- It is indeed state budget time, and AFTA’s Tim Mikulski has a helpful round-up of some of the early arts advocacy fights on the horizon for this year. So far, Rhode Island’s 58% cut is looming largest, but Louisiana is close behind as Gov. Jindal wants to halve the state’s Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism’s general fund and eliminate the position of Lieutenant Governor, who oversees the program. (Louisiana’s current Lt. Gov., Mitch Landrieu, is one of the most outspoken supporters of the creative economy in the nation but will be moving on to Mayor of New Orleans later this year.) Arizona’s state arts agency faces proposed cuts as well. On the bright side, two states that faced potential elimination of arts funds last year, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are looking at more or less level funding this year. Meanwhile, the Boston Public Library faces a 73% cut in state funding and may have to close branches as a result.
- GiveWell continues and finishes its self-evaluation exercise with posts on top-level priorities and its research action plan. I can’t say enough how great it is that they not only engage in this kind of navel-gazing at all, but do it in public. It would be a very good thing for the sector if the practice became more widely adopted.
- While we’re on the subject of evaluation, Createquity readers may be interested in this conference call today (Monday) at 1pm Eastern on the subject of qualitative evaluation. Tactical Philanthropy’s Sean Stannard-Stockton will be giving opening remarks.
- In preparation for its 50th anniversary summit, Americans for the Arts is soliciting your comments on a huge raft of “Green Papers” on various topics ranging from digital infrastructure for the creative economy to arts in healthcare. The Green Paper on leadership in the arts was authored by AFTA’s Emerging Leader Council (before I joined, alas). Speaking of, if you’re an emerging leader of color from the Great Lakes region, you may be interested in this fellowship opportunity from Americans for the Arts and the Joyce Foundation. Five awards of $3000 each will go to support attendance at three AFTA events in 2010-11.
- The content of this panel at Carnegie Hall honestly sounds kind of dumb, but it’s nice to see the World Economic Forum caring enough about the arts to convene a high-profile event on it.
- Tyler Cowen points us to a new textbook on cultural economics that he says “sets the standard” for the field.
- We’ve talked some before about subscription models in theater, but it’s cool to find out that some people are already trying it: via Andrew Taylor, ACT Theater in Seattle charges members $25 a month to see all the shows they want.
- I’ve heard of pop-up galleries in vacant storefront spaces, but pop-up theater? Now that’s cool.
- Last week, a coworker sent an email with a link to a New York Times story on OKCupid.com’s use of data to set it apart from its online dating site competitors. Fun, I thought, but pretty much forgot about it after that. Well, this week, a Twitter friend of mine linked to one of the actual posts on the OKCupid.com blog, and I checked it out. WOW. Wow, wow, wow. Forget the subject matter, this is hands down one of the best efforts I’ve ever seen to make an engaging qualitative argument using numbers. The crux (that straight boys in their twenties should be going after women 5-10 years older than them rather than females their own age) is both illuminating and strangely poignant. The rest of the blog (titled geekily enough OKTrends) is great too.
