Over the last decade, you’ve probably known someone who took up dance or music classes, or maybe someone who joined a knitting or craft group, or started a novel. According to a 2008 NEA study, 74 percent of Americans participate in the arts through attendance, art creation, or media. Whether you call it the Pro-Am [...]
This is a short overview of my full article for the Arts Policy Library. Informal Arts is a series of case studies on the little-researched topic of adult participation in informal arts. By following twelve groups ranging from a quilting guild to a hip-hop collective, this 431-page report delves into the social and artistic value [...]
Informal Arts: Finding Cohesion, Capacity and Other Cultural Benefits in Unexpected Places (Chicago Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College, 2002) sheds light on the little-studied topic of adult participation in informal arts. The report was commissioned by the CAP in response to “The Arts & The Public Purpose” (American Assembly Consensus Report, 1997), the [...]
“Sustainability” and “community development” are ideals that many arts organizations strive to uphold. They want to stand on their own two feet financially, and they also want to play a role in revitalizing communities that have been abandoned by urban sprawl. Some arts centers, such as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark and [...]
In honor of National Volunteer Week, let’s take a look at managing volunteers in true Createquity fashion–from a research-based perspective. Volunteers do a lot for arts organizations. They get mailings out the door, they get audience members to their seats, they bring in thousands of dollars, and they contribute their professional expertise to organizations they [...]
North Carolina is known nationally for its extensive network of local arts agencies, featuring 84 local arts councils in a state with 100 counties. One county, however, is conspicuously absent. The 10th most populous county in the state, New Hanover County on the southern coast, has not had an arts council since 2002. The leaders [...]
So by now you’ve probably heard the latest news: James O’Keefe (that guy who secretly filmed ACORN) posed as a Muslim philanthropist to Ronald Schiller, Senior Vice President of Development for NPR and President of the NPR Foundation, and Betsy Liley, NPR’s Director of Institutional Giving. Over lunch, the clandestine camera records Mr. Schiller calling [...]
Great article and more fuel for the fire beneath the long long simmering, never quite finished arts stew: how to align the...
As a former director of museums and board member of several arts groups and now consultant – my perspective is less...
Look, if I was the CFO of a big company, and I had a vendetta against the arts, I would love the emphasis on economic...
Nina, there are potentially lots of ways to do this and I’m not trying to say this is the best. However, the...
Interesting concept, but I don’t think this would necessarily yield useful comparative results. As one of the...