--Analysis of survey data on Norwegian students social recruitment and cultural habits in 1998 and 2008. 
--Particular emphasis on the attitudes and knowledge in regard to music, literature and television shows. 
--A major decline in interest in and knowledge of most forms of traditional legitimate culture is found. 
--Legitimate culture is thus marginalized in one sense, but also increasingly linked to privileged social backgrounds.

The 2010 National Arts Policy Roundtable, The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength, focused on the role of the arts in answering the national imperative to improve education in order to meet the global challenges we face. This report is a summary of the findings of this convening at the Sundance Institute in September 2010.

... Decades of research show strong and consistent links between high-quality arts education and a wide range of impressive educational outcomes. This is true even though, as in most areas where learning is complex, the research base does not yet establish causal proof. Arts integration models, the practice of teaching across classroom subjects in tandem with the arts, have been yielding some particularly promising results in school reform and closing the achievement gap.  Most recently, cutting-edge studies in neuroscience have been further developing our understanding of how arts strategies support crucial brain development in learning.

At the same time, due to budget constraints and emphasis on the subjects of high stakes testing, arts instruction in schools is on a downward trend.  Just when they need it most, the classroom tasks and tools that could best reach and inspire these students -  art, music, movement and performing  -  are less available to them. Sadly, this is especially true for students from lower-income schools, where analyses show that access to the arts in schools is disproportionately absent. ...

SEE FULL REPORT

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) at Indiana University's Center for Postsecondary Research addresses the previously unanswered question of what happens to alumni of performing and visual arts in its report, Forks in the Road: The Many Paths of Arts Alumni. Stereotypes and misconceptions abounded about what these graduates were doing, with one of the most common being that they are unable to find work in their desired field and therefore are forced to take jobs outside of their desired field. After receiving 13,581 responses, SNAAP was able to dispel that myth and provide a clearer picture of the activities of these graduates.

This first look report presents selected findings from a congressionally mandated study on arts education in public K-12 schools. The data were collected through seven Fast Response Survey System surveys during the 2009-10 school year. This report provides national data about arts education for public elementary and secondary schools, elementary classroom teachers, and elementary and secondary music and visual arts specialists. A later report will present findings on a broader set of indicators on the status of arts education in 2009-10 and comparisons with data from the 1999-2000 study where applicable.

Last fall, 30 top-level decision makers and thought leaders from government, business, education, and the arts gathered at the Sundance Resort and Preserve for the Fifth Annual Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Roundtable, to discuss this year's theme - The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength.

Their conclusions are profiled in a new report issued this week by Americans for the Arts that calls for individuals across the public and private sector to recognize the arts as the transformational tools they are for making schools stronger and students more successful.

As part of its goal to make quality, sequential arts education a reality in all public K-12 classrooms in Los Angeles County, Arts for All connects school districts with effective tools and resources to improve arts learning. The Arts for All School Arts Survey: Measuring Quality, Access and Equity in Arts Education is the most recent of these tools to be introduced. It was developed to measure access to and quality of arts instruction at the school site level as well as to develop a system for collecting and reporting the data. The results are useful to schools and school districts to find out what is working, what's not working, and to point the way toward improvement. But the results can also provide a picture of what's happening across a region.

Findings include:

• Secondary schools are doing moderately well in delivering the instruction they can currently afford to offer. They have expert instructors, monitor student progress, showcase their best work, and keep parents informed of activities and performances.
• College and career preparation in the arts resulted in very low index scores and merits further investigation.
• Elementary schools revealed a lack of accountability, an absence of school-wide plans for arts education, a lack of adequate time in the teaching day, and a constant pressure to meet academic targets in math and reading.
• Developing and adopting supportive arts policies could help set a clearer course for incremental change over time.

This report, commissioned from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, investigates the relationship between arts education and arts participation, based on data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts for 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2008. The report also examines long-term declines in Americans' reported rates of arts learning -- in creative writing, music, and the visual arts, among other disciplines. Authors Nick Rabkin and E.C. Hedberg find that the declines are not distributed evenly across all racial and ethnic groups.

Education Reform in the New Congress: What Could It Mean for Arts Education?
Originally recorded on January 11, 2011 (90 minutes)

After a decade of debate since the last major education bill, is it time for action? According to President Obama, Education Secretary Duncan and leaders in Congress, education reform is one policy area that could find bipartisan agreement in the new Congress. However with limits on federal spending, new players in town and different ideologies there's a lot of reasons why it may not happen.  

Join this webinar to view a presentation by Americans for the Arts Director of Federal Affairs Narric Rome as he demystifies the issues and impact of federal K-12 arts education policy, identifies the federal movers and shakers in education reform for 2011, and speculates what federal action could mean for arts education at the state and district levels.  The webinar will offer Q&A opportunities for the webinar participants and will include the following national arts education leaders as Commentators:

• Heather Noonan, Vice President of Advocacy, League of American Orchestras
• Debora Hansen, President, State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE)
• Richard Kessler, Executive Director, The Center for Arts Education (NYC)

Free for Americans for the Arts members; not available to non-members.

This report shows the results of Teaching Artists and Their Work Survey: ATA's Survey on What are Meaningful, Supportable, and Sustainable Environments for the Work of a Teaching Artist.  The focus of the survey, conducted between September 2009 and March 2010 was Teaching Artists' experiential knowledge. Teaching Artists' from fifty states and the District of Columbia responded to the survey.

From the Washington Post: "This 14-minute film does a great job detailing the impact of arts education on the development of children's cognitive, artistic, social and psychological development. The film, 'Enlivening the Senses: Arts|Learning at the Core of Education,' was created through a partnership between the nonprofit organization Arts/Learning and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts."

Based on research and responses to a survey distributed in August 2009 to the IFACCA network, the report examined a range of lobbying, advertising and grassroots arts advocacy campaigns that national arts funding agencies have undertaken over the past decade. The report also explores which strategies raised awareness of the arts and which backfired. The report is full of useful information, including the finding that a more effective way to appeal to parents is to use specific phrases such as "your kids" or "your children" rather than the generic "kids" or "children." Other information -- such as finding that many find the term "the arts" vague and confusing -- present new challenges for arts advocates as we consider our work for the next year.

In New York City, the cultural capital of the world, public school students do not enjoy equal access to an arts education. In fact, in schools with the lowest graduation rates - where the arts could have the greatest impact--students have the least opportunity to participate in arts learning.

This report takes the first ever look at the relationship between school-based arts education and high school graduation rates in New York City public schools. The findings, based on data collected by the New York City Department of Education (DOE), strongly suggest that the arts play a key role in keeping students in high school and graduating on time.

In 2008, the Arts for All Executive Committee commissioned Lynn Waldorf to conduct a series of case studies on the eleven vanguard school districts that joined the initiative within its first five years. The case studies document the progress made and issues confronted by each school district during the early stages of planning and implementing their arts plans. Key findings include:

• Half the Vanguard Districts adopted standards-based sequential curricula in music and visual arts within three years of initiating implementation. Fewer than 20 percent have added dance or theatre.
• 82% of Vanguard Districts reported they joined the Arts for All initiative to replace a patchwork approach to arts education with sequential instruction. Approximately half were also motivated by the opportunity to improve equitable access for all students.
• All the Vanguard Districts had either hired or assigned someone to coordinate the arts education reform effort--a factor that was considered critical to achieving their goals. In general, districts with full-time coordinators in administrative positions were able to progress the furthest.

This report presents the results of the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the arts, which was given to a nationally representative sample of 7,900 eighth-grade public and private school students. Approximately one-half of these students were assessed in music, and the other half were assessed in visual arts.

FROM THE FOUNDATION CENTER: "The New York City-based Wallace Foundation has published a new issue brief that examines recent Wallace-funded research on coordinated approaches to arts learning in which schools join forces with other arts providers to expand access to and the quality of arts learning. The brief, Increasing Arts Demand Through Better Arts Learning (4 pages, PDF), found that while coordinated approaches to arts learning can be challenging to implement and are vulnerable to issues such as a lack of school time dedicated to the arts, they have the potential to significantly increase access to high-quality arts education opportunities for children."

For many children in the United States, arts education, if offered at all, is uninspired and infrequent. What do arts educators and others think are the key attributes of quality in arts learning in K-12? Researchers at Harvard's Project Zero explore this question through interviews, case studies and a literature review. Excellent arts education, they conclude, is not simply a matter of adopting a research-proven set of "best practices." Rather, it requires educators and others to reflect deeply about a range of issues, including the many possible purposes of arts education, from helping students develop aesthetic awareness to helping them grow as individuals. The report includes a set of tools that can assist in making decisions about achieving and sustaining quality arts education.

If schools are to succeed in reaching every child academically, they need the support of a parent or primary caregiver to achieve this goal. This session will discuss the body of research that demonstrates how the arts can engage families in schools and discuss key strategies that are currently working in both public and charter schools.

Speakers include:

• Michael Sikes, Senior Associate for Research and Policy, the Arts Education Partnership, Washington D.C. and author of "Building Parent Involvement through the Arts" (2007)
• Sarah Ogeto , Program Coordinator,  Illinois Parent Information Resource Center at Columbia College Chicago
• Joanne Vena, Director of School Partnerships, Center for Community Arts Partnerships, Columbia College Chicago
• Angela Fowler, PIRC Program Manager, Harris Center for Early Childhood Education, Columbia College Chicago

Jerome Kagan, Ph.D., of Harvard University, spoke about the importance of arts education in elementary schools during the Learning, Arts, and the Brain conference at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore on May 6, 2009. This link provides his prepared remarks. The report Learning, Arts, and the Brain was announced the same day as the California Arts Council's 2008 statewide arts conference, and attendees received some of the first copies made available to the public.

In April of 2009 the Center for Education Policy at SRI International, with support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, issued a new report in the An Unfinished Canvas: Arts Education in California series. The new report, An Unfinished Canvas: Local Partnerships in Support of Arts Education explores the role of partnerships between local arts organizations and schools and districts in supporting elementary arts education in California.

According to a just-published study in the journal Psychology of Music, the reading skills of young children who received structured training in music were clearly superior to those of their peers who did not have the benefit of such instruction. The finding is particularly striking because both groups of kids took part in comprehensive literacy training, in which lengthy periods of their school day were dedicated to reading and writing.

Synthesizing extensive research of arts education practice across the United States, this handbook is a guide to designing arts education professional development for K-12 classroom teachers and provides a searchable database of 50 arts learning communities. Explore this interactive resource online or download the full handbook.

Excerpt from GAO report on Watching Politics website:

Because schools may spend more time improving students' academic skills to meet NCLBA's (No Child Left Behind Act) requirements, some are concerned that arts education might be cut back. To determine how, if at all, student access to arts education has changed since NCLBA, the Congress asked: (1) has the amount of instruction time for arts education changed and, if so, have certain groups been more affected than others, (2) to what extent have state education agencies' requirements and funding for arts education changed since NCLBA, (3) what are school officials in selected districts doing to provide arts education since NCLBA and what challenges do they face in doing so, and (4) what is known about the effect of arts education in improving student outcomes? GAO analyzed data from the U.S.

According to data from Education's national survey, most elementary school teachers--about 90 percent--reported that instruction time for arts education stayed the same between school years 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. The percentage of teachers that reported that instruction time had stayed the same was similarly high across a range of school characteristics, irrespective of the schools' percentage of low-income or minority students or of students with limited English proficiency, or the schools' improvement under NCLBA. Moreover, about 4 percent of teachers reported an increase. However, about 7 percent reported a decrease, and GAO identified statistically significant differences across school characteristics in the percentage of teachers reporting that the time spent on arts education had decreased. Department of Education (Education), surveyed 50 state arts officials, interviewed officials in 8 school districts and 19 schools, and reviewed existing research.

The study examines the association between music involvement and academic achievement in both childhood and adolescence using three measures of music participation: in school, outside of school, and parental involvement in the form of concert attendance. See full PDF text.

From the Publisher -- When the artist moves into the classroom or community to educate and inspire students and audience members, this is Teaching Artistry. It is a proven means for practicing professional musicians to create a successful career in music, providing not only necessary income but deep and lasting satisfaction through engaging people in learning experiences about the arts. Filled with practical advice on the most critical issues facing the music teaching artist today--from economic and time-management issues of being a musician and teacher to communicating effectively with students--The Music Teaching Artist's Bible uncovers the essentials that every musician needs in order to thrive in this role. Author Eric Booth offers both inspiration and how-to, step-by-step guidance in this truly comprehensive manual that music teaching artists will turn to again and again. The book also includes critical information on becoming a mentor, succeeding in school environments, partnering with other teaching artists, advocating for music and arts education, and teaching private lessons.

The Music Teaching Artist's Bible helps practicing and aspiring teaching artists gain the skills they need to build new audiences, improve the presence of music in schools, expand the possibilities of traditional and educational performances, and ultimately make their lives as an artists even more satisfying and fulfilling. (Recommended and on sale through Americans for the Arts and other booksellers.)

Four classes of second-graders were randomly divided into two groups. The reading abilities of students in both groups were assessed at the beginning of the study, and after each of the two intervention periods. During the intervention period, one group received music instruction consisting of music, movement, and play designed to enhance reading skills. The second group received corresponding time in which they were given supplemental practice or instruction in reading.

The Qualities of Quality: Excellence in Arts Education and How to Achieve It
Originally recorded on December 17, 2008 (90 minutes)

Many children in the United States have little or no opportunity for formal arts instruction so access to arts learning experiences remains a critical national challenge. Additionally, the quality of arts learning opportunities that are available to young people is a serious concern. Understanding this second challenge -- the challenge of creating and sustaining high quality formal arts learning experiences for K-12 youth, inside and outside of school -- is the focus of a recent research initiative, The Qualities of Quality: Excellence in Arts Education and How to Achieve It, commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and conducted by Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.   

The study focuses on the character of excellence and asks three core questions: (1) How do arts educators in the United States--including leading practitioners, theorists, and administrators-- conceive of and define high quality arts learning and teaching? (2) What markers of excellence do educators and administrators look for in the actual activities of art learning and teaching as they unfold in the classroom? And (3) How does a program's foundational decisions, as well as its ongoing day-to-day decisions, impact the pursuit and achievement of quality? In this webinar, we will share the findings of this study and introduce some of the tools developed by the research team for use by practitioners committed to examining and improving the quality of the arts learning experiences they provide for young people.

Presenter: Steve Seidel, Director, Harvard Project Zero and  Director, Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education  

Free to Americans for the Arts members; not available to non-members.

Each month, PBS Teachers delivers a new selection of books and web sites recommended for teachers and students across grade levels and subjects. Take a look at the special page dedicated to the arts.

The learning of discrete subject matter will always have a primary role in the educational process, and that includes learning about the disciplines of the arts. The underlying reason for learning subjects, however, is where the revolution can begin. Engaging with the arts, especially under the guidance of trained teachers and specialists, provides the space for students to construct, push boundaries, and expand venues for understanding. 

A handbook for parents in Pennsylvania to understand the Pennsylvania Standards for the Arts and Humanities -- similar to the Visual and Performing Arts Standards in the California Department of Education. Useful for parents to understand the importance of ongoing, sequential arts education for their children, and to support arts education in their local schools.

Better Program Evaluation for Arts Education
Originally recorded on September 10, 2008 (90 minutes)

Program evaluations can improve the impact of arts education and help to garner more resources. This webinar provides an understanding of design, execution, and implementation of the most successful evaluations methods.

The 90-minute webinar will include a step-by-step to the evaluation process; guidance on developing evaluation questions and the methods to answer them; qualitative and quantitative instruments; and answers to your specific questions.  

Presenter: Patti Saraniero, Professor of Theatre and Education, University of San Diego

Available for free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Although California's Education Code calls for all students to be offered a course of study in the four arts disciplines (dance, music, theater, and visual arts), findings from An Unfinished Canvas (initial study released in 2007) reveal a large gap between policy and practice. California's State Board of Education adopted content standards for the visual and performing arts in 2001, but the Education Code neither requires schools to follow state arts content standards nor mandates any student assessment in the arts. Recent experience has shown that large-scale assessment used for the purpose of accountability can be effective as a force for implementing standards-based K-12 curriculum and instruction in mathematics, science, social studies, and English/language arts. It is not at all clear, however, whether large-scale assessment could or should be used to support the implementation of K-12 standards-based arts education. This paper provides a review of the status of large-scale arts assessments and current practice in statewide arts assessment for the purpose of K-12 education accountability.

Co-published by MENC: The National Association for Music Education. A History of American Music Education covers the history of American music education, from its roots in Biblical times through recent historical events and trends. It describes the educational, philosophical, and sociological aspects of the subject, always putting it in the context of the history of the United States. It offers complete information on professional organizations, materials, techniques, and personalities in music education.

Updated information is now available on all 50 states and DC. The Arts Education Partnership (AEP) released of the 2007-08 AEP Arts Education State Policy Database. This searchable database contains the latest information on arts education state policies and practices. The 2007-08 database provides state-by-state summaries of state policies and practices on the following eight policy topics:

--Arts education mandate

--Arts education state standards

--Arts education assessment requirements

--Arts requirements for high school graduation

--Arts requirements for college admissions 

--Licensure requirements for non-arts teachers

--Licensure requirements for arts teachers

--Continuing education requirements for arts teachers

Users can generate and print individual state profiles, customized state comparisons of specific arts education policies, or compiled 50-state reports. Also, the database provides users with links they can follow to get additional information about each state.

Arts education in the nation's public schools has been declining for a generation, undermined by factors ranging from the state budget crises of the late 1970s to current school reforms that focus on reading and math. In a number of urban areas in recent years, arts learning advocates have sought to counter this trend by forming coordinated networks of schools, cultural organizations, funders, local government and other groups to work in common to revive arts education. These efforts are fragile and vary widely from city to city, but when well planned and executed, they show promise toward achieving the goal of more arts education for more children. This RAND study, titled Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination and commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, examines six such initiatives -- in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles County, New York City and the Oakland-Berkeley area of California. It details common strategies they have used and discusses conditions that have helped and hindered their effectiveness.

Accountability in Arts Education: Building a Statewide System of Reciprocity, takes up the challenge of designing a municipal system whereby voters, elected officials, education leaders, and local schools are regularly and routinely held accountable for what they are or are not teaching students. The paper was published by the California Alliance for Arts Education, one of the nation's leaders in state arts education advocacy.

Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance who serves as advisor for Arts Education in the News, writes an article about arts education information and trends in May of 2008.

Three essays were commissioned for the National Arts Policy Roundtable, co-convened annually by Americans for the Arts and the Sundance Preserve. The 2007 Roundtable focused on the challenge of preparing students to enter the workforce with the creativity and innovation skills that are essential to ensuring that American business will prosper. The essays in this publication are: Creating a Whole New World: Placing Arts and Education in the Center of the Flat Earth by Dr. Paul D. Houston; The Arts & Creativity in Education: Keys to American Economic Competitiveness in the 21st Century by Hamsa Thota, Ph.D.; and The Arts and Education: Changing Track by Sir Ken Robinson. Member Price: $5.00 Nonmember Price: $7.00

The Monterey County Office of Education launched the California Arts Advocacy Toolkit, a resource available for all California schools to advocate, rebuild and teach arts in education, in May 2008. The information was compiled partly as a result of the recent SRI International study called An Unfinished Canvas that reported that fully 89 percent of K-12 schools fail to offer a standards-based course of study in the four arts disciplines. The California Arts Advocacy Toolkit is a vehicle for all schools statewide to advocate for a comprehensive and standards-based arts education in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts for California students in kindergarten through high school. Complete with a public service announcement by Dina Ruiz Eastwood (Mrs. Clint Eastwood), background information on the importance of arts in education and sample templates to promote awareness and advocate for the arts, the California Arts Advocacy Toolkit can also be used by district leaders, county offices of education, parents, teachers, state-policy makers, and community members.

Parents and others may access the information through the main toolkit page, or find out more through the press release published in May 2008.

The Alameda County Office of Education's Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership partnered with the California Arts Council for a three-day institute for teaching artists. This compendium was created for the institute and can be used to prepare artists to work with schools and teachers to develop their capacity to teach in and through the arts. Free PDF download available.

Given the concerns raised in An Unfinished Canvas with respect to the skills and knowledge of teachers to provide arts instruction, at the request of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, SRI International launched this follow-up study. The purpose of this new study, whose results are presented here, was to investigate the system for training and preparing elementary classroom teachers and secondary arts teachers to provide standards-aligned arts instruction, their familiarity with and use of the state's VPA standards, their ongoing professional development, the supports and resources available to them, and the barriers to their delivery of standards-aligned arts instruction.

An Unfinished Canvas: Allocating Funding and Instructional Time for Elementary Arts Education found that California's elementary schools face unique challenges in providing all students with sequential, standards-based arts education. In particular, elementary principals identified inadequate funding and insufficient instructional time as significant barriers to the provision of arts education. For this study, we sought to further understand the impact of funding and time on elementary arts education. To do so, we examined the allocation of funding and instructional time in 10 schools across five states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and California).

This second publication in the Arts Education Partnership's research and policy brief series describes promising practices for building community partnerships that integrate the arts into urban education systems. The publication, which is the result of a roundtable conversation among the directors of eight of the demonstration sites participating in The Ford Foundation's Integrating the Arts and Education Reform Initiative, details the sites' early strategies and successes in the areas of organizational infrastructure; partnership development; integrated arts education; and communications and advocacy.

In March 2008, New York City's Department of Education released its first Annual Arts in Schools Report, which provides the most comprehensive analysis of arts education in New York City public schools ever produced. The new report documents the comeback of arts education since it was nearly eliminated during the 1970s, and identifies areas where schools are excelling, as well as where targeted interventions are needed to improve results. It provides student participation and access to arts programs data during the 2006-07 school year -- the year before the City's ArtsCount initiative began -- and will therefore serve as a baseline for measuring performance under ArtsCount, which was announced last summer to enhance and provide greater accountability for arts education in New York City.

In the Dana Consortium study, researchers grappled with a fundamental question: Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter? For the first time, coordinated, multi-university scientific research brings us closer to answering that question. Learning, Arts, and the Brain, a study three years in the making, is the result of research by cognitive neuroscientists from seven leading universities across the United States. It advances our understanding of the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning. Children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and strategies for memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas. Also see the article on the study from the Dana Foundation website.

Innovation is crucial to competition, and creativity is integral to innovation. In November 2007, The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators, surveyed public school superintendents and American business executives (employers) to identify and compare their views surrounding creativity. Overwhelmingly, both the superintendents who educate future workers and the employers who hire them agree that creativity is increasingly important in U.S. workplaces, yet there is a gap between understanding this truth and putting it into meaningful practice. Among the key findings of this research:

--85 percent of employers concerned with hiring creative people say they can't find the applicants they seek.

--Employers concerned with hiring creative people rarely use profile tests to assess the creative skills of potential employees. Instead, they rely on face-to-face interviews.

--While 97 percent of employers say creativity is of increasing importance, only 72 percent say that hiring creative people is a primary concern.

(NOTE: This report does require a payment unless you are a member of the sponsoring organization.)

This brief underscores the potential of after-school programs to advance children's academic achievement. It shines a light on what matters most for programs that strive to promote academic success--namely, program quality and youth engagement--and it suggests what works by linking these program attributes to academic benefits. Based on the full outcomes report "Advancing Achievement," by Public/Private Ventures, the brief draws lessons from the Foundation's Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative. CORAL was an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

This report presents full outcomes research on CORAL (Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning initiative), an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities. Findings in this report demonstrate the relationship between high-quality literacy programming and academic gains, and they highlight the potential role that quality programs may play in the ongoing drive to improve academic achievement. Commissioned by Irvine, this report was written by Public/Private Ventures. This is the main document that provides information for the brief What Matters, What Works.

This report, commissioned by Irvine and written by Public/Private Ventures, examines the program improvement strategies, step-by-step, that allowed the Foundation's CORAL initiative to achieve the levels of quality needed to boost the academic success of young students. The report also makes specific policy and funding suggestions for improving program performance. Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) was an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

This toolkit, commissioned by Irvine and developed by Public/Private Ventures, offers program managers a practical, hands-on guide for implementing quality programming in the after-school hours. The kit includes the tools and techniques that increased the quality of literacy-focused programming and helped improve student reading gains in the Foundation's Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative--an eight-year, $58 million after-school endeavor to improve education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Speak Up! For the Arts demonstrates why the arts are important for every child's education. Teachers, parents, administrators and artists share their thoughts on the impact of arts education and how to become an arts advocate. This page contains a video demonstration -- also see the main website at Speak Up! For the Arts.

A coalition of groups concerned about education and creativity, including the Arts Education Partnership, present a case statement that outlines issues with education and imagination in the U.S. (See press release summarizing the case statement and partnership.) Dick Deasy, the Executive Director of the Arts Education Partnership, presented a power point on The Imagine Nation with information from this case statement and on a January 2008 poll on imagination and education (see poll press release) at the California Arts Council's conference on March 4, 2008.

In her article "Freedom Machines," Dennie Wolf outlines a bold approach to evaluation of arts and cultural learning programs. The article is part of "Contours of Inclusion," published by VSA at the Kennedy Center. Wolf's piece is accompanied by a case study of a joint project between the Studio Museum of Harlem and Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom School, a small high school in the South Bronx.

Arts Education Policy Review discusses major policy issues concerning K-12 education in the various arts in the United States and the rest of the world. Addressing education in music, visual arts, theatre, and dance, the journal presents a variety of views and emphasizes analytical exploration. Its goal is to produce the most comprehensive and rigorous exchange of ideas available on arts education. The candid discussions from multiple viewpoints are a valuable resource not only for arts educators, but also for administrators, policy analysts, advocacy groups, parents, and audiences--all those involved in the arts and concerned about their role in education. Subscription ranges from $61-64 (individual) and $146-176 (institution), and discounts are available.

Kathy Danko-McGhee and Ruslan Slutsky present a compelling look at the link between children's artwork and literacy development in this easy-to-read, indispensable primer for parents and educators alike. By providing a range of art experiences and alternative ways to teach children critical thinking and visual perception skills, Danko-McGhee and Slutsky paint a vivid picture of the role that the visual arts play in early childhood development. The two examine the need for new thinking and a departure from traditional literacy exercises: "It is clear that a pedagogical shift must take place in our homes and schools if we are to meet the literacy needs of today's young learners. This requires thinking 'out of the box' and coming up with new ways to deal with an old problem." The Impact of Early Art Experiences on Literacy Development lays the foundation for rethinking the way that we engage young children in early literacy learning.

(BOOK, fee involved)

Music education is associated with those who go on to higher education. In looking at what groups may have participated more in music, education shows the largest differences. Two-thirds (65%) of those with a high school education or less participated in music compared to four in five (81%) with some college education and 86 percent of those with a college education. The largest group to participate in music, however, are those with a post graduate education as almost nine in ten (88%) of this group participated while in school. Music education is also associated with higher incomes. Three-quarters of people (74%) with household incomes of $34,999 or less and 72 percent of those with incomes of $35,000-$49,999 participated in music, compared to 83 percent of those with incomes of $150,000 or more.

The YouthARTS Development Project demonstrated the efficacy of arts programs for at-risk youth in three cities. Some findings from the project are graphically explained in this one-page reference document. The project was a partnership between Americans for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Justice, and is one of many short reference documents from Americans for the Arts. 

Data from The College Board shows that students who take four years of arts and music classes while in high school score 103 points better on their SATs than students who took only one-half year or less (scores of 1,083 vs. 980, respectively).

The National Center on Education and the Economy is a nonprofit organization created to develop proposals for building the world class education and training system that the United States must have if it is to continue to be a world class economy. Tough Choices or Tough Times is a monumental analysis of the future global workforce and the U.S. Part of that world-class education and training system must focus on innovation in order to remain globally competitive -- and arts advocates note the importance of arts education and community arts for a healthy creative economy. The National Center engages in policy analysis and development and works collaboratively with others at the local, state and national levels to advance its proposals in the policy arena.

California's goals for educating our children in and about the arts already are on the books. But as the new data from SRI make clear, we are not giving our students the kind of understanding of the arts that our own standards envision. So the question today for all Californians is this: Are we willing to lower our standards and view our goals as unreachable - or use this report to spur a commitment to provide high-quality arts education to all students?

More than Measuring is the final publication of the longitudinal study that assessed the impact of ArtsPartners. The evaluation, conducted over five years in cooperation with the Dallas Independent School District, the City of Dallas and over 50 cultural organizations, focuses on design principles used in conducting evaluations in ways that build the capacity of communities to design and improve programs for children and youth.

This Issue Brief uses the First- and Third-Grade Spring Teacher Questionnaires of the ECLS-K to examine the changes over time from first to third grade in how often young children are exposed to arts education in the general classroom. In both first and third grade, most public school students received instruction in music and art at least weekly, while instruction in dance and theater occurred less often within each year. About 32 percent of students in high poverty public schools never received theater instruction in either grade compared with 24 percent of students in low poverty public schools. 

Teaching the Art of Writing: An arts-based approach to writing captivates reluctant writers.

A one-pager that shows improved academic performance from students who participate in the arts. This is one of many short documents from Americans for the Arts.

Recipient of the 2005 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education. Learning in and through the arts can develop complex and subtle aspects of the mind, argues Elliot Eisner in this engrossing book. Offering a rich array of examples, he describes different approaches to the teaching of the arts and shows how these refine forms of thinking that are valuable in dealing with our daily life. Information on the Yale University Press website, and portions available online through Google Books.

This framework is designed to help classroom teachers and other educators develop curriculum and instruction in the arts so that all students will meet or exceed the content standards in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. In chapter 1, the framework presents guiding principles for instruction in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. The following chapter guides the planning, implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive, standards-based visual and performing arts education programs. Chapter 3 presents the key content standards for kindergarten through grade 8 that provide a beginning point for standards-based instruction; the complete content standards in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts for kindergarten through grade 8; and the content standards for the beginning or proficient level and advanced level for grades 9 through 12. Chapter 4 guides curriculum development for comprehensive, standards-based visual and performing arts education programs. Information on the purpose and forms of assessment in the arts is provided in chapter 5. This is followed by a chapter presenting details on teacher preparation and professional development for each arts discipline. Finally, criteria for the evaluation of instructional materials in the arts for kindergarten through grade eight is provided in the closing chapter. The framework also includes a glossary of terms and an extensive list of selected references and resources. Appended are: (1) Education Code Sections Governing Arts Education Programs; (2) Recommendations for Clarification of the New Visual and Performing Arts Requirement for Freshman Admission to the University of California and the California State University; (3) Careers in the Visual and Performing Arts; (4) Continuum for Implementing Arts Education Programs; (5) Copyright Law and the Visual and Performing Arts; (6) Guidelines for the Safe Use of Art and Craft Materials; and (7) Funding for Arts Education Programs. The original print version is accompanied by a CD of the artwork featured throughout the book.

This publication is available from the California Arts Council.  See: http://cac.ca.gov/artsinfo/files/Pubs-order-form-2010.pdf 

Acts of Achievement: The Role of Performing Art Centers in Education, a 168-page publication, provides the first study of K-12 education programs offered by performing arts centers nationwide, and showcases 74 performing art center institutions, large and small, partnering with their local schools.

Performing arts centers, many for the first time, are expanding their missions to provide arts education for nearby schools, at the request of their communities. In many cases, artist residencies and other educational outreach projects represent the only arts programs available in schools.

Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.

When young people are involved with art, something changes in their lives. We've often witnessed the rapt expressions on the faces of such young people. Advocates for the arts often use photographs of smiling faces to document the experience. But in a society that values measurements and uses data-driven analysis to inform decisions about allocation of scarce resources, photographs of smiling faces are not enough to gain or even retain support. Such images alone will not convince skeptics or even neutral decision-makers that something exceptional is happening when and where the arts become part of the lives of young people. Until now, we've known little about the nature of this change, or how to enable the change to occur. To understand these issues in more rigorous terms, we invited leading educational researchers to examine the impact of arts experiences on young people. We developed the Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning initiative in cooperation with The Arts Education Partnership and The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities to explore why and how young people were changed through their arts experiences.

This user-friendly brochure summarizes important and compelling rationales for integrating the arts in K-12 education. The brochure is an effective advocacy tool for anyone who needs to prove that the arts are critical to education and learning. Developed for use by and with parents, teachers, administrators, school boards and other decision-makers, Eloquent Evidence summarizes research and offers compelling and inspirational testimony to the strong positive relationship that exists between arts education, student performance, workplace skills and preparation for college. 1995, reprinted in 1996 and 1998.

At a time when Americans are increasingly concerned with finding jobs and economic stability, supporting families, and surviving in the global economy, many consider the arts to be a luxury, a frivolous distraction which entices students away from real learning. In Strong Arts, Strong Schools, Charles Fowler argues that, far from a luxury, the arts are a vitally important part of our society and our schools. 

More details on the book are available on the Oxford University Press site, and portions of the book are available from Google Books. The late Charles Fowler was a noted music educator and arts activist, and the author of numerous books and articles, including Can We Rescue the Arts for America's Children? and Music! Its Role and Importance in Our Lives. He served as editor of Music Educators Journal from 1965 through 1971 and as education editor of Musical America magazine from 1974 through 1989.

In the United States, charitable giving is estimated to be around two percent of average household
disposable (after tax) income (Giving USA Foundation 2011). Regrettably, this is also the 40-year average
for this figure, indicating that, despite an increasing effort on the part of nonprofits (Sargeant and Jay
2010), individuals today are no more generous than their predecessors were over four decades ago. Thirty-two recommendations follow.

Every year, approximately 11 percent of foundation giving - about $2.3 billion in 2009 - is awarded to nonprofit arts and cultural institutions. The distribution of these funds is demonstrably out of balance with our evolving cultural landscape and with the changing demographics of our communities. Current arts grantmaking disregards large segments of cultural practice, and by doing so, it disregards large segments of our society.

Cultural industries are economic powerhouses and states have the data to prove it, according to a new analysis from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Drawing on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arts and the GDP: Value Added by Selected Cultural Industries is a new NEA research note that examines the value added by three selected cultural industries: (1) performing arts, sports, and museums; (2) motion pictures and sound recording; and (3) publishing (including software).  

Combined, these three cultural industries contributed a total of $278.4 billion to the U.S. economy in 2009.  The NEA research note also looks at dollars and jobs added to individual state economies by these cultural industries.

See Press Release

See REPORT (PDF)

Following the staggered release of symposium sessions throughout 2010, WESTAF is pleased to release the final, complete proceedings of its symposium titled Engaging the Now: Arguments, Research, and New Environments for the Arts. The symposium convened in Aspen, Colorado in October, 2009. The proceedings feature a keynote presentation by Doug McLennan of ArtsJournal.com, a discussion about the efficacy of state film incentives, a dialogue about the state of arts education research and advocacy, a consideration of new economic arguments for the arts, a review of trends in youth engagement in creativity and the arts, a forum on rethinking the structure and scope of state arts agencies, and a discussion about cultural policy trends in Europe. In addition to McLennan, a wide range of speakers participated in the symposium discussion -- from economists and economic development professionals to cultural policy leaders and academics.

... Decades of research show strong and consistent links between high-quality arts education and a wide range of impressive educational outcomes. This is true even though, as in most areas where learning is complex, the research base does not yet establish causal proof. Arts integration models, the practice of teaching across classroom subjects in tandem with the arts, have been yielding some particularly promising results in school reform and closing the achievement gap.  Most recently, cutting-edge studies in neuroscience have been further developing our understanding of how arts strategies support crucial brain development in learning.

At the same time, due to budget constraints and emphasis on the subjects of high stakes testing, arts instruction in schools is on a downward trend.  Just when they need it most, the classroom tasks and tools that could best reach and inspire these students -  art, music, movement and performing  -  are less available to them. Sadly, this is especially true for students from lower-income schools, where analyses show that access to the arts in schools is disproportionately absent. ...

SEE FULL REPORT

Investment in our creative economy is a building force for [the San Diego] region. The nonprofit arts and culture organizations funded through the Commission's organizational Support Program (oSP) have an important and vital impact on San Diego's economy. These organizations stimulate the economy with over $173 million in direct expenditures, including $98.8 million in salaries. In fact, the 70 oSP organizations funded by the Commission constitute an important employment sector, supporting a workforce of more than 7,000. The arts not only create jobs, they provide a competitive advantage in attracting new businesses and a skilled workforce. In addition, 12,144 volunteers contribute time, talent and resources to arts and culture locally. REPORT

The annual report for the local arts agency for Sacramento County.

The best local arts strategies are informed by knowledge of the larger arts funding landscape. That's the premise of a project initiated by and for the nine community foundations engaged in Irvine's Communities Advancing the Arts initiative.

These community foundations are developing new sources of funding while investing in programs supporting local arts. As these catalysts build plans for the new year, they have a keen interest in understanding the broader picture of current arts funding in California. In particular, group members are hungry to know what major funders of California arts are doing, so they can in turn examine opportunities to complement existing efforts or address unmet needs.

In fall 2010, Helicon Collaborative was commissioned to undertake a rapid research scan to support the interests of these community foundations and summarize the findings. The study, titled "Arts Funding in California: Where Do We Stand?," helped define the size and nature of arts funding in California, using the most recent data available.

Education Reform in the New Congress: What Could It Mean for Arts Education?
Originally recorded on January 11, 2011 (90 minutes)

After a decade of debate since the last major education bill, is it time for action? According to President Obama, Education Secretary Duncan and leaders in Congress, education reform is one policy area that could find bipartisan agreement in the new Congress. However with limits on federal spending, new players in town and different ideologies there's a lot of reasons why it may not happen.  

Join this webinar to view a presentation by Americans for the Arts Director of Federal Affairs Narric Rome as he demystifies the issues and impact of federal K-12 arts education policy, identifies the federal movers and shakers in education reform for 2011, and speculates what federal action could mean for arts education at the state and district levels.  The webinar will offer Q&A opportunities for the webinar participants and will include the following national arts education leaders as Commentators:

• Heather Noonan, Vice President of Advocacy, League of American Orchestras
• Debora Hansen, President, State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE)
• Richard Kessler, Executive Director, The Center for Arts Education (NYC)

Free for Americans for the Arts members; not available to non-members.

Why and How Businesses Support the Arts: Business Committee for the Arts Triennial Survey
Originally recorded on December 8, 2010 (80 minutes)

The BCA Survey of Business Support for the Arts is the only Survey in the US that tracks support from small, mid-sized and large businesses nationwide. Business funders will discuss the survey's findings in terms of why and how they support the arts and compare the extent of their giving, both now and the near future.

Moderator:  Mark Shugoll, Affiliate, CEO, Shugoll Research; Presenters:  Alessandra Digiusto, Chief Administrative Officer, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation; Jeff Eberlein, Managing Partner, Strata-G Communications; Carole Morse, President, Portland General Electric Foundation

Available free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

2010 Post-Election Analysis on the Arts
Originally recorded on November 18, 2010 (60 minutes)

The Government Affairs staff of Americans for the Arts will provide a comprehensive analysis of federal, state and local election results and ballot initiatives, and what impact those results will have on the future of the arts and arts education.

Presenters:  Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts; Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel for Government and Public Affairs; Narric Rome, Director of Federal Affairs; Gladstone Payton, Associate Director of Federal Affairs; Jay Dick, Director of State and Local Government Affairs; and special guest speakers.

Available free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

In envisioning a greater role for the arts in cultural diplomacy and engagement, thirty six national and international public and private sector leaders met at the Sundance Resort and Preserve in Utah on September 24-26, 2009. There they acknowledged the multiple roles the arts can play in strengthening cultural relations globally. Americans for the Arts believes this report may serve as a launching point to a new global dialogue between the public and private sectors and within our communities on the role the arts can play in improving relations between the U.S. and the world.

The Power of Art and Artists is the theme of the 2010 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region Presented by Otis College of Art and Design. The report, which includes a 5-year employment projection, investigates the direct and indirect economic impact of industries such as Fine and Performing Arts, Digital Media, Entertainment, Architecture, Interior Design, Fashion, Toy and Communications Arts. This is the fourth consecutive year that Otis College of Art and Design has commissioned this analysis and presented real numbers for the business of creativity in both Los Angeles County and Orange County. SEE FULL REPORT

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy's (CECP) analysis of corporate giving in 2009 in a report titled "Giving in Numbers," found that giving fell at 59% of companies in 2009, with 40% of companies decreasing by 10% or more. In contrast, aggregate corporate giving in CECP's year-over-year matched set of 95 companies rose in 2009 to $9.93 billion, up 7% from 2008 and reaching the highest value in four years. The increase is largely attributable to corporate mergers resulting in combined giving budgets and increased donations of medicine by pharmaceutical companies, responding when millions of Americans lost their health insurance due to unemployment. While this analysis is written for corporate giving professionals, for whom it serves as a powerful tool positioning their giving in the larger field of corporate philanthropy, it also provides invaluable insight for journalists, consultants, nonprofit executives, and others interested in understanding the ways that corporations are leveraging their cash and non-cash resources to continue to support their communities, even in difficult economic times. SEE PRESS RELEASE

Before the Orange County Business Committee for the Arts dissolved in 2010, it made preparations for a final Economic Impact of the Nonprofit Arts on Orange County study through the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University. The Center has conducted this study every four years since 1990 with largely the same local arts organizations participating. According to the report, nonprofit arts organizations contribute nearly $500 million to the local economy.

In 2009, Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, launched the Arts & Social Change Mapping Initiative. Supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Open Society Foundations, CrossCurrents Foundation, and Lambent Foundation, this initiative sought to identify and profile existing sources of private- and public-sector funding for arts for change work and, in so doing, to gain insight into the current state of support for this work. The culminating report, Trend or Tipping Point: Arts & Social Change Grantmaking, draws together quantitative and qualitative data from a survey, interviews, and review of grantmaker conducted reports.

Increasing Demand for the Arts: A Talk with Marketing Masters
Originally recorded on September 14, 2010 (60 minutes)

The National Arts Marketing Project Conference has designed a brand new pre-conference that gathers 10 Marketing Masters to share breakthrough ideas in audience engagement and reveal the challenges they still face. Attend this webinar to hear a sneak preview from three of the Masters as well as case studies from around the globe. Moderated by Jerry Yoshitomi, you will learn how the Masters are breaking down roadblocks and devising audience-building solutions for their organizations and yours.

Free for members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Updated each year, this overview of state arts agency (SAA) funding and grant-making activities provides funding trends over time, summary grant statistics, and select state-by-state information. It is a succinct introduction to state arts agencies. The 2010 publication also contains details on arts funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Starting and Sustaining a Local Emerging Leaders Network
Originally recorded on August 5, 2010 (60 minutes)

Local Emerging Leader networks come in all shapes and sizes. Want to start one in your community? Or perhaps you want to learn about what other networks are doing and how to sustain and grow the network in your community?  Building off the Local Network Toolkit and the 2009 Emerging Leader Field Survey, this webinar will present useful tips and strategies from established networks on how to launch a network or bring your network to the next level.

Presenters:  David Seals, Program Manager, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Vice-Chair, Emerging Leaders Council; Stephanie Evans, Local Arts Agency Services Coordinator, Americans for the Arts

Free for members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

"50 States 50 Days: Organizing a Local Arts Advocacy Day"
Originally recorded on July 8, 2010 (90 minutes)

In celebration of our 50th anniversary, Americans for the Arts Action Fund is launching the "50 States 50 Days" initiative. Beginning in late July to coincide with the Congressional Recess, this national campaign seeks to expand our network of arts advocacy leaders across the country. This webinar is designed to recruit local leaders to host gatherings back home with their members of Congress on the importance of the arts and arts education. Participants on this webinar will learn about our new Toolkit to help plan and organize their visits, discuss the best strategies for making their case, and hear about the latest social media tools to advertise their events.

Presenters:

• Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel of Government Affairs and Executive Director of Americans for the Arts Action Fund
• Narric Rome, Director of Federal Affairs, Americans for the Arts
• Ra Joy, Executive Director, Arts Alliance Illinois

Available free to both members of Americans for the Arts and non-members.

Nearly 40 percent of nonprofit organizations lack adequate staff to deliver their programs and services, a new report from the Johns Hopkins University Listening Post Project finds. According to the report, Recession Pressures on Nonprofit Jobs (17 pages, PDF), almost a third of the 526 organizations surveyed by the project reported making workforce reductions over the preceding six months (October 2009 to March 2010), while only 23 percent reported employment gains over the same period and 46 percent reported no change in head count despite facing greater demand for their services. In addition to workforce reductions, the survey found that nonprofits have taken other actions that impact staff and their ability to deliver critical programs and services.

Based on research and responses to a survey distributed in August 2009 to the IFACCA network, the report examined a range of lobbying, advertising and grassroots arts advocacy campaigns that national arts funding agencies have undertaken over the past decade. The report also explores which strategies raised awareness of the arts and which backfired. The report is full of useful information, including the finding that a more effective way to appeal to parents is to use specific phrases such as "your kids" or "your children" rather than the generic "kids" or "children." Other information -- such as finding that many find the term "the arts" vague and confusing -- present new challenges for arts advocates as we consider our work for the next year.

This brief highlights trends in the number and finances of 501(c)(3) public charities as well as key findings on private charitable contributions and volunteering, two vital resources to the nonprofit sector. Figures on giving and volunteering include the most recent data available. Data reported on the nonprofit sector are from 2007--a snapshot of the sector just before the U.S. economic recession.

From the press release: The recent economic crisis caused the nation's more than 75,000 grantmaking foundations to cut their 2009 giving by an estimated 8.4 percent--by far the largest decline ever tracked by the Foundation Center. Grant dollars fell from $46.8 billion to $42.9 billion. Yet according to Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates (2010 Edition), released April 16, 2010 by the Foundation Center, this cutback totaled less than half of the 17 percent loss in foundation assets recorded in the prior year.

Other key estimates for 2009 include:

• Independent and family foundations -- which represent close to nine out of 10 foundations -- reduced their giving 8.9 percent to $30.8 billion in 2009.
• Corporate foundation giving decreased 3.3 percent to $4.4 billion in 2009.
• Community foundation giving declined 9.6 percent to $4.1 billion in 2009, exceeding decreases by independent and corporate foundations.

SEE PRESS RELEASE SEE FULL REPORT

Creative Capital provides grants to individual artists using a venture capital model-the money comes with guidance and governance. Artists receive money as milestones are reached and also receive guidance on managing their lives and business to increase their sustainability. But as Ruby Lerner, CEO of Creative Capital, looks to the organization's next decade, how can she ensure the sustainability of this high-touch, uniquely individual model?

Marketing for the Independent Artist: How to Advance Your Career and Build Your Business
Originally recorded on February 18, 2010 (75 minutes)

Attention Artists! Take control of your own marketing by learning what it can and can't do for your careers. Discover the basics of marketing strategy based on those objectives and how to make it real. Presenter Deborah Obalil will address the difficult balance of making art while running a thriving small business.

Presenter: Deborah Obalil, Obalil & Associates, Lincoln, RI

Deborah Obalil has 15 years experience as an arts manager and organizational development specialist, with experience at both the staff and consulting levels in writing and implementing detailed strategic plans, marketing plans and development plans. Her consulting practice has included clients of every organization size and discipline, including independent artists, in various geographic locations across the United States. Deborah is a regular faculty member of the Artist Professional Toolbox, an annual professional development program for visual artists presented by the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston. Deborah's career within arts organizations placed her most recently as the Executive Director of the Alliance of Artists Communities, an organization dedicated to the advancement of America's creative vitality through supporting the field of artists' communities.

Available free to both members of Americans for the Arts and non-members

National Arts Index
Originally recorded on January 27, 2010 (60 minutes)

Description:  How sustainable are arts and culture in our dynamic society? Are the economic resources and potentials sufficient for their future vitality? Join us in a lively discussion about the health and vitality of the arts sector through the lens of The National Arts Index.  It's illuminating, and often provocative. Findings include trends in organizational capacity, changes in personal participation and creation, nonprofit vs. for-profit, funding, education, and more. Learn how the Index can be used to spur conversations, shape strategies, and educate decision makers, and improve the state of the arts in America.

Available to both members of Americans for the Arts and non-members

The National Arts Index is a highly distilled annual measure of the health and vitality of arts in the United States by using 76 equal weighted, national-level indicators of arts activity. This report covers an 11-year period, from 1998 to 2008. The National Arts Index fell 4 points in 2008 to a score of 98.4, reflecting losses in charitable giving and declining attendance at larger cultural institutions, even as the number of arts organizations grew. The 2008 downturn in the Index was not wholly unexpected. With 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations and 600,000 more arts-related businesses, 2.24 million artists in the workforce, and billions of dollars in consumer spending, the arts industries largely track the nation's business cycle.

Designed for public arts leaders and advocates, Why Should Government Support the Arts? provides answers to these questions and describes why the arts are an essential public investment. This document invites conversation and reflection about the value of the arts to American communities. It also provides resource material and research citations that any state can use to support its case for the arts.

Here are answers to some of the tough questions asked in hard economic times about government funding:

• Why should government support the arts?
• Are the arts a worthwhile investment during hard economic times?
• Why can't the private sector pick up the costs?
• Why are state arts agencies important?

This survey and analysis examines the U.S. Department of State and its role in cultural diplomacy and international cultural exchange. The results indicate a decrease in U.S. government resources in these fields in the 15 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union. In 2007, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation began to commission on U.S.-based cultural diplomacy and cultural exchange aimed at making the case in reinvestment in these areas, especially in light of the erosion of international sympathy towards the U.S. more recently. SEE REPORT

Also see the Timeline of U.S. Public and Cultural Diplomacy1999-2009.

In New York City, the cultural capital of the world, public school students do not enjoy equal access to an arts education. In fact, in schools with the lowest graduation rates - where the arts could have the greatest impact--students have the least opportunity to participate in arts learning.

This report takes the first ever look at the relationship between school-based arts education and high school graduation rates in New York City public schools. The findings, based on data collected by the New York City Department of Education (DOE), strongly suggest that the arts play a key role in keeping students in high school and graduating on time.

In 2008, the Arts for All Executive Committee commissioned Lynn Waldorf to conduct a series of case studies on the eleven vanguard school districts that joined the initiative within its first five years. The case studies document the progress made and issues confronted by each school district during the early stages of planning and implementing their arts plans. Key findings include:

• Half the Vanguard Districts adopted standards-based sequential curricula in music and visual arts within three years of initiating implementation. Fewer than 20 percent have added dance or theatre.
• 82% of Vanguard Districts reported they joined the Arts for All initiative to replace a patchwork approach to arts education with sequential instruction. Approximately half were also motivated by the opportunity to improve equitable access for all students.
• All the Vanguard Districts had either hired or assigned someone to coordinate the arts education reform effort--a factor that was considered critical to achieving their goals. In general, districts with full-time coordinators in administrative positions were able to progress the furthest.

The New York City-based Foundation Center has announced the launch of a data visualization tool to help grantmakers, policy makers, researchers, and others better understand the impact of philanthropy around the world. Philanthropy In/Sight allows registered users to create customized Google maps to explore giving patterns, emerging trends, and funding relationships globally, nationally, or at the community level. Updated weekly, the center's data on some 97,000 grantmakers and more than 1.6 million grants can be combined with dozens of demographic and socioeconomic data overlays to create mashups that help users understand where foundation dollars are having the greatest effect and where funding is most needed.

These documents are the result of interviews with dozens of public and private arts funders conducted over the past few months for Grantmakers in the Arts, and some analysis for the arts field. These conversations certainly do not constitute a comprehensive study of the current state of arts philanthropy. Nevertheless, it is our hope that the information and ideas shared will contribute to the ongoing discourse about how arts funders can respond to the current economic crises. (provided by the California Arts Council courtesy of Grantmakers in the Arts)

Based on two major surveys of more than 6,000 people, the report documents a wide range of cultural activity--in music, theater and drama, reading and writing, dance, and visual arts and crafts--happening outside of the boundaries of the traditional infrastructure of nonprofit arts organizations and facilities in two fast-growing and increasingly diverse inland regions of the state.

"Arts in the Balance," summarizing the fifth and concluding biennial survey of public and private arts funding in Los Angeles County, was released today by Southern California Grantmakers (SCG). SCG conducted the 2007/2008 survey in partnership with the UCLA Center for Civil Society. This year's survey examined the extent to which arts funding sources and patterns have slumped -- or, in many cases stayed much the same -- over the past 10 years. The survey also provides insights into the current arts and culture funding climate within the context of trends that stand to impact the arts funding landscape in the years ahead. There are just over 1,000 arts and culture nonprofits in Los Angeles County, with approximately $1.2 billion in revenue. See News Release about the report, or the PDF of the entire survey.

Arts & Civic Engagement: Policies and Actions for Strengthening the 21st Century Community
Originally recorded on March 11, 2009 (90 minutes)

The 2008 National Arts Policy Roundtable, an annual forum of Americans for the Arts and the Sundance Preserve, examined important and timely opportunities for the arts to promote civic engagement toward building healthy communities and a healthy democracy.  Learn what business, government, philanthropy, education, and arts leaders recommend in areas of cross-sector alliances, policies and investment, research and evaluation, and messaging and casemaking to ensure a vital civic role for the arts.

Presenters:

• Marian A. Godfrey, Senior Director, Culture Initiatives, The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Susan Patterson, Program Director, Charlotte, The Knight Foundation
• Barbara Schaffer-Bacon, Co-Director, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts
• Pam Korza, Co-Director, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts
• Marete Wester, Director of Arts Policy, Americans for the Arts

Available for free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Leadership in Tough Times
Originally recorded on December 10, 2008 (90 minutes)

In this 90-minute webinar, Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert L. Lynch will moderate a discussion on the strategic questions that savvy arts leaders consider when facing a major challenge--changes in the economy, content controversy, funding crises, and more.  

This is a good session for professionals who want to strengthen their strategic response skills as they prepare to face the inevitable challenges that accompany leadership.

Free for both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

When an artist or arts administrator faces a funding cut, he or she need to be able to take swift and efficient action to mitigate the situation--mobilize advocates, create a message, and implement a strategy. To simplify this process, Americans for the Arts has developed this ever-expanding online tool to provide you with current information and key messaging, communications and advocacy strategies, and the research you need to make the case. Links to different topic areas (messaging, advocacy, etc.) are available from the website.

Leadership Succession in the Arts
Originally recorded on October 15, 2008 (90 minutes)

Every arts organization will one day face a change in leadership--with or without advance notice. When that change comes, you and your board can confidently face the transition with a solid leadership succession plan.

Relevant whether your organization is facing an imminent transition or has ample time to prepare, this 90-minute webinar will walk board members and all levels of staff through the process of developing a succession plan that engages key stakeholders, answers critical questions, and addresses your organization's unique planning needs.

Available free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

What is the role of the arts in American culture? Is art an essential element? If so, how should we support it? Today, as in the past, artists need the funding, approval, and friendship of patrons whether they are individuals, corporations, governments, or nonprofit foundations. But as Patronizing the Arts shows, these relationships can be problematic, leaving artists "patronized"--both supported with funds and personal interest, while being condescended to for vocations misperceived as play rather than serious work. In this provocative book, Marjorie Garber looks at the history of patronage, explains how patronage has elevated and damaged the arts in modern culture, and argues for the university as a serious patron of the arts. Compulsively readable, Patronizing the Arts challenges all who value the survival of artistic creation both in the present and future.

Marjorie Garber teaches English at Harvard University, where she also chairs the Visual and Environmental Studies Department and directs the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts. Her many books include Shakespeare After All and Academic Instincts (Princeton).

A report the Foundation Center just released, commissioned by the California Regional Associations of Grantmakers (Northern California Grantmakers, Southern California Grantmakers, and San Diego Grantmakers), provides a comprehensive estimate of the extent to which communities of color are being served by foundation giving in California. The analysis of grantmaking by 50 of the state's largest independent foundations finds that at least 39 percent of California-focused grants benefited populations of color.

According to the report, Embracing Diversity: Foundation Giving Benefiting California's Communities of Color, in 2005 alone, these 50 California-based foundations awarded a minimum of 2,700 grants totaling nearly $300 million to support health, education, social services, and other programs that serve ethnically or racially diverse populations. In addition, 10-year trends show that giving benefiting these populations grew nearly twice as fast as overall giving between 1996 and 2005.

A new CEO study in corporate philanthropy, based on global research and analysis conducted by McKinsey & Co., analyzes the effectiveness of corporate philanthropy in addressing rising expectations for companies' social behavior. While 84% of executives recognize increased expectations of their companies, and 75% believe corporate philanthropy is an effective way of meeting these evolving expectations, the report suggests that due to a number of complex challenges only 11% are truly efficient in their philanthropy, maximizing both the business and social impact of their efforts.

FROM THE WEBSITE: The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) is the only international forum of business CEOs and chairpersons focused on raising the level and quality of corporate philanthropy. Membership includes 175 CEOs and chairpersons representing companies that account for over 40% of reported corporate giving in the United States.

Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance who serves as advisor for Arts Education in the News, writes an article about arts education information and trends in May of 2008.

An Irvine-commissioned white paper explores the range of ways private foundations can engage in public policy. The paper is by independent consultant Julia Coffman, who has worked with numerous foundations. She proposes a framework for public policy grantmaking. The paper suggests specific lessons that foundations should keep in mind when considering policy-related grantmaking, and highlights four case studies illustrating the variety of approaches foundations should consider. Irvine commissioned the paper to deepen the foundation's and others' understanding of policy-related grantmaking.

Theatre Facts 2007, published by Theatre Communications Groups, reports that business support of theatres was at its second highest level in 2007. The average theatre went from receiving support from 31 businesses in 2003 to 34 businesses in 2007. Roughly 13% of business grants to theatres support education programs.

Business support to the arts totaled $3.16 billion in 2006 according to the triennial national survey released by the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), a national not-for-profit organization established in 1967 to bring business and the arts together. Titled The BCA Report: National Survey of Business Support to the Arts 2007, this survey revealed a 5% decline in support in comparison to the $3.32 billion business allocated to the arts in 2003.

Business support to the arts totaled $3.16 billion in 2006 according to the tri-ennial national survey released by the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), a national nonprofit organization established in 1967 to bring business and the arts together. Titled The BCA Report: National Survey of Business Support to the Arts 2007, this survey revealed a 5% decline in support in comparison to the $3.32 billion business allocated to the arts in 2003.

To find more information about this survey (including a summary of major conclusions) and instructions on how to order, see the BCA's website at www.bcainc.org. Executive summary is $10; full report is $125.

In June, The Foundation Center released its Foundation Yearbook: Facts and Figures on Private and Community Foundations, which documents changes in the actual number, giving, and assets of all active U.S. foundations. The report provides an overview of the state of foundation giving in the current year and beyond; comparisons of foundation activities by foundation size; and breakdowns of foundation resources by geographic location and grantmaker type.

In grant making, is there such a thing as the good goodbye? Yes, say contributors to this guide, who have found ways to plan for exits up front, clarify expectations with grantee organizations, and overcome the tensions that so often arise. Learn how to use the end of a funding relationship to boost a grantee's capacity, find new sources of support, and even multiply the value of the foundation's investment.

A quick, visual history describing the National Endowment for the Arts' appropriations funding over a ten-year span. This is one of the many short reference documents from Americans for the Arts. 

Local arts agencies are a growing presence in communities across the country. They provide vital services to sustain their local arts industry, and endeavor to make the arts accessible to each member of the community. Included with other statistical data is the estimated growth in number of local arts agencies from 1965-2004.

Nonprofit arts organizations are generally able to earn only half of the money it takes to sustain their operation. The other half of their revenue must be raised through contributions and grants. Even small fluctuations in contributed revenue can mean deficits for many organizations. Earned income is the largest source of revenue for the typical nonprofit arts organization. Yet most people are unaware of the funding challenges that must be met to keep America's arts organizations in operation.

Giving to the arts by individuals, foundations, and corporations was $12.51 billion in 2006, representing 4.2 percent of total charitable giving. The percentage of philanthropy directed to the arts has declined over the past decade. While total giving in dollars increased, the percentage of total philanthropy directed to the arts has been in decline for nearly a decade. In 2001, the arts received 4.9 percent of all charitable giving. In 2006, that rate was just 4.2 percent. If the arts had merely maintained its 4.9 percent "market share" in 2006, they would have received $14.5 billion instead of $12.51 billion - a $2 billion difference. (Maintaining the 5.6 percent share from 1998 yields an additional $4 billion.) Whose piece of the pie is getting larger? Education, human services, and international development.

This report provides a comprehensive review of state arts agency revenue sources and legislative appropriations to each state arts agency. Also included is information on state budget trends and appropriations changes over time. Detailed tables allow for state-to-state comparison of SAA revenue streams, per capita funding and national rankings. This is an essential publication for understanding public funding for the arts in the United States.

From 1994 to 2004 -- a seminal decade for the arts in America -- the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invested $13 million in its Magic of Music Symphony Orchestra Initiative. This commissioned history by Dr. Thomas Wolf offers not just a chronology of the program, it identifies significant lessons for funders and for orchestras. Those insights extend to other nonprofit arts organizations as well. The Search for Shining Eyes tries to reach beyond the Knight Foundation family and the small pool of orchestras that participated to capitalize on one of the most valuable roles foundations can play -- to serve as a lasting laboratory for learning.

Though this is a book about a specific orchestra in a particular city, it contains lessons for arts organizations and nonprofits in many fields. It is also directed at the funders that support them. This is a challenging time for the nonprofit sector, especially symphony orchestras. But it is also a time of great opportunity for innovation and experimentation. The authors are impressed by the many examples of nonprofit institutions that are redefining what it means to be central to those who live in their communities. They applaud the many leaders -- professional and volunteer, artistic and administrative -- that make innovation and excellence possible. (PDF of text available -- scroll down list of other books available.)

This report by the Foundation Center provides a quick overview of private arts and culture funding in California. Based on 2004 data, the most recent year for which information was available, the report lists the largest arts grantmakers and analyzes where funding is going. Performing arts organizations captured the largest share (37 percent) with museums (32 percent) a close second. The report, sponsored by the Irvine Foundation, also includes a mini-directory of California foundations funding the arts.

From the "Executive Summary" - In 1989, government arts funding in the United States came under vitriolic political attack.  In the wake of complaints about taxpayers' money being spent on offensive, "pornographic," or "blasphemous" works, and in the face of threatened cutoffs of funding, the National Endowment for the Arts began to retreat from supporting potentially controversial artwork.  State and local funding agencies, although less vulnerable to attack, could not help but be aware of the political risks of supporting provocative art.  As the crisis deepened, many leading arts organizations shied away from outspoken advocacy of free expression for artists and arts institutions that receive government grants.

Innovations in State Cultural Policy is a project designed to help cultural leaders and decision makers strengthen their states' cultural activity. Through illustrative studies, guides and covenings, the project aims to spark collaborations--state-level coalitions that span the arts, humanities, folklife and historic preservation--that can then work with state policy makers to increase the audiences and funding for culture. This guide to action seeks to illuminate diverse, innovative policy mechanisms that can be adapted by other states.

From the Publisher - Just saying the words "financial management" to many people in the nonprofit sector evokes a wince. "I'm not a numbers person" is a typical response, followed by "I didn't get into this line of work to focus on financial matters; my interest is in fulfilling our mission."  Yet fulfilling the mission is inherently dependent on good fiscal practices.  Therefore, it is important that financial reporting and policies be understood by all board and staff members.

In the United States, charitable giving is estimated to be around two percent of average household
disposable (after tax) income (Giving USA Foundation 2011). Regrettably, this is also the 40-year average
for this figure, indicating that, despite an increasing effort on the part of nonprofits (Sargeant and Jay
2010), individuals today are no more generous than their predecessors were over four decades ago. Thirty-two recommendations follow.

Aware of mounting evidence that community-based arts may positively impact health and well-being, ACTA commissioned studies by UC Davis's Center for Reducing Health Disparities and the Asian American Center on Disparities Research to formally investigate health effects and other outcomes experienced by participants in two representative programs. ACTA's Living Cultures Grants Program funds nonprofit organizations to support exemplary projects in traditional arts in California; the Apprenticeship Program encourages the continuation of the state's traditional arts and cultures by contracting master artists to offer intensive, one-on-one training to qualified apprentices. Weaving Traditional Arts into the Fabric of Community Health presents the UC Davis findings with an overview of selected research in the emerging field of arts-for-health, as well as scholarly references and a selection of global resources in the fields of traditional and folk arts and arts-for-health.

Creativity Sector named as one of four drivers of Orange County employment:

Orange County's increasing focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) as a critical competitive advantage has evolved into an emphasis on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS, Math).  The Creativity sector is the market impact of businesses and individuals involved in producing cultural, artistic, and design goods and services. More specifically, it consists of creative professionals and enterprises that take powerful, original ideas and transform them into practical and often innovative goods, or inspire us with their artistry.

California has 11,000 arts and culture nonprofits, a number that places the state ahead of most nations in the world. Californians are more likely to participate than other Americans,  but arts involvement and nonprofit organizations are unevenly spread across California's geographic and demographic communities.

New findings generated by Markusen Economic Research and commissioned by The James Irvine Foundation offer fresh illustrations of the California nonprofit arts sector and the people who take part in it.

--Analysis of survey data on Norwegian students social recruitment and cultural habits in 1998 and 2008. 
--Particular emphasis on the attitudes and knowledge in regard to music, literature and television shows. 
--A major decline in interest in and knowledge of most forms of traditional legitimate culture is found. 
--Legitimate culture is thus marginalized in one sense, but also increasingly linked to privileged social backgrounds.

Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts reports continue to offer a research-based approach to understanding the scope and importance of the arts to the nation's economy using Dun and Bradstreet data. While most economic impact studies of the arts have focused on the nonprofit sector (such as our own Arts and Economic Prosperity studies), Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industries. Reports available for US Congressional districts, states and in customized formats.

Investment in our creative economy is a building force for [the San Diego] region. The nonprofit arts and culture organizations funded through the Commission's organizational Support Program (oSP) have an important and vital impact on San Diego's economy. These organizations stimulate the economy with over $173 million in direct expenditures, including $98.8 million in salaries. In fact, the 70 oSP organizations funded by the Commission constitute an important employment sector, supporting a workforce of more than 7,000. The arts not only create jobs, they provide a competitive advantage in attracting new businesses and a skilled workforce. In addition, 12,144 volunteers contribute time, talent and resources to arts and culture locally. REPORT

The annual report for the local arts agency for Sacramento County.

Report authors Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Alan Brown of WolfBrown explore patterns of arts engagement across three modes:  arts creation or performance, arts engagement through media, and attendance at arts activities. The report highlights the overlap in participation across modes, and examines factors that drive participation within and between modes.

This report, commissioned from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, investigates the relationship between arts education and arts participation, based on data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts for 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2008. The report also examines long-term declines in Americans' reported rates of arts learning -- in creative writing, music, and the visual arts, among other disciplines. Authors Nick Rabkin and E.C. Hedberg find that the declines are not distributed evenly across all racial and ethnic groups.

The best local arts strategies are informed by knowledge of the larger arts funding landscape. That's the premise of a project initiated by and for the nine community foundations engaged in Irvine's Communities Advancing the Arts initiative.

These community foundations are developing new sources of funding while investing in programs supporting local arts. As these catalysts build plans for the new year, they have a keen interest in understanding the broader picture of current arts funding in California. In particular, group members are hungry to know what major funders of California arts are doing, so they can in turn examine opportunities to complement existing efforts or address unmet needs.

In fall 2010, Helicon Collaborative was commissioned to undertake a rapid research scan to support the interests of these community foundations and summarize the findings. The study, titled "Arts Funding in California: Where Do We Stand?," helped define the size and nature of arts funding in California, using the most recent data available.

Creative Placemaking is a resource for mayors, arts organizations, the philanthropic sector, and others interested in understanding strategies for leveraging the arts to help shape and revitalize the physical, social, and economic character of neighborhoods, cities, and towns. In the words of the report, "Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired." SEE PRESS RELEASE SEE REPORT

In envisioning a greater role for the arts in cultural diplomacy and engagement, thirty six national and international public and private sector leaders met at the Sundance Resort and Preserve in Utah on September 24-26, 2009. There they acknowledged the multiple roles the arts can play in strengthening cultural relations globally. Americans for the Arts believes this report may serve as a launching point to a new global dialogue between the public and private sectors and within our communities on the role the arts can play in improving relations between the U.S. and the world.

In a first-of-its-kind report, Live from Your Neighborhood: A National Study of Outdoor Arts Festivals finds outdoor arts festivals attract a range of audiences, they enhance their communities as creative placemakers, and they are a gateway to arts attendance. Live from Your Neighborhood is the first-ever survey of U.S. outdoor arts festivals. The survey analyzes data from 1,413 outdoor festivals in nearly every state and Washington, DC. The survey reflects a cross-section of outdoor arts festivals in artistic disciplines such as music, visual arts and crafts, dance, folk and traditional arts, theater, literature, and film. Festival audiences, programming, staffing, and finances are also reviewed. Seven case studies profile a variety of outdoor festivals in large and small communities around the country, such as the Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts and the Tamejavi Festival in Fresno, California. Arts festivals are one of the most popular arts activities according to the NEA's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, reflecting the growing demand for informal and interactive arts experiences. SEE REPORT

In 2009, Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, launched the Arts & Social Change Mapping Initiative. Supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Open Society Foundations, CrossCurrents Foundation, and Lambent Foundation, this initiative sought to identify and profile existing sources of private- and public-sector funding for arts for change work and, in so doing, to gain insight into the current state of support for this work. The culminating report, Trend or Tipping Point: Arts & Social Change Grantmaking, draws together quantitative and qualitative data from a survey, interviews, and review of grantmaker conducted reports.

Creative Conversations: How to Host an Event in Your Community
Originally recorded on September 16, 2010 (60 minutes)

Have you been hearing about the Creative Conversations program for the past five years, and want to find out how you can host an event in your community?  Do you have a topic or challenge in your community that needs to be addressed?  Then register for this webinar today!

In this 45-60 minute webinar, presenters will introduce you to Creative Conversations, give an overview of the website and registration process, and provide case studies of sample Creative Conversations that you could consider for your community.  

Creative Conversations are a great way to connect your local community to a grassroots movement to elevate the profile of the arts in America.

Available for free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art 50/50
Originally recorded on September 15, 2010 (90 minutes)

Wave Hill Director of Arts and Senior Curator Jennifer McGregor presents 50/50: Important, Impressive, Influential, Personally Pivotal Public Art of the Last 50 Years, a retrospective look at the field of 50 public art over the last 50 years. She first delivered this talk at the Americans for the Arts 2010 Half-Century Summit in Baltimore, Maryland in June, 2010.

Presenter:  Jennifer McGregor, Director of Arts & Senior Curator, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY

Moderator:  Liesel Fenner, Public Art Program Manager, Americans for the Arts, Washington, DC

Free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Starting and Sustaining a Local Emerging Leaders Network
Originally recorded on August 5, 2010 (60 minutes)

Local Emerging Leader networks come in all shapes and sizes. Want to start one in your community? Or perhaps you want to learn about what other networks are doing and how to sustain and grow the network in your community?  Building off the Local Network Toolkit and the 2009 Emerging Leader Field Survey, this webinar will present useful tips and strategies from established networks on how to launch a network or bring your network to the next level.

Presenters:  David Seals, Program Manager, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Vice-Chair, Emerging Leaders Council; Stephanie Evans, Local Arts Agency Services Coordinator, Americans for the Arts

Free for members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Intersecting Cultures: Latinos and New Media
Originally recorded on July 13, 2010 (60 minutes)

Ethnic diversity and use of technology are two of the fastest growing influences in our society, yet very little is said about the intersection of the two of them. This webinar will address the latest studies on Latino consumers as heavy users of new media. Find out how this cultural group is using technology, the reasons behind its use, and its implications for the arts and culture sector.  

Presenter: Salvador Acevedo, President, Contemporanea

Available free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

"50 States 50 Days: Organizing a Local Arts Advocacy Day"
Originally recorded on July 8, 2010 (90 minutes)

In celebration of our 50th anniversary, Americans for the Arts Action Fund is launching the "50 States 50 Days" initiative. Beginning in late July to coincide with the Congressional Recess, this national campaign seeks to expand our network of arts advocacy leaders across the country. This webinar is designed to recruit local leaders to host gatherings back home with their members of Congress on the importance of the arts and arts education. Participants on this webinar will learn about our new Toolkit to help plan and organize their visits, discuss the best strategies for making their case, and hear about the latest social media tools to advertise their events.

Presenters:

• Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel of Government Affairs and Executive Director of Americans for the Arts Action Fund
• Narric Rome, Director of Federal Affairs, Americans for the Arts
• Ra Joy, Executive Director, Arts Alliance Illinois

Available free to both members of Americans for the Arts and non-members.

This brief highlights trends in the number and finances of 501(c)(3) public charities as well as key findings on private charitable contributions and volunteering, two vital resources to the nonprofit sector. Figures on giving and volunteering include the most recent data available. Data reported on the nonprofit sector are from 2007--a snapshot of the sector just before the U.S. economic recession.

In total, approximately 61.8 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2008 giving 8 billion hours of service worth nearly $162 billion to America's communities. Volunteer hours and 2008 dollar values of volunteer time are listed below by state and the District of Columbia. This webpage and others outline the total number of volunteer hours by state in 2009. 

EDITOR'S COMMENTS: In California, there were 908,526,577 volunteer hours-- and at an estimated value of $20.25 per hour, that totals to over $18 billion dollars in value. But the value is probably higher for our state, since the $20.25 per hour estimate comes from earlier estimations, and researchers at Independent Sector currently state that volunteer hours were valued at $20.85 nationally -- and because of higher cost of living and other factors, a volunteer hour in California was estimated to be $23.29.

See VOLUNTEERING IN AMERICA website, INDEPENDENT SECTOR website.

Social Media 101
Originally recorded on March 3, 2010 (60 minutes)

In case you haven't noticed, the old ways of reaching, teaching, engaging and mobilizing audiences aren't working anymore. Why's that?  Because everything is changing. 

Technology and the Internet have become an essential part of everyday life and changed how we relate to information, and each other. Organizations need to understand how people get and share information and how that impacts their marketing and communications work. Want to figure out what it all means and how to make sense of it?

Brian Reich, managing director of little m media can help.  Brian will provide an overview of the nuts and bolts for organizations looking to catch up on the social media craze, and will address questions about specific challenges and ideas you might have. This webinar introduces content that will be covered at the next level during the Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit in June through Visionary Panels and Professional Development Workshops.

The central message of this report is that a new generation of veterans is returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan without sufficient connections to communities, is enthusiastic to serve again, and points the way forward for how our nation can better integrate them into civilian life. Although the 1.8 million veterans are from every corner of our nation, they are strongly united in their perspectives regarding civic responsibilities and opportunities as they return home. What's more, the findings show that OIF/OEF veterans are underutilized assets in our communities, and their continued service is likely to improve their transition home. We believe there is significant potential to increase volunteering and civic engagement among this generation of veterans.

What makes a community a desirable place to live? What draws people to stake their future in it? Are communities with more attached residents better off?  This study explores these issues and more.

In the midst of hard economic times, it is clearly more challenging for arts organizations to take the long view and continue to devote time and effort to building new audiences. But this report on a recent gathering of representatives from more than 50 Wallace-funded arts organizations in six cities concludes that participation-building efforts and the resulting lessons are more vital than ever to the long-term health of arts organizations and the entire arts sector. Especially in hard times, the report says, it's essential for leaders of arts organization to take careful stock of the long-term influences and challenges affecting the arts sector such as demographic shifts and new technologies that are creating entire new "spaces" for people to come together and experience the arts. The report describes how organizations are responding creatively to those challenges using such means as market research, re-branding, and drawing audience-building lessons from other sectors such as professional sports.

How does a culturally specific arts organization adapt to changing demographics in order to more effectively engage and serve contemporary audiences that are increasingly multiethnic? Witnessing dramatic shifts in its audience demographics over the past 25 years, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) has grappled with this question. One out of every three Japanese Americans is now multiracial, and increasingly audiences are no longer identifying themselves simply by ethnic or racial categories as they had in the past.

At a time when self-identity is playing a significant role not only in how people see themselves but also in how they view their relationship with museums and cultural centers, there are no simple solutions for how organizations -- regardless of institution size, focus, budget, or geographic location -- can ensure the relevancy of their programming and their long-term sustainability.

American audiences for the arts are getting older, and their numbers are declining, according to new research released today by the National Endowment for the Arts. Arts Participation 2008: Highlights from a National Survey features top findings from the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the nation's largest and most representative periodic study of adult participation in arts events and activities, conducted by the NEA in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau. Five times since 1982, the survey has asked U.S. adults 18 and older about their patterns of arts participation over a 12-month period. The 2008 survey reveals dwindling audiences for many art forms, but it also captures new data on Internet use and other forms of arts participation.

According to a new study by Chorus America, an estimated 32.5 million adults regularly sing in choruses today, up from 23.5 million estimated in 2003. And when children are included, there are 42.6 million Americans singing in choruses in 2009. More than 1 in 5 households have at least one singing family member, making choral singing the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children. There are 270,000 choruses in the U.S., such as a community chorus or a school or church choir, and participation is strongly correlated with qualities that are associated with success throughout life, the study finds. Greater civic involvement, discipline, and teamwork are just a few of the attributes fostered by singing with a choral ensemble.

The Local Arts Movement: History and Current Profiles
Originally recorded on May 20, 2009 (90 minutes)

New to the field of local arts agencies?  This session will give you the background you'll need to be able to understand your work and explain it to others.  You'll learn the history of the local arts agency movement and gain a thorough understanding of local arts agencies with current statistics from Americans for the Arts' extensive research.

Available free to Americans for the Arts members only. Not available to non-members.

If schools are to succeed in reaching every child academically, they need the support of a parent or primary caregiver to achieve this goal. This session will discuss the body of research that demonstrates how the arts can engage families in schools and discuss key strategies that are currently working in both public and charter schools.

Speakers include:

• Michael Sikes, Senior Associate for Research and Policy, the Arts Education Partnership, Washington D.C. and author of "Building Parent Involvement through the Arts" (2007)
• Sarah Ogeto , Program Coordinator,  Illinois Parent Information Resource Center at Columbia College Chicago
• Joanne Vena, Director of School Partnerships, Center for Community Arts Partnerships, Columbia College Chicago
• Angela Fowler, PIRC Program Manager, Harris Center for Early Childhood Education, Columbia College Chicago

Based on two major surveys of more than 6,000 people, the report documents a wide range of cultural activity--in music, theater and drama, reading and writing, dance, and visual arts and crafts--happening outside of the boundaries of the traditional infrastructure of nonprofit arts organizations and facilities in two fast-growing and increasingly diverse inland regions of the state.

Arts & Civic Engagement: Policies and Actions for Strengthening the 21st Century Community
Originally recorded on March 11, 2009 (90 minutes)

The 2008 National Arts Policy Roundtable, an annual forum of Americans for the Arts and the Sundance Preserve, examined important and timely opportunities for the arts to promote civic engagement toward building healthy communities and a healthy democracy.  Learn what business, government, philanthropy, education, and arts leaders recommend in areas of cross-sector alliances, policies and investment, research and evaluation, and messaging and casemaking to ensure a vital civic role for the arts.

Presenters:

• Marian A. Godfrey, Senior Director, Culture Initiatives, The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Susan Patterson, Program Director, Charlotte, The Knight Foundation
• Barbara Schaffer-Bacon, Co-Director, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts
• Pam Korza, Co-Director, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts
• Marete Wester, Director of Arts Policy, Americans for the Arts

Available for free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Leadership in Tough Times
Originally recorded on December 10, 2008 (90 minutes)

In this 90-minute webinar, Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert L. Lynch will moderate a discussion on the strategic questions that savvy arts leaders consider when facing a major challenge--changes in the economy, content controversy, funding crises, and more.  

This is a good session for professionals who want to strengthen their strategic response skills as they prepare to face the inevitable challenges that accompany leadership.

Free for both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Secrets of Success in Rural Arts Communities
Originally recorded on November 19, 2008 (90 minutes)

The arts in rural communities across the country--each with their own history and character--offer something special to both visitors and residents alike.  Drawing from the McKnight-funded Bright Stars report, this 90-minute webinar will feature successful models of rural arts development, along with the fun-natured "it could only happen here" stories that make this kind of work so satisfying.

Presenter: Carlo Cuesta, Managing Partner, Creation in Common

Public Art 101 for Administrators
Originally recorded on October 22, 2008 (90 minutes)

Through case studies and project examples, participants will learn the nuts and bolts of creating public art for their communities. The 90-minute webinar will discuss the context of placing artwork in the public realm including the politics of building a stakeholder base, agency partnerships and advocacy strategies.  Instructors will explore different funding and program structural models, including percent-for-art ordinances, master plans, and artist selection processes.

Discussion will include temporary and permanent works, art and design collaborations, artist initiated projects, as well as maintaining and conserving artworks. The webinar is suited for administrators establishing new public art programs, and/or restructuring or expanding an existing program.

Instructor:  Barbara Goldstein, Director of Public Art, San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs and Editor of Public Art by the Book
                   
Instructor:  David Allen, Director, Arts in Transit - Metro

Available free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Leadership Succession in the Arts
Originally recorded on October 15, 2008 (90 minutes)

Every arts organization will one day face a change in leadership--with or without advance notice. When that change comes, you and your board can confidently face the transition with a solid leadership succession plan.

Relevant whether your organization is facing an imminent transition or has ample time to prepare, this 90-minute webinar will walk board members and all levels of staff through the process of developing a succession plan that engages key stakeholders, answers critical questions, and addresses your organization's unique planning needs.

Available free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Recent reports and commentaries point to a growing gap between the quantity of artworks produced by American artists and arts organizations and the desire and ability of many Americans to experience those artworks. This report offers a framework for thinking about supply and demand in the arts and suggests that too little attention has been paid to cultivating demand. It identifies the roles of different factors, particularly arts learning, in stimulating interest in the arts and enriching individuals' experiences of artworks. It also describes the institutional infrastructure that provides arts learning
for Americans of all ages.

A report the Foundation Center just released, commissioned by the California Regional Associations of Grantmakers (Northern California Grantmakers, Southern California Grantmakers, and San Diego Grantmakers), provides a comprehensive estimate of the extent to which communities of color are being served by foundation giving in California. The analysis of grantmaking by 50 of the state's largest independent foundations finds that at least 39 percent of California-focused grants benefited populations of color.

According to the report, Embracing Diversity: Foundation Giving Benefiting California's Communities of Color, in 2005 alone, these 50 California-based foundations awarded a minimum of 2,700 grants totaling nearly $300 million to support health, education, social services, and other programs that serve ethnically or racially diverse populations. In addition, 10-year trends show that giving benefiting these populations grew nearly twice as fast as overall giving between 1996 and 2005.

The theoretical underpinnings are discussed in The Cultural Policy Review (CPR), which was conducted for the City of Eugene, OR from June 2006 to July 2007 and, while fairly comprehensive, was also formulaic in nature, surveying cultural policy as it relates to "the city" in three ways:

• The current policies, including budget stream, expenditures, and support provided by the Cultural Services Division of the City of Eugene.
• The general make-up of the arts and cultural sector in the community, including for-profit, nonprofit, and other public arts organizations.
• The level and kind of community engagement in and support of the arts and culture organizations across the sector, whether public, for profit, or nonprofit.

Maricopa Partnership for Arts and Culture (MPAC) in Arizona partnered with the Behavior Research Center to produce the first study of its kind to give us a greater understanding of Latino participation in arts and culture in the Greater Phoenix region. While this report examined the Latino population of Phoenix, the lessons learned can apply to any region with a large Latino population.

In this impassioned and persuasive book, Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, assesses the current state of the arts in America and finds cause for alarm. Even as he celebrates our ever-emerging culture and the way it enriches our lives here at home while spreading the dream of democracy around the world, he points to a looming crisis. The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage--the expressive life of America. In eight succinct chapters, Ivey blends personal and professional memoir, policy analysis, and deeply held convictions to explore and define a coordinated vision for art, culture, and expression in American life.

Bill Ivey was the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1998 through 2001, was director of the Country Music Foundation from 1971 to 1998, and was twice elected Chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He presently serves as founding director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, and is part of President-elect Obama's transition team for arts and culture issues.

This primer, a seminal "Essentials" publication from CAPE, provides an introduction to the community engagement methodology that has been designed and extensively tested by Public Agenda. This document outlines the differences between authentic public engagement and "business-as-usual" approaches to public involvement and offers a brief summary of the essential elements of successful public engagement efforts.

From the publisher: The chapters in this book draw on interviews with leaders, staff, volunteers, and audience members from eighty-five nonprofit cultural organizations to explore how they are trying to increase participation and the extent to which they have been successful. The insiders' accounts point to the opportunities and challenges involved in such efforts, from the reinvention of programs and creation of new activities, to the addition of new departments and staff dynamics, to partnerships with new groups. The authors differentiate between "relational" and "transactional" practices, the former term describing efforts to build connections with local communities and the latter describing efforts to create new consumer markets for cultural products. In both cases, arts leaders report that, although positive results are difficult to measure conclusively, long-term efforts bring better outcomes than short-term activities.

What does it mean to be "Californian?" California Polyphony: Ethnic Voices, Musical Crossroads suggests an answer that lies at the intersection of musicology, cultural history, and politics. Consisting of a series of musical case studies of major ethnic groups in California, this book approaches the notion of Californian identity from diverse perspectives, each nuanced by class, gender, and sexuality.

This report attempts to define and measure how audiences are transformed by a live performance. The study, commissioned by the Major University Presenters consortium, develops a simple measurement tool to assess impact, provides an analytical framework for considering the results, and suggests how performing arts presenters might begin to use this information to select programs more purposefully and evaluate them on the basis of impact instead of attendance.

This CD tool kit provides user-friendly worksheets and resources for planning, designing, and partnering on arts-based civic engagement projects and programs.

Engaging Art explores the many ways that Americans participate in the arts today. The authors argue that a new commitment to arts participation in everyday art-making, creativity, and quality of life will not only restore the lifelong pleasure of homemade art, but will seed a new generation of arts enthusiasts.

From Belfast to Johannesburg, Belgrade and beyond--surprising things happen when forces of creativity and destruction meet. Discover how artists are struggling for freedom and rebuilding society around the world. Art and Upheaval details stories in six communities on five continents and how artists and communities are confronting issues such as war, dictatorship, human rights, AIDS, poverty, and racism.

Local arts agencies are a growing presence in communities across the country. They provide vital services to sustain their local arts industry, and endeavor to make the arts accessible to each member of the community. Included with other statistical data is the estimated growth in number of local arts agencies from 1965-2004.

A study of public attendance of the arts from 1982 to 2002.

More than Measuring is the final publication of the longitudinal study that assessed the impact of ArtsPartners. The evaluation, conducted over five years in cooperation with the Dallas Independent School District, the City of Dallas and over 50 cultural organizations, focuses on design principles used in conducting evaluations in ways that build the capacity of communities to design and improve programs for children and youth.

This research paper explores the compelling link between arts participation and broader civic and community involvement, as measured by the NEA's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. The report also reveals that young adults show declines in participation rates for most arts and civic categories.

Put the power of arts and culture to work in your community:  Part 1 of this unique guide distills research and emerging ideas behind culturally driven community development and explains key underlying principles. You'll understand the arts impact on community well-being and have the rationale for engaging others.

Find inspiration and ideas from twenty case studies:  Part 2 gives you ten concrete strategies for building on the unique qualities of your own community. Each strategy is illustrated by two case studies taken from a variety of cities, small towns, and neighborhoods across the United States. You'll learn how people from all walks of life used culture and creativity as a glue to bind together people, ideas, enterprises, and institutions to make places more balanced and healthy.

More examples in Part 3.

This new version of The Arts in the Small Community - a National Plan maintains the organization and all the "big" and timeless ideas of the original as well as the examples from the five test communities, but has supplemented it with contemporary examples from communities all across the country including urban and suburban. Discussions on business, public education, and communications were rewritten to reflect the evolution on these fronts in the past thirty-five years. An appendix summarizes what is happening in the test communities today.

Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture explores the power of the arts and humanities to foster civic engagement and demonstrates how arts and humanities organizations can be vital civic and cultural institutions. This book examines the experiences of 37 arts and humanities projects, realized by a wide range of cultural organizations, and supported by Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts. These projects explored such issues as race relations, economic inequity, gentrification, school violence, and the influx of immigrants and refugees in communities, among others. The book shares the findings of this highly regarded initiative by capturing the perspectives of artists, cultural leaders, and community partners involved with these projects. Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture contributes to deepening our understanding of the artistic, civic, and organizational dimensions of the work, as well as the principles and practices that underpin effective work.

Arts, Culture, and the Social Health of the Nation is designed to monitor the artistic and cultural experiences of Americans. Based on the Institute's National Social Survey, it probes new issues and looks at changes in arts participation since the Institute's previous report in 2002. The current report shows that Americans deeply value the arts, both in their own lives and in the lives of their children. Yet participation levels have declined slightly since the last survey, both for adults and for children. Differences in participation by income level remain a serious problem.

Cultural Democracy explores the crisis of our national cultural vitality, as access to the arts becomes increasingly mediated by a handful of corporations and the narrow tastes of wealthy elites. Graves offers the concept of cultural democracy as corrective--an idea with important historic and contemporary validation, and an alternative pathway toward ethical cultural development that is part of a global shift in values. Drawing upon a range of scholarship and illustrative anecdotes from his own experiences with cultural programs in ethnically diverse communities, Graves explains in convincing detail the dynamics of how traditional and grassroots cultures may survive and thrive--or not--and what we can do to provide them opportunities equal to those of mainstream, Eurocentric culture.

The Values Study was a participatory qualitative study of arts participation in Connecticut involving teams of board and staff members representing 20 Connecticut arts organizations. The study develops a new framework for understanding arts participation (i.e., five modes of arts participation) and the many layers of benefits and value that consumers seek. The third section provides extensive guidelines for arts groups that may wish to conduct qualitative research on their audiences and visitors.

Faced with intense competition for audiences and financial support, as well as adverse political fallout from the "culture wars" of the early 1990s, arts advocates have increasingly sought to make a case for the arts in terms of their instrumental benefits to individuals and communities. In this report documenting the most comprehensive study of its kind, the authors evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these instrumental arguments and make the case that a new approach to understanding the benefits of the arts is needed. 

Critical of what they view as an overemphasis on instrumental benefits, the authors call for a greater recognition of the intrinsic benefits of the arts experience, provide a more comprehensive framework for assessing the private and public value of both intrinsic and instrumental benefits, and link the realization of those benefits to the nature of arts involvement. In particular, they underscore the importance of sustained involvement in the arts to the achievement of both instrumental and intrinsic benefits. This study has important policy implications for access to the arts, childhood exposure to the arts, arts advocacy, and future research on the arts.

This report addressed the following questions among others:

• What factors affected audience-development efforts from 1992 to 1998 in the four
  cities across the performing arts in all disciplines and types of institutions?
• What influences have had an impact on the growth or lack of growth in audiences?
• What are the other changes in the marketplace -- such as other leisure time use,
  increased complexity of community and drive time to events -- that have affected
  audience development over the decade?

Be Sure Your Cell Phones Are Turned ON: Marketing to Today's Mobile Arts Audience
Originally recorded on October 5, 2010 (60 minutes)

This webinar will explore the new and ever-developing field of mobile marketing.  It will cover the ways Artsopolis itself has experimented with targeting the mobile market, as well as highlight the experiences of local arts groups. From creating buzz around an event to increasing ticket sales, to patrons generating content during an arts experience, the presenter will demonstrate that there is a segment of people willing to "do your work for you" if you can just reach them.

The webinar will seek to address questions such as:

• Who is the mobile market target audience? What do they really look like and where will you find them?
• How can existing smart phone applications (like Foursquare) be used to engage an audience?
• How to effectively leverage social media? (Tweet Seats, #tags, Facebook)
• How success in a mobile marketing campaign is measured?
• How much time and manpower does it take to implement such a marketing campaign?

Available for free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Increasing Demand for the Arts: A Talk with Marketing Masters
Originally recorded on September 14, 2010 (60 minutes)

The National Arts Marketing Project Conference has designed a brand new pre-conference that gathers 10 Marketing Masters to share breakthrough ideas in audience engagement and reveal the challenges they still face. Attend this webinar to hear a sneak preview from three of the Masters as well as case studies from around the globe. Moderated by Jerry Yoshitomi, you will learn how the Masters are breaking down roadblocks and devising audience-building solutions for their organizations and yours.

Free for members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Marketing for the Independent Artist: How to Advance Your Career and Build Your Business
Originally recorded on February 18, 2010 (75 minutes)

Attention Artists! Take control of your own marketing by learning what it can and can't do for your careers. Discover the basics of marketing strategy based on those objectives and how to make it real. Presenter Deborah Obalil will address the difficult balance of making art while running a thriving small business.

Presenter: Deborah Obalil, Obalil & Associates, Lincoln, RI

Deborah Obalil has 15 years experience as an arts manager and organizational development specialist, with experience at both the staff and consulting levels in writing and implementing detailed strategic plans, marketing plans and development plans. Her consulting practice has included clients of every organization size and discipline, including independent artists, in various geographic locations across the United States. Deborah is a regular faculty member of the Artist Professional Toolbox, an annual professional development program for visual artists presented by the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston. Deborah's career within arts organizations placed her most recently as the Executive Director of the Alliance of Artists Communities, an organization dedicated to the advancement of America's creative vitality through supporting the field of artists' communities.

Available free to both members of Americans for the Arts and non-members

The most comprehensive guide of its kind, ART/WORK gives artists of every level the tools they need to make it in an art world so competitive one dealer likens it to "the Sopranos, except nobody gets killed."  Whether you're an art school grad looking for a gallery, a mid-career artist managing a busy studio, or someone just thinking about becoming a professional artist, this indispensable resource will help you build your career and protect yourself along the way.

With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, RMC conducted an inquiry into the perspectives of planning and economic development professionals on the utility of different types of arts and cultural data. RMC created a typology of arts and culture data and tested it through focused discussions and interviews. Through this process we learned about ways that cultural data might be collected and presented more effectively. One outcome of this work is the monograph Communicating Value: Re-framing Arts and Culture Data.

Resource guide for working artists across the United States providing expert advice and practical information on everything you need to know to be a successful, self-employed creative entrepreneur and to maximize your artistic career. Whether you are a performing, visual, media, film, literary,crafts or traditional artist working in the nonprofit arts or commercially, you'll want to read the Business of Art: An Artist's Guide to Profitable Self-Employment. In it, you will learn the basic principles behind:

• Career and Business Planning
• Marketing and Promotions
• Budgeting and Money Management
• Legal Issues for Artists
• Financing Creative Work

265 pages. $34.95 for non-members / $27.95 for Benefit Opportunities for Artists members plus shipping.

Art and Reality will show you how to present your artwork in a way that will gain access to museums, universities, publishers and important galleries that might otherwise be out of reach.  It guides you step-by-step through the process of developing and executing a fast track career plan.

An 8-1/2" x 11", 175-page workbook for any entrepreneurial spirit interested in writing successful grant proposals, marketing plans or business plans. Over 400 listings of microlenders who make uncollateralized loans of $500 - $25,000; grant resources for individual artists; Women's Business Centers, technical assistance providers; state specific business development centers and internet resources designed to help you build your business. Chapters include "Show Me The Money!," "Artists and Entrepreneurs," and "The Grantsmanship Game." Interviews with video artist Bill Viola, visual artist John Outterbridge, mezzo soprano Suzanna Guzman, muralist Judith Baca, choreographer Fred Strickler and many others. "A compelling and delightful narrative unveiling the essence of successful entrepreneurship. Like a loving mentor, Judith takes the reader by the hand and demonstrates both the essentials and the pitfalls of business ownership. She then goes on to provide the map and the resources to navigate the road to success. This is 'must reading' for anyone who is serious about building their business." Ward Wieman, President, Management Overload

The YouthARTS Development Project demonstrated the efficacy of arts programs for at-risk youth in three cities. Some findings from the project are graphically explained in this one-page reference document. The project was a partnership between Americans for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Justice, and is one of many short reference documents from Americans for the Arts. 

In a first-of-its-kind report, Live from Your Neighborhood: A National Study of Outdoor Arts Festivals finds outdoor arts festivals attract a range of audiences, they enhance their communities as creative placemakers, and they are a gateway to arts attendance. Live from Your Neighborhood is the first-ever survey of U.S. outdoor arts festivals. The survey analyzes data from 1,413 outdoor festivals in nearly every state and Washington, DC. The survey reflects a cross-section of outdoor arts festivals in artistic disciplines such as music, visual arts and crafts, dance, folk and traditional arts, theater, literature, and film. Festival audiences, programming, staffing, and finances are also reviewed. Seven case studies profile a variety of outdoor festivals in large and small communities around the country, such as the Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts and the Tamejavi Festival in Fresno, California. Arts festivals are one of the most popular arts activities according to the NEA's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, reflecting the growing demand for informal and interactive arts experiences. SEE REPORT

Graphic information about the percentage of adult travelers that included cultural events on trips of more than fifty miles. This is one of many short reference documents from Americans for the Arts.

This issue brief illustrates how states are expanding international trade opportunities through culture. Case studies demonstrate ways that the arts encourage tourism, strengthen business networks, build "brand identity" and position states for success in a global marketplace. As new international trade and investment treaty negotiations by the federal government progress, governors will be called upon to promote their states' businesses in a tight budget environment. Several states--looking for a greater edge in an increasingly competitive marketplace--are incorporating arts and cultural exchanges in their international trade and business development approaches. This aspect of state-level diplomacy undergirds and complements more traditional trade promotion efforts that focus on generating immediate exports. This is one of a series of issue briefs on the economic importance of the arts.

This study was commissioned by Dance/USA as part of the "Engaging Dance Audiences" (EDA) initiative, a grant program focused on research and development of audience engagement practices in the dance field; the goal of the study was to assess how dance patrons "engage" with the art form, and specifically what kinds of educational or enrichment program and activities they do, or would like to do more often.

Despite the economic downturn, creative jobs in Los Angeles are holding steady.

There are 2.1 million artists in the United States workforce, and a large portion of them -- designers -- contribute to industries whose products Americans use every day, according to new research from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Creativity Sector named as one of four drivers of Orange County employment:

Orange County's increasing focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) as a critical competitive advantage has evolved into an emphasis on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS, Math).  The Creativity sector is the market impact of businesses and individuals involved in producing cultural, artistic, and design goods and services. More specifically, it consists of creative professionals and enterprises that take powerful, original ideas and transform them into practical and often innovative goods, or inspire us with their artistry.

Every year, approximately 11 percent of foundation giving - about $2.3 billion in 2009 - is awarded to nonprofit arts and cultural institutions. The distribution of these funds is demonstrably out of balance with our evolving cultural landscape and with the changing demographics of our communities. Current arts grantmaking disregards large segments of cultural practice, and by doing so, it disregards large segments of our society.

California has 11,000 arts and culture nonprofits, a number that places the state ahead of most nations in the world. Californians are more likely to participate than other Americans,  but arts involvement and nonprofit organizations are unevenly spread across California's geographic and demographic communities.

New findings generated by Markusen Economic Research and commissioned by The James Irvine Foundation offer fresh illustrations of the California nonprofit arts sector and the people who take part in it.

Cultural industries are economic powerhouses and states have the data to prove it, according to a new analysis from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Drawing on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arts and the GDP: Value Added by Selected Cultural Industries is a new NEA research note that examines the value added by three selected cultural industries: (1) performing arts, sports, and museums; (2) motion pictures and sound recording; and (3) publishing (including software).  

Combined, these three cultural industries contributed a total of $278.4 billion to the U.S. economy in 2009.  The NEA research note also looks at dollars and jobs added to individual state economies by these cultural industries.

See Press Release

See REPORT (PDF)

For the first time, the National Endowment for the Arts looks at future job prospects for a variety of artist occupations in Artist Employment Projections Through 2018. This report examines the projected growth rate for artist occupations through 2018, over which time artist occupations will increase by 11 percent, compared with an overall increase in the labor force of 10 percent.

The 2010 National Arts Policy Roundtable, The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength, focused on the role of the arts in answering the national imperative to improve education in order to meet the global challenges we face. This report is a summary of the findings of this convening at the Sundance Institute in September 2010.

Commissioned by the Center for Cultural Innovation with generous support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation:

Over the past several years, the  foundations have invested in research and programs that seek to understand, and address, the talent flight and leadership challenges confronting the arts sector in California. Leaders in the nonprofit arts world, many of them founders and builders of their organizations for decades, will be retiring in unprecedented numbers in the coming years. Organizations could become weaker and destabilized during this transition, a prospect that should be addressed with some urgency. Younger professionals should be able to take on these leadership roles and chart a new course in stressful and changing times. Yet an operational divide between the workplace needs and values of Next Geners and those currently in charge threatens this transition. Here's a good look at this issue.

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) at Indiana University's Center for Postsecondary Research addresses the previously unanswered question of what happens to alumni of performing and visual arts in its report, Forks in the Road: The Many Paths of Arts Alumni. Stereotypes and misconceptions abounded about what these graduates were doing, with one of the most common being that they are unable to find work in their desired field and therefore are forced to take jobs outside of their desired field. After receiving 13,581 responses, SNAAP was able to dispel that myth and provide a clearer picture of the activities of these graduates.

Last fall, 30 top-level decision makers and thought leaders from government, business, education, and the arts gathered at the Sundance Resort and Preserve for the Fifth Annual Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Roundtable, to discuss this year's theme - The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength.

Their conclusions are profiled in a new report issued this week by Americans for the Arts that calls for individuals across the public and private sector to recognize the arts as the transformational tools they are for making schools stronger and students more successful.

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it," said American author Henry David Thoreau more than 150 years ago. Time and Money: Using Federal Data to Measure the Value of Performing Arts Activities is a new research note from the National Endowment for the Arts that looks at the value of the arts in three ways: time spent on arts activities; organizational revenue and expenses; and direct consumer spending.  A particular focus on performing arts data provides consistency across these three measurements.

Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts reports continue to offer a research-based approach to understanding the scope and importance of the arts to the nation's economy using Dun and Bradstreet data. While most economic impact studies of the arts have focused on the nonprofit sector (such as our own Arts and Economic Prosperity studies), Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industries. Reports available for US Congressional districts, states and in customized formats.

Why and How Businesses Support the Arts: Business Committee for the Arts Triennial Survey
Originally recorded on December 8, 2010 (80 minutes)

The BCA Survey of Business Support for the Arts is the only Survey in the US that tracks support from small, mid-sized and large businesses nationwide. Business funders will discuss the survey's findings in terms of why and how they support the arts and compare the extent of their giving, both now and the near future.

Moderator:  Mark Shugoll, Affiliate, CEO, Shugoll Research; Presenters:  Alessandra Digiusto, Chief Administrative Officer, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation; Jeff Eberlein, Managing Partner, Strata-G Communications; Carole Morse, President, Portland General Electric Foundation

Available free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Creative Placemaking is a resource for mayors, arts organizations, the philanthropic sector, and others interested in understanding strategies for leveraging the arts to help shape and revitalize the physical, social, and economic character of neighborhoods, cities, and towns. In the words of the report, "Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired." SEE PRESS RELEASE SEE REPORT

In recent years, nearly every state has adopted generous tax subsidies for film and TV productions in an attempt to create local jobs and boost the state economy, but the cost of these subsidies is outweighing their benefits, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. SEE PRESS RELEASE, SEE REPORT

The Power of Art and Artists is the theme of the 2010 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region Presented by Otis College of Art and Design. The report, which includes a 5-year employment projection, investigates the direct and indirect economic impact of industries such as Fine and Performing Arts, Digital Media, Entertainment, Architecture, Interior Design, Fashion, Toy and Communications Arts. This is the fourth consecutive year that Otis College of Art and Design has commissioned this analysis and presented real numbers for the business of creativity in both Los Angeles County and Orange County. SEE FULL REPORT

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy's (CECP) analysis of corporate giving in 2009 in a report titled "Giving in Numbers," found that giving fell at 59% of companies in 2009, with 40% of companies decreasing by 10% or more. In contrast, aggregate corporate giving in CECP's year-over-year matched set of 95 companies rose in 2009 to $9.93 billion, up 7% from 2008 and reaching the highest value in four years. The increase is largely attributable to corporate mergers resulting in combined giving budgets and increased donations of medicine by pharmaceutical companies, responding when millions of Americans lost their health insurance due to unemployment. While this analysis is written for corporate giving professionals, for whom it serves as a powerful tool positioning their giving in the larger field of corporate philanthropy, it also provides invaluable insight for journalists, consultants, nonprofit executives, and others interested in understanding the ways that corporations are leveraging their cash and non-cash resources to continue to support their communities, even in difficult economic times. SEE PRESS RELEASE

Before the Orange County Business Committee for the Arts dissolved in 2010, it made preparations for a final Economic Impact of the Nonprofit Arts on Orange County study through the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University. The Center has conducted this study every four years since 1990 with largely the same local arts organizations participating. According to the report, nonprofit arts organizations contribute nearly $500 million to the local economy.

Creative Conversations: How to Host an Event in Your Community
Originally recorded on September 16, 2010 (60 minutes)

Have you been hearing about the Creative Conversations program for the past five years, and want to find out how you can host an event in your community?  Do you have a topic or challenge in your community that needs to be addressed?  Then register for this webinar today!

In this 45-60 minute webinar, presenters will introduce you to Creative Conversations, give an overview of the website and registration process, and provide case studies of sample Creative Conversations that you could consider for your community.  

Creative Conversations are a great way to connect your local community to a grassroots movement to elevate the profile of the arts in America.

Available for free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Key findings:

• The world's private and public sector leaders believe that a rapid escalation of "complexity" is the biggest challenge confronting them. They expect it to continue - indeed, to accelerate - in the coming years.
• They are equally clear that their enterprises today are not equipped to cope effectively with this complexity in the global environment.
• Finally, they identify "creativity" as the single most important leadership competency for enterprises seeking a path through this complexity.

.

In total, approximately 61.8 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2008 giving 8 billion hours of service worth nearly $162 billion to America's communities. Volunteer hours and 2008 dollar values of volunteer time are listed below by state and the District of Columbia. This webpage and others outline the total number of volunteer hours by state in 2009. 

EDITOR'S COMMENTS: In California, there were 908,526,577 volunteer hours-- and at an estimated value of $20.25 per hour, that totals to over $18 billion dollars in value. But the value is probably higher for our state, since the $20.25 per hour estimate comes from earlier estimations, and researchers at Independent Sector currently state that volunteer hours were valued at $20.85 nationally -- and because of higher cost of living and other factors, a volunteer hour in California was estimated to be $23.29.

See VOLUNTEERING IN AMERICA website, INDEPENDENT SECTOR website.

National Arts Index
Originally recorded on January 27, 2010 (60 minutes)

Description:  How sustainable are arts and culture in our dynamic society? Are the economic resources and potentials sufficient for their future vitality? Join us in a lively discussion about the health and vitality of the arts sector through the lens of The National Arts Index.  It's illuminating, and often provocative. Findings include trends in organizational capacity, changes in personal participation and creation, nonprofit vs. for-profit, funding, education, and more. Learn how the Index can be used to spur conversations, shape strategies, and educate decision makers, and improve the state of the arts in America.

Available to both members of Americans for the Arts and non-members

Otis College of Art and Design released the 2009 Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region in November 2009, including an economic forecast of the creative industries through the year 2013. The report found that as the U.S. economy continues to transition from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy, the Los Angeles region will see an uptick in employment for artists and designers. Data show that the "creative economy" is one of the largest business sectors in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, generating nearly 1 million in direct and indirect jobs and almost $140 billion in sales/receipts from the arts, design and entertainment industries combined. Over $5.1 billion in state and local tax revenues are generated by art and design-oriented businesses.

Governors increasingly recognize the importance of the creative sector to their states' economy and ability to compete in the global marketplace. "Creative industries" provide direct economic benefits to states and communities: They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues, and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases. These industries also provide an array of other benefits, such as infusing other industries with creative insight for their products and services and preparing workers to participate in the contemporary workforce. In addition, because they enhance quality of life, the arts and culture are an important complement to community development, enriching local amenities and attracting young professionals to an area. This report looks at best practices for enhancing the creative economy in your state.

Secrets of Success in Rural Arts Communities
Originally recorded on November 19, 2008 (90 minutes)

The arts in rural communities across the country--each with their own history and character--offer something special to both visitors and residents alike.  Drawing from the McKnight-funded Bright Stars report, this 90-minute webinar will feature successful models of rural arts development, along with the fun-natured "it could only happen here" stories that make this kind of work so satisfying.

Presenter: Carlo Cuesta, Managing Partner, Creation in Common

The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children--and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form--with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable "hybrid economy".

• Summary information from the publisher
• Author's informational webpage
• Interview on The Colbert Report
• Dance remixes of the Colbert Report interview

Artists, designers and "creative types" drive the diverse economy of the Los Angeles region, according to a new report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC). Data shows that "creativity" is the #2 business sector in Los Angeles and Orange County, generating nearly 1 million jobs and over $100 billion in sales/receipts from the arts, design and entertainment industries combined. (Tourism and Hospitality is the # 1 business sector in the Los Angeles region.)

With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, RMC conducted an inquiry into the perspectives of planning and economic development professionals on the utility of different types of arts and cultural data. RMC created a typology of arts and culture data and tested it through focused discussions and interviews. Through this process we learned about ways that cultural data might be collected and presented more effectively. One outcome of this work is the monograph Communicating Value: Re-framing Arts and Culture Data.

An increasing number of states are establishing arts or cultural districts. This policy brief from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) outlines the challenges and success factors of state-level cultural district programs. (PDF)

This issue brief from the National Governors' Association shows how states can foster thriving film, television and media arts industries. As governors continue exploring innovative strategies to grow their economies, states are increasingly looking to film, television and related media arts productions as a means of attracting high-paying jobs and related high-tech businesses. This brief summarizes the economic benefits of film production and includes examples of policies, incentives and special initiatives that states have used to attract film activity and cultivate local film and media arts assets. See press release. See issue brief. This is one of a series of issue briefson the economic importance of the arts.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005, the first nationwide look at artists' demographic and employment patterns in the 21st century. Artists in the Workforce analyzes working artist trends, gathering new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau to provide a comprehensive overview of this workforce segment, its maturation over the past 30 years, and detailed information on specific artist occupations.

Three essays were commissioned for the National Arts Policy Roundtable, co-convened annually by Americans for the Arts and the Sundance Preserve. The 2007 Roundtable focused on the challenge of preparing students to enter the workforce with the creativity and innovation skills that are essential to ensuring that American business will prosper. The essays in this publication are: Creating a Whole New World: Placing Arts and Education in the Center of the Flat Earth by Dr. Paul D. Houston; The Arts & Creativity in Education: Keys to American Economic Competitiveness in the 21st Century by Hamsa Thota, Ph.D.; and The Arts and Education: Changing Track by Sir Ken Robinson. Member Price: $5.00 Nonmember Price: $7.00

Americans for the Arts (AFTA) released in May 2008 Creative Industries 2008: The State Report, which presents a detailed analysis of arts-related businesses, institutions, and organizations in the country's 50 states plus the District of Columbia. The study reveals that arts-centric businesses represent 4.3 percent of all businesses and 2.2 percent of all jobs in the United States and that the arts are a robust and formidable economic growth sector.

California had the most number of arts businesses (98,949) and the sixth number of arts employees (500,891). California also had the largest amount of growth in arts businesses (14.35%) and arts employees (17.52%) from 2007 to 2008.

Other highlights of the national study include:

* More than 612,000 arts-related businesses employ 2.98 million people nationwide.
* Arts-centric businesses grew 12 percent from 2007 compared to the growth of 10.7 percent for all U.S. businesses.
* Employment growth by arts-centric businesses since 2007 was 11.6 percent, more than four times the rise in the total number of U.S. employees of 2.4 percent.

The creative industries range from nonprofit museums, symphonies, and theaters to for-profit film, architecture, and advertising companies. The study tracks and maps the presence of these arts-related entities in six creative industries: museums and collections; performing arts; visual arts and photography; film, radio, and TV; design and publishing; and arts schools and services.

Americans for the Arts' (AFTA) annual publication on the impact of the arts on the largest 50 cities was released in early April 2008. Called Creative Industries 2008: The 50-City Report, it presents detailed analysis of arts-related businesses, institutions, and organizations in the country's 50 most-populated cities. The study reveals that arts-centric businesses represent 4.3 percent of all businesses and 2.2 percent of all jobs in the United States and that the arts are a robust and formidable economic growth sector.

The California cities included in the report include: Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco were in the top 10 cities ranked by number of arts employees. The entire Creative Industries 2008: The 50 City Report, as well as additional reports on states and U.S. Congressional Districts, are available on AFTA's "Creative Industries" website.

Proceedings from a seminar on cultural tax districts sponsored by the Washington State Arts Commission and WESTAF. Held in Seattle, Washington, in February, 2008, seminar participants focused on the benefits, drawbacks, structure and impact of cultural tax districts. Participants examined several proposed, unsuccessful, and current tax district structures--such as Denver's Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, which yields more than $42 million annually for arts and culture in a seven-county area. Printed copies of the proceedings are available upon request from WESTAF.

The quarterly newsletter from Ohio's Center for Regional Development analyzed the impact of the arts on the region. Results show a strong economic impact from the arts and creative industries, and a recommendation for investment.

Detailed statistics outlining total economic activity, full time jobs supported, tax revenue and household income generated through the nonprofit arts industry. This is one of many short reference documents from Americans for the Arts.

Graphical data spanning five years documenting the number of artists employed in the United States. This is one of many short reference documents from Americans for the Arts.

The National Center on Education and the Economy is a nonprofit organization created to develop proposals for building the world class education and training system that the United States must have if it is to continue to be a world class economy. Tough Choices or Tough Times is a monumental analysis of the future global workforce and the U.S. Part of that world-class education and training system must focus on innovation in order to remain globally competitive -- and arts advocates note the importance of arts education and community arts for a healthy creative economy. The National Center engages in policy analysis and development and works collaboratively with others at the local, state and national levels to advance its proposals in the policy arena.

Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts reports offer a new, research-based approach to understanding the scope and importance of the arts to the nation's economy. While most economic impact studies of the arts have focused on the nonprofit sector (such as our own Arts and Economic Prosperity study), Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industry.

This study, cosponsored by Irvine, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Leveraging Investments in Creativity, shows how California artists move more fluidly between the commercial, nonprofit and community sectors than is commonly believed. Their ability to do so, the study concludes, is a major stimulant to regional economic activity and the quality of life. The study, by the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, is based on a Web survey of Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area musicians, writers, and performing and visual artists. With New York, these two regions support more artists per capita than the nation's other large metropolitan areas.

From Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and from California's coast to Maryland's eastern shore, states are turning to arts-based economic development strategies to revive rural economies stung by geographic isolation, infrastructure deficiencies and the flight of skilled workers to big cities, according to an issue brief from the National Governors' Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). Incorporating the arts into states' existing rural economic development policy helps not only to diversify rural economies but to provide these previously struggling communities with a competitive advantage in the 21st century's global marketplace as well. The brief, Strengthening Rural Economies through the Arts, documents how states utilize a variety of arts-focused policies to create jobs and improve quality of life. This is one of a series of issue briefs on the economic importance of the arts.

Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences documents the key role played by the nonprofit arts and culture industry in strengthening our nation's economy. This study demonstrates that the nonprofit arts and culture industry is an economic driver in communities - a growth industry that supports jobs, generates government revenue, and is the cornerstone of tourism.

The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent by best-selling author Richard Florida, is the follow up to The Rise of the Creative Class. The book details how we can work to create a new American society that taps "the full creative capabilities of every human being."

Since 1994, the impact of nonprofit arts and culture on California's economy increased by 152 percent to $5.4 billion. The 2004 study demonstrates that arts and culture generate billions annually, support a workforce of more than 160,000 and produce nearly $300 million in state and local taxes. It also shows that education, cultural tourism, and California's creative industries are all nurtured by the nonprofit arts sector, and substantiates the significant role of the nonprofit arts to California's economic well-being and status as the world's fifth largest economy.

This publication is available from the California Arts Council.  See: http://cac.ca.gov/artsinfo/files/Pubs-order-form-2010.pdf 

This issue brief illustrates how states are expanding international trade opportunities through culture. Case studies demonstrate ways that the arts encourage tourism, strengthen business networks, build "brand identity" and position states for success in a global marketplace. As new international trade and investment treaty negotiations by the federal government progress, governors will be called upon to promote their states' businesses in a tight budget environment. Several states--looking for a greater edge in an increasingly competitive marketplace--are incorporating arts and cultural exchanges in their international trade and business development approaches. This aspect of state-level diplomacy undergirds and complements more traditional trade promotion efforts that focus on generating immediate exports. This is one of a series of issue briefs on the economic importance of the arts.

The $37 billion nonprofit arts industry is a potent force in economic development nationwide, according to an issue brief released by the National Governors' Association (NGA). Blending summaries of economic impact studies, federal and state statistics and best practices, the policy brief details how governors and other state leaders can use the arts to unite communities, create economic opportunity and improve the quality of life. This report on the arts was prepared by the NGA's Center for Best Practices, whose role is to provide governors with innovative ideas and examples of excellence in state government. This is one of a series of issue briefs on the economic importance of the arts.

The Creative Economy Initiative (CEI) is a partnership of New England's business, government, cultural and educational leaders committed to strengthening the region's economic vitality by fostering its creative economy. This initiative has successfully linked businesses and organizations from economic sectors that had previously functioned only autonomously, and is unique in its regional approach. The involvement of all six New England states sets the project apart from state-based economic impact studies.

In recent years, nearly every state has adopted generous tax subsidies for film and TV productions in an attempt to create local jobs and boost the state economy, but the cost of these subsidies is outweighing their benefits, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. SEE PRESS RELEASE, SEE REPORT

This issue brief from the National Governors' Association shows how states can foster thriving film, television and media arts industries. As governors continue exploring innovative strategies to grow their economies, states are increasingly looking to film, television and related media arts productions as a means of attracting high-paying jobs and related high-tech businesses. This brief summarizes the economic benefits of film production and includes examples of policies, incentives and special initiatives that states have used to attract film activity and cultivate local film and media arts assets. See press release. See issue brief. This is one of a series of issue briefson the economic importance of the arts.

There are 2.1 million artists in the United States workforce, and a large portion of them -- designers -- contribute to industries whose products Americans use every day, according to new research from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Commissioned by the Center for Cultural Innovation with generous support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation:

Over the past several years, the  foundations have invested in research and programs that seek to understand, and address, the talent flight and leadership challenges confronting the arts sector in California. Leaders in the nonprofit arts world, many of them founders and builders of their organizations for decades, will be retiring in unprecedented numbers in the coming years. Organizations could become weaker and destabilized during this transition, a prospect that should be addressed with some urgency. Younger professionals should be able to take on these leadership roles and chart a new course in stressful and changing times. Yet an operational divide between the workplace needs and values of Next Geners and those currently in charge threatens this transition. Here's a good look at this issue.

Omnivores -- defined by sociologists as people who regularly participate in a broad range of cultural activities -- represent a small minority of the population, but a large portion of the arts audience. In a new analysis recently released by the National Endowment for the Arts, author Mark J. Stern concludes that this engaged, energetic group is both shrinking in size and becoming less active. In Age and Arts Participation: A Case Against Demographic Destiny, he argues the largely unexplained diminution of this group is a key reason attendance at arts events continues to dwindle.

Report authors Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Alan Brown of WolfBrown explore patterns of arts engagement across three modes:  arts creation or performance, arts engagement through media, and attendance at arts activities. The report highlights the overlap in participation across modes, and examines factors that drive participation within and between modes.

CREATIVITY IS SECOND LARGEST BUSINESS SECTOR IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY 

The 2010 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region revealed that the creative economy is the second largest business sector in Los Angeles County (after tourism and hospitality). Commissioned by Otis College of Art and Design from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), the new data show that the arts, design, and entertainment industries together produce 835,000 direct and indirect jobs for the Los Angeles region (including Orange County). In addition, art and design-oriented business generate $127 billion in sales revenues and more than $4.6 billion in state and local taxes.

www.otis.edu/econreport

Rich Americans' Philanthropy Dropped in 2009, But not for the Arts

Bank of America and Merrill Lynch recently partnered with the Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy to conduct a survey on the giving habits of individuals with high net-worth. The study highlighted the arts as the category with the biggest divide between wealthy and middle class giving habits, with religious giving the second biggest difference. Households with incomes of $200,000 or more, or a net worth of at least $1 million, devoted 7.5 cents out of their charitable dollar to the arts during 2009, compared to a penny for the population at large. Nearly three out of four wealthy households gave to the arts; for the general population it was just over one in 13.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/11/rich-arts-charity-merrill-lynch.html

This report shows the results of Teaching Artists and Their Work Survey: ATA's Survey on What are Meaningful, Supportable, and Sustainable Environments for the Work of a Teaching Artist.  The focus of the survey, conducted between September 2009 and March 2010 was Teaching Artists' experiential knowledge. Teaching Artists' from fifty states and the District of Columbia responded to the survey.

Be Sure Your Cell Phones Are Turned ON: Marketing to Today's Mobile Arts Audience
Originally recorded on October 5, 2010 (60 minutes)

This webinar will explore the new and ever-developing field of mobile marketing.  It will cover the ways Artsopolis itself has experimented with targeting the mobile market, as well as highlight the experiences of local arts groups. From creating buzz around an event to increasing ticket sales, to patrons generating content during an arts experience, the presenter will demonstrate that there is a segment of people willing to "do your work for you" if you can just reach them.

The webinar will seek to address questions such as:

• Who is the mobile market target audience? What do they really look like and where will you find them?
• How can existing smart phone applications (like Foursquare) be used to engage an audience?
• How to effectively leverage social media? (Tweet Seats, #tags, Facebook)
• How success in a mobile marketing campaign is measured?
• How much time and manpower does it take to implement such a marketing campaign?

Available for free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Intersecting Cultures: Latinos and New Media
Originally recorded on July 13, 2010 (60 minutes)

Ethnic diversity and use of technology are two of the fastest growing influences in our society, yet very little is said about the intersection of the two of them. This webinar will address the latest studies on Latino consumers as heavy users of new media. Find out how this cultural group is using technology, the reasons behind its use, and its implications for the arts and culture sector.  

Presenter: Salvador Acevedo, President, Contemporanea

Available free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Nearly 40 percent of nonprofit organizations lack adequate staff to deliver their programs and services, a new report from the Johns Hopkins University Listening Post Project finds. According to the report, Recession Pressures on Nonprofit Jobs (17 pages, PDF), almost a third of the 526 organizations surveyed by the project reported making workforce reductions over the preceding six months (October 2009 to March 2010), while only 23 percent reported employment gains over the same period and 46 percent reported no change in head count despite facing greater demand for their services. In addition to workforce reductions, the survey found that nonprofits have taken other actions that impact staff and their ability to deliver critical programs and services.

When compared with non-media participants, Americans who participate in the arts through technology and electronic media -- using the Internet, television, radio, computers, and handheld devices -- are nearly three times more likely to attend live arts events; attend twice as many live arts events; and attend a greater variety of genres of live arts events, according to Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation. The report describes the demographic characteristics of U.S. adults that participated in the arts (such as concerts, plays, and dance performances) via electronic media (e.g., TV, radio, computers and portable media devices) in 2008, based on the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). Separately, the report examines broad categories of arts participation via Internet. The report also investigates factors contributing to the likelihood of some Americans experiencing art through media. Finally, the report considers the relationship between media-based arts activities and other types of arts participation, such as live attendance and personal arts creation. June 2010. 146 pp.

Key findings:

• The world's private and public sector leaders believe that a rapid escalation of "complexity" is the biggest challenge confronting them. They expect it to continue - indeed, to accelerate - in the coming years.
• They are equally clear that their enterprises today are not equipped to cope effectively with this complexity in the global environment.
• Finally, they identify "creativity" as the single most important leadership competency for enterprises seeking a path through this complexity.

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A new Johns Hopkins University survey has revealed widespread innovation among the nation's nonprofits, as well as efforts by those organizations to measure their programs' effectiveness. The vast majority (82 percent) of responding organizations reported implementing an innovative program or service within the past five years, and 85 percent reported measuring program effectiveness.

Social Media 101
Originally recorded on March 3, 2010 (60 minutes)

In case you haven't noticed, the old ways of reaching, teaching, engaging and mobilizing audiences aren't working anymore. Why's that?  Because everything is changing. 

Technology and the Internet have become an essential part of everyday life and changed how we relate to information, and each other. Organizations need to understand how people get and share information and how that impacts their marketing and communications work. Want to figure out what it all means and how to make sense of it?

Brian Reich, managing director of little m media can help.  Brian will provide an overview of the nuts and bolts for organizations looking to catch up on the social media craze, and will address questions about specific challenges and ideas you might have. This webinar introduces content that will be covered at the next level during the Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit in June through Visionary Panels and Professional Development Workshops.

The Fine Arts Fund of Cincinnati released a report on their year long inquiry into what language and messages resonate to build community support for the nonprofit arts as a public benefit. Entitled "The Arts Ripple Effect," the report finds that framing the benefits of nonprofit arts in relation to an ever widening circle of positive impacts resonates most strongly with both current arts supporters and non-arts supporters. In addition to highlighting the communication frame that works, the report also details multiple frames with less impact on changing people's perceptions of the nonprofit arts as a public good worthy of public investment.

The central message of this report is that a new generation of veterans is returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan without sufficient connections to communities, is enthusiastic to serve again, and points the way forward for how our nation can better integrate them into civilian life. Although the 1.8 million veterans are from every corner of our nation, they are strongly united in their perspectives regarding civic responsibilities and opportunities as they return home. What's more, the findings show that OIF/OEF veterans are underutilized assets in our communities, and their continued service is likely to improve their transition home. We believe there is significant potential to increase volunteering and civic engagement among this generation of veterans.

First published in 2005, this collection of CompassPoint online newsletter articles became instantly popular with busy board members of nonprofits. Now updated with new essays that are "short enough to read over a cup of coffee," readers will find essential insights on board responsibilities, executive directors, fundraising, finance, and more.

New topics include:

• • Eleven ways to get a new executive director off to a good start
  • A board members guide to nonprofit insurance
  • How to take a public stand
  • Working boards versus governing boards
  • The right way to resign from the board
  • The best way to raise money
  • Meaningful board-staff acts of appreciation
  • What boards need to know about copyrights

Neuroeducation: Learning, Arts, and the Brain, the culmination of a summit sponsored by The Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Neuro-Education Initiative, focuses on the convergence of neuroscientific research and teaching and learning, with an emphasis on the arts. This free publication features a prolegomenon by the late Dana Chairman William Safire and full text of the keynote address given by Jerome Kagan, Ph.D., Harvard University, at the Hopkins summit. Highlights of the symposium are featured in an executive summary, edited transcripts of panel presentations, and a synthesis of roundtable discussions. You may e-mail your request to: bjeffries@dana.org.

In the midst of hard economic times, it is clearly more challenging for arts organizations to take the long view and continue to devote time and effort to building new audiences. But this report on a recent gathering of representatives from more than 50 Wallace-funded arts organizations in six cities concludes that participation-building efforts and the resulting lessons are more vital than ever to the long-term health of arts organizations and the entire arts sector. Especially in hard times, the report says, it's essential for leaders of arts organization to take careful stock of the long-term influences and challenges affecting the arts sector such as demographic shifts and new technologies that are creating entire new "spaces" for people to come together and experience the arts. The report describes how organizations are responding creatively to those challenges using such means as market research, re-branding, and drawing audience-building lessons from other sectors such as professional sports.

Leadership, more than budget, is a key predictor of nonprofit success and appears to be one of the most important factors in organizational sustainability, a new survey conducted by the TCC Group finds. Using its online Core Capacity Assessment Tool, TCC surveyed approximately seven hundred organizations to identify ten key characteristics of financially sustainable nonprofits. The resulting report, The Sustainability Formula: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Thrive in the Emerging Economy, found that effective leadership is the strongest predictor of nonprofit sustainability, followed by fundraising/financial management and program staffing and management. (See site for more resources)

According to the survey, other key characteristics of nonprofit sustainability included clearly articulated and effectively communicated mission and vision statements, strong financial management systems, the development and active maintenance of long-term relationships with funders, and a willingness to revise strategic plans and upgrade programs and services.

The most comprehensive guide of its kind, ART/WORK gives artists of every level the tools they need to make it in an art world so competitive one dealer likens it to "the Sopranos, except nobody gets killed."  Whether you're an art school grad looking for a gallery, a mid-career artist managing a busy studio, or someone just thinking about becoming a professional artist, this indispensable resource will help you build your career and protect yourself along the way.

Learn about the changes in Washington by following Americans for the Arts Action Fund's complete coverage of the federal elections and its impact on the arts in both legislative chambers, including the incoming administration's comprehensive plans for arts and arts education.

New York City's MOMA design curator Paola Antonelli describes the Spring 2008 groundbreaking show "Design and the Elastic Mind" -- full of products and designs that reflect the way we think now. The exhibit examines the work of designers and scientists and the connections between the two. Presented by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), an organization that began as an annual conference on the California coast concerned with new and innovative ideas.

Sally Steenland, Senior Policy Adviser for Faith and Progressive Policy at Center for American Progress, moderated a CAP panel on Tuesday about the role of arts and culture in the United States. The event featured Robert Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, and Bill Ivey, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts and author of Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) gave opening remarks and also participated in the panel.

Ivey's book was the focus of the panel discussion. The panelists contributed to a definition of culture, which they saw as broader than "Culture"--often considered as limited to the opera, symphony, and ballet. Instead, the panelists defined culture with a small "c" as encompassing a rich national heritage and the capacity for each individual to have an expressive life.  The panelists agreed that federal policy concerning the arts was not the major solution to preserving a shared cultural heritage and strengthening cultural expression. Grassroots participation and activism was crucial as well. 

They differed regarding one of the major recommendations in Ivey's book: the creation of a federal cabinet-level Department of Cultural Affairs that would provide an integrated approach to cultural legislation, regulation, and funding. While Lynch agreed that it might be a good idea to appoint an official to deal with cultural matters in a coherent way, Rep. Cooper stressed that they had to "get real about the politics" and delineate the problems before urging such a big change Finally, the panel looked to the environmental movement as a guide for what can happen when big ideas and detailed policy are used to achieve common goals.

Video and full transcript available.

The Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest (CLPI) released newly developed Smart and Ethical Principles and Practices for Public Interest Lobbying. The four principles and 17 practices serve as benchmarking tools that nonprofits can use to assess their current lobbying activities and set goals for their future lobbying efforts. A group of nonprofit leaders worked for 18 months to develop the principles and practices in response to the need for nonprofits to claim public interest lobbying as an honorable and effective strategy for advancing their missions.

Many arts organizations today find themselves in financial difficulties because of economic constraints inherent in the industry. While other companies can improve productivity through the use of new technologies or better systems, these approaches are not available in the arts. Hamlet requires the same number of performers today as it did in Shakespeare's time. The New York Philharmonic requires the same number of musicians now as it did when Tchaikovsky conducted it over one hundred years ago. Costs go up, but the size of theaters and the price resistance of patrons limit what can be earned from ticket sales. Therefore, the performing arts industry faces a severe gap between earnings and expenses. Typical approaches to closing the gap--raising ticket prices or cutting artistic or marketing expenses--don't work.

What, then, does it take to create and maintain a healthy arts organization?

Michael M. Kaiser has revived four major arts organizations: the Kansas City Ballet, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, and London's Royal Opera House. In The Art of the Turnaround he shares with readers his ten basic rules for bringing financially distressed arts organizations back to life and keeping them strong. These rules cover the requirements for successful leadership, the pitfalls of cost cutting, the necessity of extending the programming calendar, the centrality of effective marketing and fund raising, and the importance of focusing on the present with a positive public message. In chapters organized chronologically, Kaiser brings his ten rules vividly to life in discussions of the four arts organizations he is credited with saving.

In this impassioned and persuasive book, Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, assesses the current state of the arts in America and finds cause for alarm. Even as he celebrates our ever-emerging culture and the way it enriches our lives here at home while spreading the dream of democracy around the world, he points to a looming crisis. The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage--the expressive life of America. In eight succinct chapters, Ivey blends personal and professional memoir, policy analysis, and deeply held convictions to explore and define a coordinated vision for art, culture, and expression in American life. (Published book)

Resource guide for working artists across the United States providing expert advice and practical information on everything you need to know to be a successful, self-employed creative entrepreneur and to maximize your artistic career. Whether you are a performing, visual, media, film, literary,crafts or traditional artist working in the nonprofit arts or commercially, you'll want to read the Business of Art: An Artist's Guide to Profitable Self-Employment. In it, you will learn the basic principles behind:

• Career and Business Planning
• Marketing and Promotions
• Budgeting and Money Management
• Legal Issues for Artists
• Financing Creative Work

265 pages. $34.95 for non-members / $27.95 for Benefit Opportunities for Artists members plus shipping.

A skilled, committed, and diverse pool of next generation leaders would like to be nonprofit executive directors in the future, according to a new national survey of nearly 6,000 next generation leaders from the Meyer Foundation titled Ready to Lead? Next Generation Leaders Speak Out. However, the survey also finds that there are significant barriers: work-life balance, insufficient life-long earning potential, lack of mentorship and overwhelming fundraising responsibilities which may prevent many younger nonprofit staff from becoming executives. The survey is the largest national survey to date of emerging nonprofit leaders and was produced by the Meyer Foundation in partnership with CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Idealist.org. According to the Urban Institute, there are currently more than 850,000 registered public charities in the United States. San Francisco and Milpitas were key areas studied in the survey. 

See the press release on the study for more information.

The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World is by Dr. Peter M. Senge, keynote speaker at the 2009 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention. The book offers a toolkit with specific strategies and points of action to help change how organizations think and act. It is also a valuable resource that provides concrete examples of how each of us can be part of the solution in promoting sustainability.

Since its first edition in 1987, Fundamentals of Arts Management continues to offer a useful refresher to the basics as well as new understanding regarding how to integrate and gain support for the arts in the social, economic, and cultural fabric of communities. Now in its 5th edition, Fundamentals of Arts Management updates and expands what has become a primary and trusted reference book for arts managers and students of arts administration, as well as programmers who wish to incorporate the arts in human service, education, and a range of other community organizations.

Anchoring the book are eleven tried and true chapters providing principles and best practices for managing and governing community arts organizations; raising funds; and presenting, promoting, and evaluating arts programs. Four new chapters cover fundamentals of personnel management, writing successful funding proposals, advocating effectively for the arts, and maximizing the arts' role in the economic development of communities. Nationally recognized leaders and authors in the community arts field offer historical and contemporary context regarding the role of the arts in community, as well as insights about arts education and cultural access--two important dimensions of local arts agencies' work.

Also new are Online Companions to several chapters. Easily accessed Online Companions offer expanded exploration of subject matter; worksheets and other practical tools that can be downloaded and used or adapted; and valuable resource listings that point to organizations, publications, and websites.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: softcover, 400 pages + online companion $65.00

Barry Hessenius, the former head of the California Arts Council, was worried about where the next generation of leaders in arts organizations would come from. With baby boomers retiring and fewer workers in the succeeding generation, Hessenius foresaw a fight to recruit new leadership that often-cash-strapped arts organizations would be ill-equipped to wage. Hessenius transformed his worries into a plan of action with "Involving Youth in Nonprofit Arts Organizations: A Call to Action," a sixty-two-page study underwritten by the Hewlett Foundation, that outlined the problem and proposed some solutions.

This working paper, published by the Irvine Foundation and AEA Consulting, identifies the major challenges facing the arts and cultural sector in California. Based on interviews with arts leaders and a review of the relevant literature, the paper describes five key themes that, if not addressed, may threaten the health and well-being of the sector going forward. The themes are: Access, Cultural Policy, Arts Education, Nonprofit Business Model, and Preparing the Next Generation of Artists and Arts Managers. This working paper is the first phase of a project to engage arts leaders and others in a discussion on how to ensure a more sustainable future for the arts in California.

Put the power of arts and culture to work in your community:  Part 1 of this unique guide distills research and emerging ideas behind culturally driven community development and explains key underlying principles. You'll understand the arts impact on community well-being and have the rationale for engaging others.

Find inspiration and ideas from twenty case studies:  Part 2 gives you ten concrete strategies for building on the unique qualities of your own community. Each strategy is illustrated by two case studies taken from a variety of cities, small towns, and neighborhoods across the United States. You'll learn how people from all walks of life used culture and creativity as a glue to bind together people, ideas, enterprises, and institutions to make places more balanced and healthy.

More examples in Part 3.

At a time when the demand for highly literate workers is escalating, rates of literary reading in America are suffering from sharp declines. This issue brief from the National Governors' Association Center for Best Practices finds states across the country are actively working to increase reading and participation in literary activities. States have recognized that engaging citizens in these activities yields multiple benefits, such as promoting lifelong learning to improve workforce skills and increasing civic engagement and community identity. The brief, State Efforts to Promote Reading and Literary Activities, provides a variety of policies and programs states can use to enhance the individual and community benefits of reading. This is one of a series of issue briefs on the economic importance of the arts.

ABOUT THIS BOOK
From "the most exciting individual in American theater" (Newsweek), here is Anna Deavere Smith's brass tacks advice to aspiring artists of all stripes. In vividly anecdotal letters to the young BZ, she addresses the full spectrum of issues that people starting out will face: from questions of confidence, discipline, and self-esteem, to fame, failure, and fear, to staying healthy, presenting yourself effectively, building a diverse social and professional network, and using your art to promote social change. At once inspiring and no-nonsense, Letters to a Young Artist will challenge you, motivate you, and set you on a course to pursue your art without compromise.

This study, cosponsored by Irvine, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Leveraging Investments in Creativity, shows how California artists move more fluidly between the commercial, nonprofit and community sectors than is commonly believed. Their ability to do so, the study concludes, is a major stimulant to regional economic activity and the quality of life. The study, by the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, is based on a Web survey of Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area musicians, writers, and performing and visual artists. With New York, these two regions support more artists per capita than the nation's other large metropolitan areas.

Since 1994, the impact of nonprofit arts and culture on California's economy increased by 152 percent to $5.4 billion. The 2004 study demonstrates that arts and culture generate billions annually, support a workforce of more than 160,000 and produce nearly $300 million in state and local taxes. It also shows that education, cultural tourism, and California's creative industries are all nurtured by the nonprofit arts sector, and substantiates the significant role of the nonprofit arts to California's economic well-being and status as the world's fifth largest economy.

This publication is available from the California Arts Council.  See: http://cac.ca.gov/artsinfo/files/Pubs-order-form-2010.pdf 

Written in a conversational tone that resonates with energy and wisdom, Living the Artist's Life is a unique book. Relying on a lifetime of experience, and a host of enlightening anecdotes, Dorrell keeps you engaged through each chapter. Whether instructing on how to photograph your work and get it into a gallery, or discussing subjects such as inspiration, depression and self-doubt, Dorrell knows his ground. He also relates the stories of his own failures, his successes, and his dealings with New York agents and publishers, Dorrell being a novelist as well as a gallery owner. Regardless of your discipline, you will benefit from the real-life guidance of this work.

This unprecedented national study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research and policy center in Washington, DC, documents and analyzes the environment of support for artists in the United States. The study addresses the following questions: What are the important features of our current structures of support for artists? What are its strengths and weaknesses? How might we improve it? More information about the project is available here.

"THE TIPPING POINT contains all the sprightly prose and insight we have come to associate with Malcolm Gladwell's writing. But in addition, Gladwell manages to make sense of a tantalizing array of research findings. The welcome, if overdue, lesson is that, by acting intentionally and strategically, we can lower crime and disease rates, and otherwise bring about dramatic positive changes in our surroundings."
-Lisbeth Schorr, Harvard Project on Effective Interventions, and author of COMMON PURPOSE: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America

Aware of mounting evidence that community-based arts may positively impact health and well-being, ACTA commissioned studies by UC Davis's Center for Reducing Health Disparities and the Asian American Center on Disparities Research to formally investigate health effects and other outcomes experienced by participants in two representative programs. ACTA's Living Cultures Grants Program funds nonprofit organizations to support exemplary projects in traditional arts in California; the Apprenticeship Program encourages the continuation of the state's traditional arts and cultures by contracting master artists to offer intensive, one-on-one training to qualified apprentices. Weaving Traditional Arts into the Fabric of Community Health presents the UC Davis findings with an overview of selected research in the emerging field of arts-for-health, as well as scholarly references and a selection of global resources in the fields of traditional and folk arts and arts-for-health.

This paper explores a core premise: that music can have a transformative impact on people's lives. With respect to health care, music can be an effective intervention with patients of every age. The impact of music on various diseases and conditions  in adults and children, the formation of the brain in musicians, and the value of music therapy was studied.

Aging performing artists, whose diverse work includes acting, directing, choreography, and music performance and spans over seven decades, share with RCAC how they are "Still Kicking."

Patterns of Receptive and Creative Cultural Activities and their Association with Perceived Health, Anxiety, Depression and Aatisfaction with Life among Adults (the HUNT study, Norway)

Cultural participation has been used both in governmental health policies and as medical therapy, based on the assumption that cultural activities will improve health. Previous population studies and a human intervention study have shown that religious, social and cultural activities predict increased survival rate. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between cultural activity and perceived health, anxiety, depression and satisfaction with life in both genders.

In this study the effect of long-term physical and musical activity on spatial cognitive performance, measured by mental rotation performance, is investigated in detail. Mental rotation performance is the ability to rotate a three-dimensional object using the imagination. Three groups, each consisting of 40 students, and divided by the subjects, music, sports, and education, solved a psycho-metrical mental rotation task with three-dimensional block figures. The results showed a better mental rotation performance for music and sports students compared to the education students. Furthermore, the well-known gender difference favoring males was found for both sports and education student,s but not for music students.

A newly published study from Mexico reports repeated listening to certain classical works helps ease the debilitating symptoms of clinical depression. "Music offers a simple and elegant way to treat anhedonia, the loss of pleasures in daily activities," the research team, led by Miguel-Angel Mayoral-Chavez of the University of Oaxaca, reports in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy. (This summary is based on the article published by Tom Jacobs on the journalism website Miller-McCune. The article contains links to various sources, including a site to download the initial study findings from The Arts in Psychotherapy.) 

Neuroeducation: Learning, Arts, and the Brain, the culmination of a summit sponsored by The Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Neuro-Education Initiative, focuses on the convergence of neuroscientific research and teaching and learning, with an emphasis on the arts. This free publication features a prolegomenon by the late Dana Chairman William Safire and full text of the keynote address given by Jerome Kagan, Ph.D., Harvard University, at the Hopkins summit. Highlights of the symposium are featured in an executive summary, edited transcripts of panel presentations, and a synthesis of roundtable discussions. You may e-mail your request to: bjeffries@dana.org.

Does education in the arts transfer to seemingly unrelated cognitive abilities? Researchers are finding evidence that it does. Michael Posner argues that when children find an art form that sustains their interest, the subsequent strengthening of their brains' attention networks can improve cognition more broadly.

As Congress works toward a major reform of the national health care system, Americans for the Arts, the Society for Arts in Healthcare, and 19 other national associations have crafted a legislative request to strengthen the role of the arts in health care. The group hopes to provide creative arts therapists, artists, and arts organizations that do work in health care settings, either as volunteers or professionals, greater opportunity in this legislation.

The authors examined the effects of preferred music, visual distraction, and silence on pain perception. Preferred music was found to significantly increase tolerance and perceived control over the painful stimulus and to decrease anxiety compared with both the visual distraction and silence conditions. Pain intensity rating was decreased by music listening when compared with silence. Some cost for download PDF.

In the Dana Consortium study, researchers grappled with a fundamental question: Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter? For the first time, coordinated, multi-university scientific research brings us closer to answering that question. Learning, Arts, and the Brain, a study three years in the making, is the result of research by cognitive neuroscientists from seven leading universities across the United States. It advances our understanding of the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning. Children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and strategies for memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas. Also see the article on the study from the Dana Foundation website.

Percentages of arts programs in hospitals, including visual art exhibits, in-hospital performances, bedside art activities and arts activities for staff. 

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life--even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last be- coming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including:

• Are our musical preferences shaped in utero?
• Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music?
• What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brain's response to music?
• Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure?

This Is Your Brain on Music explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch. At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession.

Author Daniel J. Levitin -- a graduate of Stanford University in California -- runs the Levitin Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University, where he holds the Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communications. Before becoming a neuroscientist, he was a record producer with gold records to his credit and professional musician. He has published extensively in scientific journals and music trade magazines such as Grammy and Billboard. See author's book website (includes videos and interactive features), publisher's website.

From the publisher's website: Exercise your imagination and set off sparks of genius. Explore the "thinking tools" of extraordinary people, from Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall to Amadeus Mozart and Virginia Woolf, and learn how you can practice the same imaginative skills to become your creative best. With engaging narratives and ample illustrations, Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein investigate cognitive tools as diverse as observing, imaging, recognizing patterns, modeling, playing, and more. Sparks of Genius is "a clever, detailed and demanding fitness program for the creative mind" (Kirkus Reviews) and a groundbreaking guidebook for anyone interested in imaginative thinking, lifelong learning, and transdisciplinary education. 

From the author's biography at Psychology Today where they have the blog "Imagine That!": A full professor at Michigan State University, Robert studies the evolution of physiological control systems, autoimmune diseases and scientific creativity; Michele, a writer, Kennedy Center teaching artist and adjunct faculty member at MSU, currently studies the invention of imaginary worlds from childhood to adulthood.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services's Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills initiative underscores the critical role our nation's museums and libraries play in helping citizens build such 21st century skills as information, communications and technology literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, civic literacy, and global awareness. This report outlines a vision for the role of libraries and museums in the national dialogue around learning and 21st century skills and includes case studies of innovative audience engagement and 21st century skills practices from across the country.

This booklet is designed specifically to help museums, libraries, archives, historic properties and sites, and arts organizations obtain funding they need in order to recover from major disasters. The content includes:

• a summary of federal recovery funding regulations tailored specifically for cultural resources
• state emergency management agency contact information
• reprints of relevant FEMA, SBA, and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) polities and procedures
• two copies of each of required FEMA, SBA and IRS forms.

The online version of the Navigation Guide is periodically updated at www.heritagepreservation.org, where viewers may review other valuable disaster resources.

The Northeast Document Conservation Center is pleased to announce a suite of new products that address the training needs of archivists, librarians, and museum and historical society professionals. The free, online tools were developed primarily with grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and ongoing support from the National Endowment for the Humanities for NEDCC's Field Service program. NEDCC is also grateful for support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and for the hard work of the many project partners and participants who helped develop these products.

Tools include: dPlan: The Online Disaster Planning Tool; Preservation 101 online course; Toolkit on Surveying Digital Readiness; Toolkit on What's Wrong With This Picture contains readings and resources on preservation; Preservation Education Curriculum; and the Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness (COSTEP) framework. Leaflets and other materials are also available.

Report based on a six-year grant designed to help collecting institutions in Los Angeles make their collections available online.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) released Museums and Libraries Engaging America's Youth: Final Report of a Study of IMLS Youth Programs, 1998-2003. The study, which is part of IMLS's initiative, Museums and Libraries Engaging America's Youth, examined Institute-funded programs for youth aged 9-19 and surveyed nearly 400 museum and library programs about their goals, strategies, impact, and outcomes.

How does a culturally specific arts organization adapt to changing demographics in order to more effectively engage and serve contemporary audiences that are increasingly multiethnic? Witnessing dramatic shifts in its audience demographics over the past 25 years, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) has grappled with this question. One out of every three Japanese Americans is now multiracial, and increasingly audiences are no longer identifying themselves simply by ethnic or racial categories as they had in the past.

At a time when self-identity is playing a significant role not only in how people see themselves but also in how they view their relationship with museums and cultural centers, there are no simple solutions for how organizations -- regardless of institution size, focus, budget, or geographic location -- can ensure the relevancy of their programming and their long-term sustainability.

This paper explores a core premise: that music can have a transformative impact on people's lives. With respect to health care, music can be an effective intervention with patients of every age. The impact of music on various diseases and conditions  in adults and children, the formation of the brain in musicians, and the value of music therapy was studied.

In this study the effect of long-term physical and musical activity on spatial cognitive performance, measured by mental rotation performance, is investigated in detail. Mental rotation performance is the ability to rotate a three-dimensional object using the imagination. Three groups, each consisting of 40 students, and divided by the subjects, music, sports, and education, solved a psycho-metrical mental rotation task with three-dimensional block figures. The results showed a better mental rotation performance for music and sports students compared to the education students. Furthermore, the well-known gender difference favoring males was found for both sports and education student,s but not for music students.

A newly published study from Mexico reports repeated listening to certain classical works helps ease the debilitating symptoms of clinical depression. "Music offers a simple and elegant way to treat anhedonia, the loss of pleasures in daily activities," the research team, led by Miguel-Angel Mayoral-Chavez of the University of Oaxaca, reports in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy. (This summary is based on the article published by Tom Jacobs on the journalism website Miller-McCune. The article contains links to various sources, including a site to download the initial study findings from The Arts in Psychotherapy.) 

According to a new study by Chorus America, an estimated 32.5 million adults regularly sing in choruses today, up from 23.5 million estimated in 2003. And when children are included, there are 42.6 million Americans singing in choruses in 2009. More than 1 in 5 households have at least one singing family member, making choral singing the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children. There are 270,000 choruses in the U.S., such as a community chorus or a school or church choir, and participation is strongly correlated with qualities that are associated with success throughout life, the study finds. Greater civic involvement, discipline, and teamwork are just a few of the attributes fostered by singing with a choral ensemble.

According to a just-published study in the journal Psychology of Music, the reading skills of young children who received structured training in music were clearly superior to those of their peers who did not have the benefit of such instruction. The finding is particularly striking because both groups of kids took part in comprehensive literacy training, in which lengthy periods of their school day were dedicated to reading and writing.

The study examines the association between music involvement and academic achievement in both childhood and adolescence using three measures of music participation: in school, outside of school, and parental involvement in the form of concert attendance. See full PDF text.

From the Publisher -- When the artist moves into the classroom or community to educate and inspire students and audience members, this is Teaching Artistry. It is a proven means for practicing professional musicians to create a successful career in music, providing not only necessary income but deep and lasting satisfaction through engaging people in learning experiences about the arts. Filled with practical advice on the most critical issues facing the music teaching artist today--from economic and time-management issues of being a musician and teacher to communicating effectively with students--The Music Teaching Artist's Bible uncovers the essentials that every musician needs in order to thrive in this role. Author Eric Booth offers both inspiration and how-to, step-by-step guidance in this truly comprehensive manual that music teaching artists will turn to again and again. The book also includes critical information on becoming a mentor, succeeding in school environments, partnering with other teaching artists, advocating for music and arts education, and teaching private lessons.

The Music Teaching Artist's Bible helps practicing and aspiring teaching artists gain the skills they need to build new audiences, improve the presence of music in schools, expand the possibilities of traditional and educational performances, and ultimately make their lives as an artists even more satisfying and fulfilling. (Recommended and on sale through Americans for the Arts and other booksellers.)

Four classes of second-graders were randomly divided into two groups. The reading abilities of students in both groups were assessed at the beginning of the study, and after each of the two intervention periods. During the intervention period, one group received music instruction consisting of music, movement, and play designed to enhance reading skills. The second group received corresponding time in which they were given supplemental practice or instruction in reading.

Co-published by MENC: The National Association for Music Education. A History of American Music Education covers the history of American music education, from its roots in Biblical times through recent historical events and trends. It describes the educational, philosophical, and sociological aspects of the subject, always putting it in the context of the history of the United States. It offers complete information on professional organizations, materials, techniques, and personalities in music education.

The authors examined the effects of preferred music, visual distraction, and silence on pain perception. Preferred music was found to significantly increase tolerance and perceived control over the painful stimulus and to decrease anxiety compared with both the visual distraction and silence conditions. Pain intensity rating was decreased by music listening when compared with silence. Some cost for download PDF.

What does it mean to be "Californian?" California Polyphony: Ethnic Voices, Musical Crossroads suggests an answer that lies at the intersection of musicology, cultural history, and politics. Consisting of a series of musical case studies of major ethnic groups in California, this book approaches the notion of Californian identity from diverse perspectives, each nuanced by class, gender, and sexuality.

Music education is associated with those who go on to higher education. In looking at what groups may have participated more in music, education shows the largest differences. Two-thirds (65%) of those with a high school education or less participated in music compared to four in five (81%) with some college education and 86 percent of those with a college education. The largest group to participate in music, however, are those with a post graduate education as almost nine in ten (88%) of this group participated while in school. Music education is also associated with higher incomes. Three-quarters of people (74%) with household incomes of $34,999 or less and 72 percent of those with incomes of $35,000-$49,999 participated in music, compared to 83 percent of those with incomes of $150,000 or more.

From 1994 to 2004 -- a seminal decade for the arts in America -- the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invested $13 million in its Magic of Music Symphony Orchestra Initiative. This commissioned history by Dr. Thomas Wolf offers not just a chronology of the program, it identifies significant lessons for funders and for orchestras. Those insights extend to other nonprofit arts organizations as well. The Search for Shining Eyes tries to reach beyond the Knight Foundation family and the small pool of orchestras that participated to capitalize on one of the most valuable roles foundations can play -- to serve as a lasting laboratory for learning.

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life--even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last be- coming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including:

• Are our musical preferences shaped in utero?
• Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music?
• What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brain's response to music?
• Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure?

This Is Your Brain on Music explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch. At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession.

Author Daniel J. Levitin -- a graduate of Stanford University in California -- runs the Levitin Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University, where he holds the Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communications. Before becoming a neuroscientist, he was a record producer with gold records to his credit and professional musician. He has published extensively in scientific journals and music trade magazines such as Grammy and Billboard. See author's book website (includes videos and interactive features), publisher's website.

Though this is a book about a specific orchestra in a particular city, it contains lessons for arts organizations and nonprofits in many fields. It is also directed at the funders that support them. This is a challenging time for the nonprofit sector, especially symphony orchestras. But it is also a time of great opportunity for innovation and experimentation. The authors are impressed by the many examples of nonprofit institutions that are redefining what it means to be central to those who live in their communities. They applaud the many leaders -- professional and volunteer, artistic and administrative -- that make innovation and excellence possible. (PDF of text available -- scroll down list of other books available.)

Contracts and Copyrights
Originally recorded on December 1, 2010 (90 minutes)

One of the necessities of creating a work of public art is a legal and binding agreement between the artist and commissioning body.  We will discuss the complications and compromises of contracts.  

Presenters:  Sarah S. Conley, Attorney, Law Office of Sarah S. Conley, Studio City, CA; Larry Kirkland, Artist, Washington, DC; Susan Pontious, Public Art Program Deputy Director, San Francisco Arts Commission for Historic Monuments, San Francisco

Available free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art Academy for Artists (Part 3 of 3)
Originally recorded on November 3, 2010 (90 minutes)

Presenters: Mary Rubin, Brian Laczko, Amy Trachtenberg, Sammy Rodriquez

Unlike traditional studio materials, public art requires that one look at maintenance, durability, and presentation in a new light. Materials research often requires looking at infrastructure rather than museum work and speaking with contractors rather than other artists. The cost of these materials can be shocking to artists who've traditionally worked with studio materials. In this workshop, we'll cover strategies for working with materials and budgets on the public art scale.
 
1.  Introduction: Overview of 10 projects -conceptual to final design proposals

2.  Moving from concept into buildable design - considering durable materials, researching fabrication techniques, trouble shooting possible problems.

3.  How to structure your budget and time; cost estimating, collaborating with fabricators.

4.  Creative collaboration: Integrating your work into the construction schedule, resources and credits. Working with other collaborators: conservator, engineer, architect, graphic designer, historian, etc.

5.  Artist experience: What I learned in building my artwork, problems and how I solved them, what I would do next time.

6.  Design changes: How to be flexible; How design changes and why - when the original concept/ideas may remain

Available to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art Academy for Artists (Part 2 of 3)
Originally recorded on October 13, 2010 (90 minutes)

Presenters: Barbara Goldstein, Lynn Rogers, Amy Trachtenberg, Sammy Rodriquez

Working in the studio allows an artist to create his/her own schedule, budget, and system for creation. Once an artist moves into the highly collaborative field of public art, huge changes are introduced. In this workshop we will cover how to work with other professionals, where to find help when needed, and the roles of each professional/ stakeholder as a project moves forward.

1.  Slide show highlighting 10-15 different types of public art projects including full descriptions.

2.  Getting started -learning from stakeholders including community members, architects/designers, and reviewing bodies; the roles of  team members and lines of communication (project manager, contracting officer, architects, engineers and other consultants).

3.  How to present your ideas--what is expected during concept development stage.

4.  Leveraging opportunities and resources (e.g. architecture/building elements and/or community involvement)

5.  Artist experiences--how and what we learned from community members and stakeholders, and content/resources; how we leveraged architecture--the development steps of a project.

6.  Collateral benefits - how the artwork can live on in the community in other forms (books, events, webpages, etc.)

Available for free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art Academy for Artists (Part 1 of 3)
Originally recorded on September 29, 2010 (90 minutes)
Presenters: Steven Huss, Amy Trachtenberg, Sammy Rodriquez

In this workshop, artists will be given the necessary tools to make the leap from working in the isolation of the studio to working in a collaborative, large scale setting. The intent is to give artists the confidence and knowledge needed to move their career into public art.

1.Slide show highlighting 10-15 different types of public art projects including full descriptions.

2.Recognizing the types of projects that are best suited for your skills.

3.Responsibilities of a public artist and public art project manager. Describing the collaborative process of project development.

4.How to apply, write a letter, graphically and verbally present your work in an application. What to include in a letter of interest and how to present your work in an interview.

5.Artists experiences. The two artists describe how they began working in public art and the relationship of their public art to their previous work; show slides of previous work, describe specific interest in applying for the public art project/s they have participated in, and how they presented themselves and their work to get their first public art project.

Free for members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art 50/50
Originally recorded on September 15, 2010 (90 minutes)

Wave Hill Director of Arts and Senior Curator Jennifer McGregor presents 50/50: Important, Impressive, Influential, Personally Pivotal Public Art of the Last 50 Years, a retrospective look at the field of 50 public art over the last 50 years. She first delivered this talk at the Americans for the Arts 2010 Half-Century Summit in Baltimore, Maryland in June, 2010.

Presenter:  Jennifer McGregor, Director of Arts & Senior Curator, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY

Moderator:  Liesel Fenner, Public Art Program Manager, Americans for the Arts, Washington, DC

Free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

The 2009 Public Art Network Year in Review is a national program that recognizes exemplary public art projects completed throughout the country during the past year. The CD-ROM is a compilation of project images, data, and the Year in Review presentation and serves as an excellent tool for public art advocacy, education, and promotion. It contains more than 240 high-resolution digital images as well an information on artists, projects, materials and budgets.

This is the first report from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to begin the documentation of County artworks across districts and departments. Research began in 2006 and is ongoing. The report includes information on 68 historic artworks found to date. Public art in Los Angeles is directly related to the actions in December 2004 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a Civic Art Policy mandating that 1% of eligible costs for new County capital projects and renovations over $500,000 be used to create public artworks. An additional mandate of the policy was to create a comprehensive survey of the civic artworks the County already possesses, to assess the condition of those works, to repair them if needed, and to provide the public with information about them. (Also available: an interactive mapping and online photo database of the collection.)

Public Art 101 for Artists
Originally recorded on December 3, 2008 T
(90 minutes)

Participants will learn the basic "nuts and bolts" of the field of public art. The 90-minute webinar will cover some of the unique skills required for art-making in the public realm including an overview of public art and the public realm, project examples, programs, funding, implementation and resources for further study. Two case studies will be presented which explore the experiences of two artists who have transitioned from the studio/gallery to the public realm.

The webinar is suited for administrators interested in better understanding the artists' experience and artists exploring public art as a profession.

Instructor: Charlotte Cohen, Regional Fine Arts Officer, General Services Administration, New York, NY

Instructor: Porter Arneill, Director/Public Art Administrator, Municipal Art Commission, Kansas City, MO

Public Art 101 for Administrators
Originally recorded on October 22, 2008 (90 minutes)

Through case studies and project examples, participants will learn the nuts and bolts of creating public art for their communities. The 90-minute webinar will discuss the context of placing artwork in the public realm including the politics of building a stakeholder base, agency partnerships and advocacy strategies.  Instructors will explore different funding and program structural models, including percent-for-art ordinances, master plans, and artist selection processes.

Discussion will include temporary and permanent works, art and design collaborations, artist initiated projects, as well as maintaining and conserving artworks. The webinar is suited for administrators establishing new public art programs, and/or restructuring or expanding an existing program.

Instructor:  Barbara Goldstein, Director of Public Art, San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs and Editor of Public Art by the Book
                   
Instructor:  David Allen, Director, Arts in Transit - Metro

Available free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Americans for the Arts Public Art Network 2008 Year in Review CD-ROM recognizes innovative public art projects completed in 2007 as selected by jurors Jody Pinto, artist and Ted C. Landsmark, President of the Boston Architectural College. The more than 200 images and project descriptions are an exceptional planning and advocacy tool for communities developing public art programs, and an invaluable resource for public art administrators, artists, educators, arts commissions, students, and allied design and planning professionals.

The CD-ROM includes more than 40 unique public art projects with multiple images of each project, as well as information on the artists, the budget, and the project materials. The 2008 Year in Review was first presented at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in Philadelphia on June 22, 2008.

From the description: 

How to Find and Win Commissions

The Artist's Guide to Public Art is a must-have for everyone who wants to succeed in the growing field of Public Art. The book shows how to start and build a career in public art and assists in navigating the "system," working efficiently, and standing up for the rights of artists. First-hand accounts from experienced public artists and arts administrators provide tips for the best ways to find, apply for, and win public art commissions.

This guide includes chapters on contracts, working with fabricators, committee presentations, coordination with project managers, preparation of proposals and budgets, dealing with conflict and controversy, and running an efficient business. Author Lynn Basa has produced site-specific art for hospitals, universities, corporate headquarters, and private collections. She is the former chair of the Seattle Arts Commission's Public Art Committee and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Featuring over 200 color photographs, Along the Way is a tour through New York's underground museum of contemporary art, works commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit for the subway system and commuter rail lines. The text addresses the Arts for Transit program from its inception in 1985 and includes works by a number of artists including Roy Lichtenstein, Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Mary Miss, and Michele Oka Doner. Discover how Arts for Transit commissions exemplify the principles of public art, relating directly to the places in which they are installed and the community around them.

Edited by Barbara Goldstein, Public Art by the Book is a nuts and bolts guide for arts professionals and volunteers creating public art in their communities. The definitive resource for information on public art for local government, arts agencies, arts professionals and artists, this book includes examples from cities such as Charlotte, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego and Seattle.

This case study discusses the use of public art on scenic highways, specifically along El Camino Real and the Historic Route 66 in New Mexico.

By the 1990s, public art had evolved far beyond the lonely monument on an open plaza. Now public artists might design the entire plaza, create an event to alter the social dynamics of an urban environment, or help reconstruct a neighborhood. This provocative volume presents a rich variety of interviews with people who create and experience public art -- from an artist who mounted three bronze sculptures in the South Bronx to the bureaucrat who led the fight to have them removed. 

Following the staggered release of symposium sessions throughout 2010, WESTAF is pleased to release the final, complete proceedings of its symposium titled Engaging the Now: Arguments, Research, and New Environments for the Arts. The symposium convened in Aspen, Colorado in October, 2009. The proceedings feature a keynote presentation by Doug McLennan of ArtsJournal.com, a discussion about the efficacy of state film incentives, a dialogue about the state of arts education research and advocacy, a consideration of new economic arguments for the arts, a review of trends in youth engagement in creativity and the arts, a forum on rethinking the structure and scope of state arts agencies, and a discussion about cultural policy trends in Europe. In addition to McLennan, a wide range of speakers participated in the symposium discussion -- from economists and economic development professionals to cultural policy leaders and academics.

2010 Post-Election Analysis on the Arts
Originally recorded on November 18, 2010 (60 minutes)

The Government Affairs staff of Americans for the Arts will provide a comprehensive analysis of federal, state and local election results and ballot initiatives, and what impact those results will have on the future of the arts and arts education.

Presenters:  Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts; Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel for Government and Public Affairs; Narric Rome, Director of Federal Affairs; Gladstone Payton, Associate Director of Federal Affairs; Jay Dick, Director of State and Local Government Affairs; and special guest speakers.

Available free to both Americans for the Arts members and non-members.

Updated each year, this overview of state arts agency (SAA) funding and grant-making activities provides funding trends over time, summary grant statistics, and select state-by-state information. It is a succinct introduction to state arts agencies. The 2010 publication also contains details on arts funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Designed for public arts leaders and advocates, Why Should Government Support the Arts? provides answers to these questions and describes why the arts are an essential public investment. This document invites conversation and reflection about the value of the arts to American communities. It also provides resource material and research citations that any state can use to support its case for the arts.

Here are answers to some of the tough questions asked in hard economic times about government funding:

• Why should government support the arts?
• Are the arts a worthwhile investment during hard economic times?
• Why can't the private sector pick up the costs?
• Why are state arts agencies important?

The Local Arts Movement: History and Current Profiles
Originally recorded on May 20, 2009 (90 minutes)

New to the field of local arts agencies?  This session will give you the background you'll need to be able to understand your work and explain it to others.  You'll learn the history of the local arts agency movement and gain a thorough understanding of local arts agencies with current statistics from Americans for the Arts' extensive research.

Available free to Americans for the Arts members only. Not available to non-members.

Recent reports and commentaries point to a growing gap between the quantity of artworks produced by American artists and arts organizations and the desire and ability of many Americans to experience those artworks. This report offers a framework for thinking about supply and demand in the arts and suggests that too little attention has been paid to cultivating demand. It identifies the roles of different factors, particularly arts learning, in stimulating interest in the arts and enriching individuals' experiences of artworks. It also describes the institutional infrastructure that provides arts learning
for Americans of all ages.

An increasing number of states are establishing arts or cultural districts. This policy brief from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) outlines the challenges and success factors of state-level cultural district programs. (PDF)

This report provides a comprehensive review of state arts agency revenue sources and legislative appropriations to each state arts agency. Also included is information on state budget trends and appropriations changes over time. Detailed tables allow for state-to-state comparison of SAA revenue streams, per capita funding and national rankings. This is an essential publication for understanding public funding for the arts in the United States.

Innovations in State Cultural Policy is a project designed to help cultural leaders and decision makers strengthen their states' cultural activity. Through illustrative studies, guides and covenings, the project aims to spark collaborations--state-level coalitions that span the arts, humanities, folklife and historic preservation--that can then work with state policy makers to increase the audiences and funding for culture. This guide to action seeks to illuminate diverse, innovative policy mechanisms that can be adapted by other states.

Aging performing artists, whose diverse work includes acting, directing, choreography, and music performance and spans over seven decades, share with RCAC how they are "Still Kicking."

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it," said American author Henry David Thoreau more than 150 years ago. Time and Money: Using Federal Data to Measure the Value of Performing Arts Activities is a new research note from the National Endowment for the Arts that looks at the value of the arts in three ways: time spent on arts activities; organizational revenue and expenses; and direct consumer spending.  A particular focus on performing arts data provides consistency across these three measurements.

Theatre Facts 2007, published by Theatre Communications Groups, reports that business support of theatres was at its second highest level in 2007. The average theatre went from receiving support from 31 businesses in 2003 to 34 businesses in 2007. Roughly 13% of business grants to theatres support education programs.

This study was commissioned by Dance/USA as part of the "Engaging Dance Audiences" (EDA) initiative, a grant program focused on research and development of audience engagement practices in the dance field; the goal of the study was to assess how dance patrons "engage" with the art form, and specifically what kinds of educational or enrichment program and activities they do, or would like to do more often.

This survey and analysis examines the U.S. Department of State and its role in cultural diplomacy and international cultural exchange. The results indicate a decrease in U.S. government resources in these fields in the 15 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union. In 2007, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation began to commission on U.S.-based cultural diplomacy and cultural exchange aimed at making the case in reinvestment in these areas, especially in light of the erosion of international sympathy towards the U.S. more recently. SEE REPORT

Also see the Timeline of U.S. Public and Cultural Diplomacy1999-2009.

This report attempts to define and measure how audiences are transformed by a live performance. The study, commissioned by the Major University Presenters consortium, develops a simple measurement tool to assess impact, provides an analytical framework for considering the results, and suggests how performing arts presenters might begin to use this information to select programs more purposefully and evaluate them on the basis of impact instead of attendance.

A study of public attendance of the arts from 1982 to 2002.

This report addressed the following questions among others:

• What factors affected audience-development efforts from 1992 to 1998 in the four
  cities across the performing arts in all disciplines and types of institutions?
• What influences have had an impact on the growth or lack of growth in audiences?
• What are the other changes in the marketplace -- such as other leisure time use,
  increased complexity of community and drive time to events -- that have affected
  audience development over the decade?

Public Art Academy for Artists (Part 3 of 3)
Originally recorded on November 3, 2010 (90 minutes)

Presenters: Mary Rubin, Brian Laczko, Amy Trachtenberg, Sammy Rodriquez

Unlike traditional studio materials, public art requires that one look at maintenance, durability, and presentation in a new light. Materials research often requires looking at infrastructure rather than museum work and speaking with contractors rather than other artists. The cost of these materials can be shocking to artists who've traditionally worked with studio materials. In this workshop, we'll cover strategies for working with materials and budgets on the public art scale.
 
1.  Introduction: Overview of 10 projects -conceptual to final design proposals

2.  Moving from concept into buildable design - considering durable materials, researching fabrication techniques, trouble shooting possible problems.

3.  How to structure your budget and time; cost estimating, collaborating with fabricators.

4.  Creative collaboration: Integrating your work into the construction schedule, resources and credits. Working with other collaborators: conservator, engineer, architect, graphic designer, historian, etc.

5.  Artist experience: What I learned in building my artwork, problems and how I solved them, what I would do next time.

6.  Design changes: How to be flexible; How design changes and why - when the original concept/ideas may remain

Available to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art Academy for Artists (Part 2 of 3)
Originally recorded on October 13, 2010 (90 minutes)

Presenters: Barbara Goldstein, Lynn Rogers, Amy Trachtenberg, Sammy Rodriquez

Working in the studio allows an artist to create his/her own schedule, budget, and system for creation. Once an artist moves into the highly collaborative field of public art, huge changes are introduced. In this workshop we will cover how to work with other professionals, where to find help when needed, and the roles of each professional/ stakeholder as a project moves forward.

1.  Slide show highlighting 10-15 different types of public art projects including full descriptions.

2.  Getting started -learning from stakeholders including community members, architects/designers, and reviewing bodies; the roles of  team members and lines of communication (project manager, contracting officer, architects, engineers and other consultants).

3.  How to present your ideas--what is expected during concept development stage.

4.  Leveraging opportunities and resources (e.g. architecture/building elements and/or community involvement)

5.  Artist experiences--how and what we learned from community members and stakeholders, and content/resources; how we leveraged architecture--the development steps of a project.

6.  Collateral benefits - how the artwork can live on in the community in other forms (books, events, webpages, etc.)

Available for free to members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

Public Art Academy for Artists (Part 1 of 3)
Originally recorded on September 29, 2010 (90 minutes)
Presenters: Steven Huss, Amy Trachtenberg, Sammy Rodriquez

In this workshop, artists will be given the necessary tools to make the leap from working in the isolation of the studio to working in a collaborative, large scale setting. The intent is to give artists the confidence and knowledge needed to move their career into public art.

1.Slide show highlighting 10-15 different types of public art projects including full descriptions.

2.Recognizing the types of projects that are best suited for your skills.

3.Responsibilities of a public artist and public art project manager. Describing the collaborative process of project development.

4.How to apply, write a letter, graphically and verbally present your work in an application. What to include in a letter of interest and how to present your work in an interview.

5.Artists experiences. The two artists describe how they began working in public art and the relationship of their public art to their previous work; show slides of previous work, describe specific interest in applying for the public art project/s they have participated in, and how they presented themselves and their work to get their first public art project.

Free for members of Americans for the Arts; not available to non-members.

This report presents the results of the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the arts, which was given to a nationally representative sample of 7,900 eighth-grade public and private school students. Approximately one-half of these students were assessed in music, and the other half were assessed in visual arts.

Public Art 101 for Artists
Originally recorded on December 3, 2008 T
(90 minutes)

Participants will learn the basic "nuts and bolts" of the field of public art. The 90-minute webinar will cover some of the unique skills required for art-making in the public realm including an overview of public art and the public realm, project examples, programs, funding, implementation and resources for further study. Two case studies will be presented which explore the experiences of two artists who have transitioned from the studio/gallery to the public realm.

The webinar is suited for administrators interested in better understanding the artists' experience and artists exploring public art as a profession.

Instructor: Charlotte Cohen, Regional Fine Arts Officer, General Services Administration, New York, NY

Instructor: Porter Arneill, Director/Public Art Administrator, Municipal Art Commission, Kansas City, MO

Are increasingly heavy assertions of control by copyright and trademark owners smothering fair use and free expression?  The product of more than a year of research, Will Fair Use Survive? paints a striking picture of an intellectual property system that is perilously out of balance.

Teaching the Art of Writing: An arts-based approach to writing captivates reluctant writers.