits are increasingly participating in the LinkedIn community through LinkedIn Groups and Company Pages. This webinar will teach you how to successfully create, manage, and promote a LinkedIn Group for your nonprofit and highlight best practices and demonstrate how to manage discussions, subgroups, templates, and announcements.
Also discussed is how to tap into the power of LinkedIn Company Pages already created and managed by others that are related to your mission and programs. The webinar closes with information on how to claim and set-up your organization’s Company Page and an exploration of the ever-expanding Company Page tool set.
How Nonprofits Can Successfully Use YouTube and Create Video Content for the Social WebTuesday, April 30, 2013 at 1 p.m. Eastern
This webinar begins with a demonstration of how nonprofits can successfully design and launch a YouTube Channel for both desktop and mobile viewing – even if the nonprofit isn’t currently producing videos. The webinar discusses the basic hardware and software needed to create videos in-house on a limited budget. The webinar also demonstrates click-by-click the features of YouTube’s Nonprofit Program, highlights best practices, explores the extensive YouTube toolset, and showcases nonprofits that are exceling in their use of video. Finally, the webinar will closes with a brief exploration of Vimeo, UStream, and Vine and discusses how your nonprofit can make your video storytelling mobile.
Webinars Hosted by Americans for the Arts
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 : Leveraging Investments in Creativity – What’s Next?
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at 3 PM EDT
EVALUATION IN ACTION! SeriesArts practitioners want to know: What difference are we making? What can we do better to effect the social outcomes we want to achieve? How can we tell our story better? What information will be most powerful? Answering these questions yields: More impactful work and more effective ways of working! Recognition, resources, opportunity! Seeing work in context of a field and body of research to make connections with others! Deepened knowledge, theory and practice about the work!
EVALUATION IN ACTION! webinars hone in on common evaluation challenges artists, arts organizations, and their community partners face. Each offers specific stories, techniques or tools, along with conceptual frameworks to guide thinking and design. The goal of the series is to sharpen evaluative thinking and build confidence and can-do capacity in evaluation methods that produce meaningful, useful information!
EVALUATION IN ACTION! is supported by the Nathan Cummings, Lambent, and Open Societies Foundations.
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U.S. Representative Leonard Lance (R-NJ) has agreed to become the Congressional Arts Caucus co-chair, joining Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) in leadership. Mr. Lance was invited by Mrs. Slaughter to join her and replace Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA) who retired from Congress last year. Rep. Lance has been a member of the New Jersey Council on the Humanities and a trustee of the Newark Museum and the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. The Americans for the Arts Action Fund gave him an “A+” grade for his arts support in the last Congress. Thanks are due to Americans for the Arts state captain Ann Marie Miller, executive director of ArtPRIDE New Jersey for her efforts in encouraging Rep. Lance to accept the invitation!
Last week the Wyoming Arts Council brought on Katie Christensen as the new arts education specialist. Camellia El Antably has been the arts education manager/deputy director of the Wyoming Arts Council for many years and will now be focusing on her duties as Deputy Director.
March has been designated by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) as Theatre in our Schools month, the time of year to advocate and celebrate the benefits of theatre education and raise awareness of theatre education’s power to improve academic achievement, raise SAT scores, and stimulate innovation and creativity among young people. The Department of Education reports a 16% drop in public elementary school instruction for drama/theatre over the past ten years, and a 3% drop in secondary schools. For more information on the benefits of school theatre programs, regional conferences, or Theatre in our Schools month, visit http://www.aate.com.
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.
This year, arts leaders from across the country will gather in Pittsburgh, PA from June 14-16 to find ways to improve the story of how the arts build better lives, communities, and workplaces. A series of exciting speakers and arts innovators will discuss why the arts are the best kept secret when it comes to building healthy, diverse, and engaged communities. Our Annual Convention also provides an opportunity for peer groups interested arts education, cultural diversity, emerging leaders, public art, fundraising, and more to meet each year to connect and share their work.
In addition, three preconferences offer attendees a chance to dig deeper:
Feature Your Professional Development Grant on our Convention Website
Is your organization or community offering any upcoming professional development grants? Americans for the Arts is currently compiling a list of funding sources for the 2013 Annual Convention in Pittsburgh, PA from June 14- 16, 2013. If you know of any opportunities that would help our attendees get to the convention, we would love to feature it on our Ways to Savepage! In order to be featured, please email Anette Shirinian at ashirinian@artsusa.org with the name of the organization, grant title, and link to the website. |
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