(Brain) Power Breakfast with Createquity
Monday, August 7, 2017
9:30 – 11:00 AM
Northeastern Crossing
1175 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02120

Northeastern Crossing is easily accessible via the Ruggles MBTA Station. More specific directions to the venue are available here.

The program will include introductory remarks from Createquity, the official presentation of the first-ever winner of the Createquity Arts Research Prize (!!), and a series of lightning presentations summarizing and synthesizing Createquity’s in-depth research on a number of pressing issues in arts and culture. Afterwards, we will host a facilitated discussion inviting audience members to reflect on what we’ve learned about the arts ecosystem, what we still need to know, and how we might go about building that knowledge. Ample time for networking and complimentary coffee and pastries will be provided.

Please RSVP by 8/1.

The event is free with donations encouraged.

Artist at Work – photo by flickr user Graeme Rattray

As part of its 50th anniversary, the National Endowment for the Arts has launched Creativity Connects, a threefold leadership initiative designed to show “how the arts contribute to the nation’s creative ecosystem, investigate the ways in which the support systems for the artists are changing, and explore how the arts can connect with other sectors that want and utilize creativity.”  As part of Creativity Connects, the Center for Cultural Innovation and Helicon Collaborative are working on an infrastructure report that will examine the changes artists have experienced in the last decade and how to strengthen the landscape of support. The initiative will also produce an interactive digital graphic that maps how the arts intersects with other industries. Finally, the NEA has set up a pilot grant program to support partnerships with organizations from outside the arts. Creativity Connects is likely to be the major contribution of Jane Chu’s term as Chairman as the nation prepares for a change of administrations next year. To get involved, join the conversation at creativz.us, a new online platform to house the initiative that is currently making a push to ask what artists in the United States need to sustain and strengthen their careers. (If you’re feeling in the survey-taking or -distributing mood, the Mellon Foundation also has a survey out seeking “a better understanding of the current health and well-being among artists living and working in the United States.”)

New directions for the Barr Foundation. In May 2014, Jim Canales, former president and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation in California, moved East to join Boston’s Barr Foundation as its first ever president. Canales was tasked with developing a new strategic direction of the foundation, which was established in 1987 by Amos and Barbara Hostetter and is the largest funder in Boston, having given out some $710 million to date. Earlier this year, the foundation announced its new strategy, which doesn’t look like much of a departure on the surface: Barr remains committed to its three core issue areas—education, arts, and climate change, and plans to continue its concentration on the Boston area. At the edges, however, the signs of a funder that has vastly increased the scope of its ambition are apparent. With a fast-growing endowment and staff, Barr plans to increase its regional funding presence throughout Massachusetts and even make targeted grants nationally. Under the leadership of San San Wong, the foundation’s renamed Arts & Creativity program has been given a sharper focus, that of “elevating the arts and enabling creative expression to engage and inspire a dynamic, thriving Commonwealth.“  The foundation plans to pursue this goal through three strategies: advancing the field’s capacity to adapt, take risks, and engage changing audiences in new ways; fostering opportunities to connect the arts to other disciplines and sectors; and activating public support for the arts. The Barr Foundation is at the forefront of an exciting period of growth for the arts in Boston, what with Mayor Walsh’s Boston Creates, the Barr Klarman Arts Capacity Building Initiative, ArtPlace America initiatives and a new artist-in-residence program announced this month which will embed local artists inside city departments to promote creative thinking about municipal government.

Cannes and Ford Foundation tackle inequity. The Cannes Film Market, the business counterpart of the Cannes Film Festival launched in 1959, and the Ford Foundation’s five-year old JustFilms, a film financing, social awareness and education program, announced a two-year partnership this month to boost the profile, market networking and distribution of social justice documentary features at Cannes. The partnership will play out in several ways. First, Cannes Film Market’s “Doc Corner” will be significantly scaled up for the upcoming May 2016 festival, and both parties will increase their efforts to bring docu filmmakers, especially those from the world’s global south, to Cannes. Second, for the first time ever, Cannes Film Festival marquee events will focus on the docu-feature sector. For Cannes, this partnership is yet another example of the festival’s diversifying its offerings. For Ford, which announced last year that it would direct all of its resources to curbing global inequity, the partnership is a significant step towards this goal, and a logical next step for JustFilms, which has already supported some 80 films since its inception.

A Bechdel Test for race? In the years since Alison Bechdel coined the Bechdel-Wallace test in a 1985 comic strip from her comic Dykes to Watch Out For, “The Test” has become a yardstick for measuring gender equality in a work of fiction. For a work to pass, it must 1) have at least two women in it, who 2) talk to each other, about 3) something other than a man. (Some add that the female characters need be named.) Although some argue that the test is too simple to accurately assess gender parity, its widespread adoption is important. Having a quantitative metric for narrative diversity has proven useful, especially when so many works fail the test. This month, Manohla Dargis, chief film critic for The New York Times, took the Bechdel test one step further, proposing what she calls the “DuVernay test,” in honor of Ava DuVernay, the celebrated director of Selma. The racial analogue to the Bechdel test, the DuVernay test seeks to offer a simple, widely-applicable metric for examining the way we treat characters of color in film and media. While the proposal might need some further definition (Dargis’s metric of “fully realized lives” is quite a bit harder to implement in practice than Bechdel’s simple checklist), the idea has been well received, including by DuVernay herself. Though it has yet to be applied extensively, at least one channel is set up to pass with flying colors: the All Nations Network—a cable channel featuring TV programming created for and by native peoples–is set to launch soon in the United States.

And the nominee (for Librarian of Congress) is…President Obama nominated Carla Hayden to be the next  Librarian of Congress this month. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Hayden would be the 14th Librarian of Congress in the institution’s 214-year history. She would also be the first woman and the first African-American to hold the position, milestones that Obama has called “long overdue.” Hayden, who has led the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore since 1993, would also be just the third professional librarian to serve in the position. Hayden would succeed James Billington, who was appointed by President Reagan and served as Librarian of Congress for nearly three decades. Billington stepped down from his post on January 1 of this year amid criticism of library mismanagement and “digital neglect”. In response, last year President Obama signed into a law a ten year term limit for Librarians of Congress–though there is the option for renewal. The next Librarian of Congress will assume some serious responsibility, such as modernizing the Library’s digital infrastructure, and in her position overseeing the Copyright Office, could significantly shift the copyright conversation.

MUSICAL  CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Channing Dungey has been named president of ABC Entertainment Group, becoming the first African American to lead a major broadcast network.
• Betsy Fader, a leader in the philanthropic and social enterprise sectors, has been named Vice President of Programs at the Surdna Foundation.
• Dan Cardinali, currently president of Communities in Schools, has been appointed CEO of Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations.
• In a surprise cabinet reshuffle, Audrey Azoulay, currently President François Hollande’s cultural advisor, has replaced Fleur Pellerin as France’s culture minister.
• Kelly Lee has been appointed Philadelphia’s Chief Cultural Officer, joining an office that was re-established by Mayor Michael Nutter in 2008.
• After working at Creative Time for eight years, Katie Hollander has been promoted to Executive Director.
• Lisa Lucas has been named executive director of the National Book Foundation.
• Two long-serving vice presidents were promoted at Slover Linett this month. Sarah Lee has been named president, taking over from the firm’s founder, Cheryl Slover-Linett, and Chloe Chittick Patton has been named chief operating officer, a newly created position.
• Malcolm White, who was executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission from 2005-2012, will return as executive director this year after three years as the state’s tourism chief.
• Gimlet Media is hiring an Associate Producer, Family History Show. Posted February 16; no closing date.
• Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is hiring a Center Specialist in the visual arts. Posted February 24; no closing date.
• DataArts (formerly the Cultural Data Project) is hiring a Senior Research Advisor. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• In light of this month’s contested Academy Awards, two new studies shed some light on the issue of diversity in the film industry. While a review from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found a significant rise in the number of women featured as protagonists in films in 2015, a wide-ranging study from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism gave a failing diversity grade to every movie studio and most TV makers.
• Several reports out this month looked at philanthropic trends. One study looked at 24 countries and found there is no significant correlation between charitable giving, levels of taxation & government spending within a given country. Another report from the Atlas of Giving found that US charitable giving increased 4.6% in 2015, and is expected to grow 2.6% in 2016. A third suggested that US nonprofits missed out on some $6.5 billion due to mobile incompatibility in 2015. Related, a report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy finds that grantees think information about the substance of a foundation’s work is more important than disclosures about its finances or governance.
• “Art Under Threat,” released this month by Freemuse, shows that wordlwide attacks on artistic freedom almost doubled in 2015, and that most attacks were either politically or religiously motivated.
• Research out of Johns Hopkins University suggests that it’s not how much your practice, but how you practice that makes all the difference.
• The National Endowment for the Arts brought seventy experts together to talk about the role of the arts in healthy aging.
• The US and Britain released several studies looking at the economic impact of the arts. One study conducted a detailed empirical examination of the connection between arts organizations and key measures of neighborhood diversity and economic advantage or disadvantage in NYC. Britain commissioned a study of the arts’ contributions to the national GDP.  And looking ahead, beginning on 2016, the US Dept of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis will being to “produce statistics showing the role of arts and culture in the economies of all 50 states.” Related, a report out of Australia finds that producers struggle to find affordable venues as the Sydney’s expensive theaters remain underutilized, and a report from England found that London organizations receive almost twice as much arts funding as the rest of England combined, despite accounting for just a third of the country’s cultural offering.
• Researcher Orian Brook looked at the extent to which living near a cultural venue influences whether or not one attends, and found that indeed, proximity was very strongly positively associated with the likelihood of attendance.
• How happy is your state? A report released this month by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index ranks wellbeing in the USA by state.

Cables in the Sky – photo by flickr user Crodriguesc

Fourteen months after Comcast announced it would take over Time Warner Cable in February 2014, the $45 billion deal — which would have resulted in a mega-company controlling almost 60% of the broadband market and just under 30% of pay television — is dead. The takeover faced strong opposition from the outset: Netflix, Democratic senators including All Franken and Elizabeth Warren, and 56% of the general American public, among many others, expressed concerns that a bigger Comcast would have too much control over what Americans can do online or watch on TV. Even so, the merger had seemed inevitable until quite recently. First, the FCC issued a “hearing designation order” on April 22, a move that put the merger’s outcome in the hands of an administrative law judge and was seen by all as strong indication that the FCC did not see the deal as being in the public’s interest. After antitrust attorneys for the DOJ — in a conceptual shift — indicated they were prepared to block the deal, Comcast folded. The end came at a price: Comcast reportedly spent $336 million on “transaction-related costs,” and Time Warner another $219 million. Time Warner, for its part, seems to have wasted no time in jumping into bed with a new partner, rekindling merger talks with Charter Communications Inc.

New York City Catches Up With the Times, Orders a Cultural Plan: New York City’s dubious designation of being the only one of the country’s top ten municipalities without a cultural plan is slated to end. The majority-Democrat city council unanimously passed legislation to develop a comprehensive cultural plan this month. The law, introduced in August 2013, tasks the Department of Cultural Affairs with surveying the city’s five boroughs, and establishing a strategy to both meet the specified cultural needs of each community, increase cultural activity and economic impact citywide – all by July 1, 2017. To start, the DCA will establish a Citizens’ Advisory Committee, made up of at least 12 members from diverse cultural and geographic backgrounds, to assist it in soliciting  feedback from citizens and implementing the plan. Meanwhile, in neighboring Boston, recently-elected Mayor Marty Walsh announced the details of his own $1.4 million cultural planning initiative. To start: an eighteen-month survey, nicknamed #BostonCreates, that will look at how different neighborhoods and their citizens define arts and culture.

Small Steps Forward for Arts Education at the Federal Level: This month the Senate’s new draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (popularly known as the No Child Left Behind Act) added writing and music to the list of disciplines it defines as “core academic subjects”. (The previous list had included the more general “arts” along with both “English” and “reading or language arts,” but did not explicitly break out writing and music as separate subjects.) In addition, although the bill does not scale back testing requirements, it includes several progressive components, including the clarification that Title I funds can be used for arts education and more holistic language throughout that implies a reduced emphasis on math, science, and language arts. The bill, introduced by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., and dubbed the “Every Child Achieves Act of 2015,” was approved 22-0 by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee in mid-April. Though this is the third time the Senate has tried to reauthorize ESEA in the last several years, it is a positive step towards reauthorizing a bill first introduced in 1965.

LA’s 99-Seat Theaters Ordered to Pay Up: The people spoke, but the Actors Equity Association did not listen. Earlier this month, the AEA ordered small theaters in LA County (that’s theaters with fewer than 100 seats) to pay its actors a $9 hourly minimum wage. The decision came even after the Los Angeles AEA membership — some 3,000 people strong — voted 65.5% to 34.4% against adopting the new wages. In 1987, the AEA formally adopted the so-called “99 Seat Plan,” which allowed union actors to rehearse for up to eight weeks and to perform in up to eight shows in small LA County theaters,  waiving their usual union salaries in return for small stipends. Although at first it seems strange—why would an actor willingly forgo her union benefits?—proponents of the plan argue that the system has been good for actors, and good for theater, allowing difficult plays—those with large casts, or new, and thus risky, works—to be staged for the love of it all, without the pressure of the bottom line. The debate heated up this month, with the #ILove99 camp literally taking to the streets, and prominent names weighing in (largely against the AEA.) In the end, the Actors Equity Association (mostly) stuck to its original plan, and it remains to be seen what effect, if any, the decision will have on LA. In the meantime, it’s worth considering the bigger picture: wealth inequality in the nonprofit theater world (heck, the nonprofit arts world).

FM Radio’s Days Are Numbered: FM Radio was patented in 1933, and although it took the medium four decades to become the international standard, no one would have disputed its dominance. Today, four more decades later, it looks like its days might finally be numbered. On January 11, 2017, Norway will flip the switch on frequency modified broadcasts, transitioning its entire country to digital radio. The move should come as no surprise in a country which boasts of 22 Digital Audio Broadcast stations (and only five FM ones) and where more than half the population listens to digital radio daily. Denmark, Sweden and the UK have made noise about a similar switch. The digital takeover is likely to be slow and meandering in the United States, however, where 92% of folks over 12 listen to terrestrial radio at least once a week. The main reason? The transition to digital would require an act of Congress, and with the majority of US FM stations privately held, we can imagine what might be involved.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Dr. Kathryn (Kit) Matthew, currently Chief Science Educator at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, was nominated by President Obama to lead the Institute of Museum and Library Services in March.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has appointed Pam Breaux its new CEO, effective July 15.
• Bahia Ramos, currently program director for community foundations at Miami’s John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, will move into the role of arts program director at the foundation.
• June O’Neill has stepped down as executive director of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund after twelve years at its helm. Lois Welk, who led Dance USA/Philadelphia until its recent demise, has been named interim executive director, and a search is underway for O’Neill’s successor.
• Ken Berger, CEO of Charity Navigator, stepped down abruptly last month after its Board decided it needed leadership with more tech expertise.
• The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation is hiring a Program Assistant. Posted March 30; no closing date.
• The Bohemian Foundation in Fort Collins, CO is hiring a Music Programs Manager. Posted April 2; no closing date.
• The Boston Foundation seeks a Director of Arts and Culture. Posted April 3; no closing date.
• Bolder Giving, based in New York City, seeks an Executive Director. Posted April 14; no closing date.
• The Oregon Community Foundation is accepting applications for an Opportunity Fellow, an 18-month position offered in partnership with the Momentum Fellowship Program at Philanthropy Northwest. Posted April 17; deadline May 15.
• Slover Linett Audience Research is hiring a Chicago-based Associate/Senior Associate. Posted April 17; no closing date.
• CECP, a coalition of CEOs united in the belief that societal improvement is an essential measure of business performance, seeks a Manager, Data Insights. Posted April 24; no closing date.
• Applications for BuzzFeed’s (yes, that BuzzFeed) inaugural Emerging Writers Fellowship program are now open. Deadline is October 1.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A survey from the Nonprofit Research Collaborative shows that 63% of US nonprofits saw a year-over-year increase in 2014 fundraising revenues, continuing a general upward trend. On the other hand, a new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy found that across the board, nonprofits are in need of funding to collect and better assess their performance data.
• The Cultural Data Project released a new report, “Bridging the Capacity Gap: Cultural Practitioners’ Perspectives on Data,” looking at the challenges to using data to strengthen nonprofit decision-making. Related, the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy published a resource guide for implementing a culture of continuous improvement at Head Start and Early Head Start programs, though the insights are applicable broadly.
• DanceUSA reviewed the National Endowment for the Arts’s recent reports on arts engagement, as well as its own audience engagement efforts, in an effort to better understand what works for dance.
• In the world of early education and the arts, three different papers presented at last month’s biennial research conference for the Society for Research in Child Development detail the ways in which the arts have a positive impact on early childhood development.
• Looking at the other end of the life cycle, a new report from the Mayo Clinic shows that making art consistently over the course of one’s life has significant positive cognitive implications in later life.
• The Government Accountability Office released a report indicating that the Library of Congress continues to be behind the digital times, and faults Librarian of Congress James H. Billington for failing to hire a chief information officer, which is required by law.
• According to The Art Newspaper’s annual survey of museum attendance, solo shows at US museums were dominated by artists from five of the world’s biggest galleries, accounting for nearly a third of solo shows between 2007 and 2013.

The Diego Rivera Mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts – photo by Quick fix

Each year, Createquity offers a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past twelve months. You can read the previous editions here: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009. The list, like Createquity itself, is focused on the United States, but is not oblivious to news from other parts of the world. This year, we distributed creation of this list amongst our editorial team more widely than we ever have before, and this is truly a group effort. Authorship of individual items is noted at the end of each paragraph.

In our annual top 10 list of arts policy stories, we often like to point out the implications that non-arts world events have for the arts. In an unusual twist this year, we had a couple of stories in which the art itself was at the center of significant world events. We always knew that art has the power to inspire wonder, hope, greed, fear and anger; 2014 taught us that we can add bankruptcy negotiations and terrorist threats to the list. –Ian David Moss

10. Trey McIntyre Project disbands

In a move that shocked fans and fellow arts administrators alike, Trey McIntyre announced this January that his celebrated eponymous dance company, known as the Trey McIntyre Project, would disband this season, letting him shift focus to new artistic pursuits involving film production, photography, and less frequently, freelance choreography. Begun as a summer touring company in 2005, TMP launched a full-time dance troupe in 2008-09. TMP had been recognized for its innovative choreography and as a model for audience engagement, but most of all for its unusual relationship to the city of Boise, Idaho, which was selected as the new company’s unlikely home after a nationwide search. This arrangement provided TMP with an affordable and livable community, while Boise in turn embraced the company wholeheartedly, treating the dancers like local celebrities and naming the company as its official ambassador. Drawing national attention and funding from creative placemaking initiatives including the NEA’s Our Town and ArtPlace America, TMP had been hailed by many as a model of engagement for the future. Yet McIntyre has said that ending the company was always part of the plan, which is why he decided to call it a “project.” Speaking to Dance|USA, McIntyre said that “the dance company actually went on longer than I had intended. But things were going on really well and I felt it was important to see it through to its fruition and explore every possibility.” From the outside it might look like plenty of possibility was left on the table, but perhaps even in its demise TMP is still a model for the future – that is to say, a model of an organization that knows how to quit while it’s ahead. –Carlyn Madden

9. Transition and renewal for cultural agencies in New York, LA and Boston

In 2014, three major US cities saw a shift in local government leadership, in each case bringing promise and questions for the arts. New York City’s election of Bill de Blasio as its first Democratic mayor in twenty years coincides with a push by the City Council to undertake the Big Apple’s first ever cultural plan. The proposed law charges the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, led by newly appointed Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl, with developing recommendations for increasing participation in cultural activities throughout the city. NYC is the only one of the country’s top ten municipalities to not have some sort of cultural plan; this bill will hopefully change that when it comes up for a vote in 2015. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti – the city’s first Jewish mayor, and its youngest in a century – opened the year by reshaping the arts conversation, putting emphasis on the fact that the arts are “a value for the entire city government.” In June, he appointed Danielle Brazell, who had previously headed up the city’s arts advocacy organization Arts for LA, to lead the city’s Cultural Affairs Department. But the greatest excitement belongs to Boston, which elected its first mayor last year following the 21-year reign of Tom Menino. The statewide arts advocacy coalition MassCreative took the transition as an opportunity to put culture at the center of the electoral conversation, and its efforts paid off this year in dramatic fashion. In September, newly elected mayor Marty Walsh appointed Julie Burros as Boston’s first Chief of Arts and Culture in more than 20 years, and tasked her with stewarding the creation of the city’s cultural plan. Adding to the sense of momentum, Boston’s Barr Foundation has taken on a newly assertive role in guiding the future of the arts in Beantown, bringing in former Irvine Foundation president James E. Canales and joining the ArtPlace America coalition. –Clara Inés Schuhmacher

8. State arts councils come back with a vengeance

State arts councils had their best year since the turn of the millennium with a nearly 20% increase in funding for FY2015. Total appropriations for arts agencies reached $367.4 million, the highest total (in nominal terms, don’t get too excited) since 2002. The biggest winner was the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, which had suffered a crippling 94% budgetary cut over a three-year period ending in 2009. The Sunshine State’s arts council roared back this year with a 433% increase, unseating the New York State Council on the Arts as the most formidable state arts council in the country – and with a conservative governor at the helm, no less. California and Michigan also received significant increases in funding, and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley apparently got tired of trying unsuccessfully to veto funding for the state’s Arts Commission as she had done in each of her previous years in office.  With the improving economy, unplanned midyear cuts to state arts agency budgets saw a marked decrease, down to eight states in 2014 from 41 in FY2009. –Louise Geraghty

7. The landscape for film tax credits gets reshaped

After years of what resembled a high-stakes poker game in the competitive environment for film and TV tax incentives, 2014 saw several significant shifts that involved some states upping the ante and others folding their hand. California led the way, more than tripling its tax credit program to $330 million annually in a bid to reassert dominance and keep Hollywood productions in Hollywood. New Jersey’s state Senate decided to play along too, passing a bill that would raise the annual cap for film tax credits from $10 million to $50 million. States weren’t the only ones in the mix: Austin’s City Council approved reimbursement of up to 0.75% of production companies’ wages. Not everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid, however; as John Carnwath writes in “The Bottom Line on Film Tax Credits,” the benefits of film & TV tax incentives to the state and its citizens are not always clear. This year saw North Carolina, Michigan and New Mexico scaling down their programs, citing “concerns [that] the cost to taxpayers outweighed the economic benefits.” Meanwhile, skeptical lawmakers tried to derail Maryland’s tax credit program, prompting a high-stakes standoff with Media Rights Capital and its Netflix show House of Cards that brought out a lobbying appearance from Kevin Spacey himself. An eventual agreement kept House of Cards filming in the Old Line State, but only at the expense of $2.5 million that was transferred away from the state arts fund (and thus many deserving nonprofits!) in a troubling precedent. And even after all that, a nonpartisan analysis from the state’s legislative staff concluded that every dollar invested in the tax credits brought back only 10 cents in revenue. –CIS

6. Bring on the era of Jane Chu!

With the NEA chairmanship open since Rocco Landesman’s retirement in November 2012, the confirmation of Jane Chu to the post was welcome news this June. Chu established her arts career in Kansas City, where she led a $414 million campaign for the establishment of the Kauffman Center and was a key player in the city’s transformation into an arts leader. With a midwestern background, a track record with the business community as a board member for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, and previous fundraising success, Chu seems well-chosen for the task of establishing bipartisan support for the arts and countering the impression that the NEA serves a coastal cultural elite. Nevertheless, some wonder if her limited tenure as result of the administration’s long delay in appointing a new leader will give her much opportunity to drive policy at the agency. Chu has not yet announced any new initiatives in her first six months on the job. Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Humanities also saw a new chairman confirmed this year. William “Bro” Adams comes from a career in academia, most recently as the president of Colby College in Maine, but he may find himself taking on a similar agenda of garnering broad based support and bolstering funding for the humanities. Adams has already announced a new initiative entitled “The Common Good, Humanities in the Public Square.”  –Katherine Ingersoll

5. The IRS haltingly embraces the 21st century

In July the IRS announced major changes to the process of applying for 501(c)(3) charitable status, including a streamlined three-page 1023EZ form for most organizations with gross receipts under $50,000. This bodes well for the backlog of nearly 60,000 organizations waiting for their applications to be processed who will see a dramatic decrease in wait time. The move is in line with a larger trend towards more streamlined processes for the exempt organizations division at the IRS – and, quite possibly, more relaxed enforcement of the rules. The changes come at a time when budget cuts, staff reductions, and political scandals, have stoked concerns about the agency’s regulatory oversight. Government transparency advocates have noted that the dilemma of providing effective regulation with fewer resources could be solved by offering 990 data in an open, searchable format online, distributing some of the IRS’s watchdog responsibilities to donor advocates and the public. (Currently the forms are only available on CDs; GuideStar offers the documents on its website with a 1-2 year delay.) Will the IRS be able to modernize its operations while protecting the public interest? Will your tax forms become shorter, and will there be any staff left to process them? Only time will tell. –KI

4. Russia and Turkey crack down on free expression

Although Russia’s aggression toward the Ukraine has occupied many a news cycle this year, the oppressive measures that Vladimir Putin’s government has taken to reaffirm authority at home, many of which affect artists, have not been as widely reported. Among the more troubling developments is what appears to be a return to the witch-hunt tactics of the Soviet era, publicly naming (and ostensibly shaming) “subversive” artists in print and on television. In July, Putin signed a law prohibiting swearing in public performances (these are the four main offenders), leaving presenters struggling with how best to present planned repertoire. International tensions have affected programming in the US as well – most notably, in April, Washington DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre canceled a months-in-the-making festival of Russian theatre, citing loss of previously committed tour funding from the Moscow Cultural Ministry for the 90 artists slated to appear. Putin is not the only national leader to attempt to bend public expression to his will, of course, and he seemingly is inspiring some copycat behavior by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Coinciding with a sweeping consolidation of power this year, Erdogan’s government proposed a bill in April that would establish an arts council to centralize the disbursement of state funds for artistic activities, effectively giving the government absolute artistic control. The proposed bill has drawn outrage from both the arts community and Turkish citizens, and though still in draft form, the effects of its line of thinking are already being felt, with world-renowned pianists blocked from national performances, and mysteriously cancelled productions at the State Theater. –CIS

3. Net neutrality hangs in the balance

It’s been yet another rough year for net neutrality. In January, Verizon challenged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s 2011 “Open Internet Order” and its authority to promulgate such rules. Verizon won, effectively overturning regulations that require internet service providers to treat all content equally, and setting off a maelstrom of concern around innovation, democracy, and the idea of America itself. Under fire, the FCC proposed new net neutrality rules in March, then again in April (these critics claimed were unworthy of the name), with yet a third draft presented on May 15th. The May proposal, which garnered a whopping 3.7 million public comments over a five month period (680k of which the FCC recently “lost,”) would allow broadband companies to provide a “fast lane” for content providers willing to pay a “commercially reasonable” fee, similar to those that already exist with tech companies like Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. In December, President Obama and The White House released a plan recommending that the FCC reclassify Internet broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which proponents argue would give the FCC the increased regulatory power necessary to protect net neutrality. Looming large over the debate is the proposed merger of Time Warner Cable and Comcast – the country’s two largest cable companies – and the access implications if approved (the merger would give the new company a stake in 60% of US broadband households.) For now, it’s wait-and-see. The FCC has said it will implement net neutrality rules as early as February 2015, though that likely won’t bring an end to the debate. Whatever happens, someone is likely to sue. –CIS

2. “The Interview” provokes an international incident

Few arts stories in recent memory have involved as much bizarre spectacle as the recent Sony Pictures hack and subsequent fallout. Hollywood is no stranger to poking fun at North Korea (whose leaders are known film buffs); when Team America: World Police lampooned Kim Jong-il in 2004, life went on without much incident. Ten years later, it’s a different story with Seth Rogen and James Franco’s The Interview, which depicts the assassination of Kim’s son Jong-un. After hackers who may or may not have been aligned with North Korea exposed embarrassing emails and data from Sony Pictures, the producer of the movie, the studio and major movie theaters distanced themselves from the film. When the group claiming responsibility for the cyberattack threatened violence, Sony went further, deciding to delay The Interview’s theatrical release and provoking stern words from President Obama himself in response. Subsequently, Sony reversed its decision and released the film online and in select theaters on schedule. Buoyed by the controversy, it is now the most downloaded Sony Pictures film of all time and earned $15 million in its first three days of digital release (along with $3 million through its limited theatrical run) – and no one has yet been injured in a terrorist attack. Now, some people are even speculating that Sony and other major studios might forego a traditional theatrical release in the future in favor of going directly to online outlets. One thing we’re pretty sure about: never before has a story engaged computer geeks, homeland security experts, celebrity gossip hounds, and arts marketers with such equal intensity. –LG

1. Detroit’s art leads the Motor City out of bankruptcy

News about the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) made our “Top Ten” list in 2012 and in 2013. Let’s hope 2014 – as it reaches the dubious honor of No. 1 – marks its last appearance for a while. After two years, Detroit’s long and painful bankruptcy battle finally came to a close in November with a federal ruling in favor of the city’s bankruptcy plan. For this Detroit has, in many ways, the DIA to thank. Under the so-called “Grand Bargain,” an $816 million deal developed by the Ford, Kresge and Knight Foundations, among others, the foundations will provide funding for Detroit’s public pensions – a key component of the negotiations. The only catch? Control of the DIA must be transferred from the City of Detroit (which has owned the museum since 1919) to an independent charitable trust, thus protecting the art from being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Previously, Detroit’s state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr had included the museum’s art collection among city assets available for liquidation, and contracted Christie’s to appraise portions of the 60k+ piece collection. Detroit city creditor Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. even went as far as to solicit bids for the DIA’s entire collection, receiving four separate offers to buy the art outright for as much as $2 billion. That a museum and its art could become the linchpin of a federal bankruptcy negotiation, soliciting intense interest from creditors and rallying outside philanthropic interests to its rescue, is truly remarkable. Would a “Grand Bargain” — and a Detroit with its dignity left intact — have even been possible without the DIA? Luckily, we won’t have to find out. –CIS

Honorable mentions:

• Drama at the Metropolitan Opera, Atlanta Symphony, and San Diego Opera
• The Cultural Data Project’s strategic reboot
• August Wilson Center sold to Pittsburgh foundations
• US Department of Arts and Culture gets up and running

Happy 2015 to all!

The City of Boston seeks an Arts and Cultural Affairs Commissioner, reporting directly to the Mayor. For the first time in twenty years, the Commissioner will be a Cabinet-level position.

Deadline: May 9. Salary is $110,000-127,000.

Associate/Senior Associate, Slover Linett Audience Research

We are currently seeking candidates for an Associate/Senior Associate position based in Chicago. The Associate/Senior Associate is responsible for leading research and consulting projects across all parts of our work. We are open to hiring at either the Associate or Senior Associate level, depending on the candidate’s experience. The position will report to a Vice President based in Chicago. The Associate/Senior Associate will direct qualitative and quantitative audience research projects and work closely with the Vice Presidents and Partners to design and execute planning and/or facilitation processes. Our studies are sometimes part of a larger, multi-mode research effort designed to inform strategic change in an organization and sometimes part of a single-mode, ongoing program to track audience trends and changes over time. Projects are generally staffed with an Associate/Senior Associate and a Research Analyst, with the Vice Presidents and Partners involved in proportion to the needs of the project.

No deadline.

Research Analyst, Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF)

The Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), a nonprofit arts organization with regional and national programs located in Denver, Colorado, seeks a Research Analyst with a specialization in quantitative research methods and an interest in arts and culture. The Research Analyst at WESTAF reports to the Senior Associate Director, and is responsible for collaborating on the development of the Creative Vitality Suite. The CV Suite is a research and technology project that provides high-level data on the economic impact of art and cultural activities. The Research Analyst will be part of a larger research and policy team that includes specialists in public administration, arts administration, data visualization, data design, data curation, and social science research.

No deadline.

Research Manager, AMS Planning & Research

AMS Planning & Research Corp., a leading national consulting practice serving the arts and entertainment industry, is seeking a qualified professional for full-time employment as a Research Manager in our Southport, Connecticut office. Responsibilities include: primary and secondary industry and consumer research, writing, reporting and presentations. Minimum five years of relevant experience; arts and cultural employment is a benefit, B.A. required, advanced degree in market research, business or arts administration is desirable. The position has opportunity for growth in responsibility and breadth. Send resume and compensation history to ams@ams-online.com. No phone calls please.

No deadline. This opportunity was sent to us by email, but if they update their website with the listing we’ll post the link.

Multiple positions, GiveWell

GiveWell started as a group of finance professionals trying to do as much good as possible with their personal donations. Since 2007, it has been a full-time independent research group. We publish our charity recommendations, research, and the full details of our analysis publicly at www.givewell.org. We’re actively hiring because we are capacity constrained. Filling any of the roles below would make a substantial difference to our research.

No deadline.

Program Associate, Effective Philanthropy Group, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Effective Philanthropy Group is a hybrid team that works both internally within the Foundation and externally in the field to support effective philanthropic practice. There are five pillars to our work that span from primarily internally focused to primarily externally focused. These five pillars are Strategy, Evaluation, Organizational Learning, Organizational Effectiveness, and Philanthropy Grantmaking. While the title for this position reflects the overall group, this Program Associate’s specific role will be to provide administrative and project-related support to both the Program Officer for Philanthropy Grantmaking and the Strategy and Organizational Effectiveness Officer. The Program Associate will report to the Program Officer for Philanthropy Grantmaking.

Deadline: April 24.

Director of Advisory Services, Nonprofit Finance Fund

The Advisory Services department of the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) is seeking a full-time Director of Advisory Services in their San Francisco office. The Director will work with national leadership to identify specific market needs, in San Francisco and across California, develop and maintain funder relationships, originate new client relationships, and advance consulting products and services to respond to the continually evolving needs of nonprofit organizations and funders. The Director will oversee delivery of NFF’s full range of consulting services in the Bay area to ensure quality, timely execution, and customer satisfaction.

No deadline.

• With a rare, wide-open mayoral race underway, Boston’s arts community has come together to assert some political sway of its own. The new advocacy coalition MassCreative organized a nine-candidate forum that actually pushed back a televised debate. The primary is today.
• North Carolina’s Randolph County just banned Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man from school libraries following a parent complaint that the novel is “too much for teenagers.”

MUSICAL CHAIRS

• The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation welcomes Createquity’s own Daniel Reid as its new executive director and Courtney Hodell as director of the Whiting Writers’ Awards.
• The Ford Foundation announced Martin Abregú as its new vice president for the Democracy, Rights, and Justice program, and Hilary Pennington as the vice president of Education, Creativity, and Free Expression. Pennington, who previously led education initiatives at the Gates Foundation, will oversee all of Ford’s arts funding beginning October 1.
• Nearly a year after its prior president, Jeremy Nowak, resigned after eighteen months on the job, the William Penn Foundation has announced a search to fill its top leadership position, newly reframed as a “managing director.”
• John Palfrey, an expert on technology and civic engagement, is succeeding Robert Briggs as the new chair of the board of the Knight Foundation.
• G. Wayne Clough, who has served as the director of the Smithsonian Institution since 2008, will step down in October 2014.
• So long, Technology in the Arts blog; hello, Arts Management and Technology Laboratory. The rebranded/reimagined service from Carnegie Mellon’s arts management program will serve as “a research outlet for those working and learning in the arts management and technology sector,” and features interviews, case studies, research summaries, and more.

IN THE FIELD

• Nathan Zebedeo reviews Sarah Durham’s Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications for the (ahem) brand-new Fractured Atlas Book Club.
• Last week, Americans for the Arts hosted a blog salon focusing on arts education and the “trifecta of education accountability—standards, assessment, and evaluation.” The salon included a perspective from Createquity’s own Talia Gibas and a nice summary from Kristen Engebretsen, and touched on testing, teacher evaluation, the Common Core, and more.
• Speaking of accountability, Tennessee is rolling out an ambitious evaluation system for visual and performing arts teachers that relies on portfolios of student work. Teachers select samples they feel show evidence of growth over time, and submit them electronically for peer review. Time-consuming and complicated? Yep. Worth following? You bet.
• Udacity, a popular provider of online college-level courses known as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course), has announced the launch of Open Education Alliance, bringing together leading tech companies and educators to “bridge the gap between the skills employers need and what traditional universities teach.” Is there an Open Arts Education Alliance in the near future?
• The Detroit Free Press takes an in-depth look at the embattled Detroit Institute of Arts’s long and tangled relationship with its hometown, providing insight into the current threats of deaccessioning.
• Last Wednesday, September 18, #AskaCurator Day “connect[ed] experts in venues large and small directly to gallery and museum fans across the world, inviting both parties to take to their [Twitter] handles and ask each other anything they want.” You can catch up on the conversations here.

BIG IDEAS

• “Arts Dinnervention” participants Devon Smith and Laura Zabel each reflect on the recent WESTAF-supported discussion, which brought together twelve arts leaders to consider new solutions to old problems. While the convening did not result in a singular path forward, there was one notable consensus: “the arts are not in trouble, it’s the institutions that are failing.”
• The Dallas Morning News has taken a novel approach to hiring a new art critic to its staff, a position empty since 2006. The addition of Rick Brettell, an art history professor at the University of Texas, will strengthen the news org’s arts coverage and is the second time it has worked with UT to hire a local professor as a cultural critic.
• Is it ethical for arts funders to start what they cannot finish? Diane Ragsdale, one of the official bloggers at the upcoming Grantmakers in the Arts conference, has her doubts.
• How is an artist like a social entrepreneur? Laura Callanan explores the similarities at SOCAP13.
• If you’re looking for a dose of wisdom to go with your morning cup o’ joe, start here: an array of arts leaders including Roberto Bedoya, Janet Brown, Richard Kessler, Margot Knight, and Mara Walker reflect on what they have learned from their years in the field.

RESEARCH CORNER

• Break out the champagne – the arts have stagnated! Americans for the Arts’s new 2013 National Arts Index is practically identical to last year’s, following several years of steady decline. The study finds deeper reason for optimism in the wake of the Great Recession: over the last 10 years, total private giving to all charities and the total number of workers in all occupations have been strong predictors of the health of the arts sector, and both are up.
• Jon Silpayamanant digs into the WPA Federal Music Project with an annotated bibliographic timeline and argues the WPA, as well as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration that preceded it, were crucial to classical music during the Great Depression.
• Data on the relationship between cities’ aesthetics and economic health may be soon within reach thanks to Place Pulse, a project out of MIT that asks users to rank  photos from cities as more or less “boring,” “safe,” “lively,” etc.
• A new survey conducted by the Center for Effective Philanthropy catalogs concerns about foundations from non-profits: nearly half of the respondents felt that foundations are not aware of the challenges the respondents face, and more than two-thirds believe foundations fail to use their various resources to help nonprofits with their challenges. Commentators blame power dynamics and the “inherently self-serving” structure of foundations.
• Connoisseurs of fine wines and classical music may be dismayed over recent studies examining the complexities involved in critical judgement. Turns out that experts and amateurs alike are susceptible to everything from presentation, environment, and even price (gasp!) when it comes to evaluating quality.
• When faith and evidence collide, sometimes it’s faith that wins – at least when it comes to politics. See also Margy Waller’s Uncomfortable Thoughts piece for Createquity from back in the day.

On Tuesday this week, Boston reawakened, with locals and visitors standing in support of one another after the tragic events at the Boston Marathon. Many beautiful things happened on Monday and Tuesday – people opened their homes to strangers who needed a place to stay, rushed to donate blood to Mass General Hospital, and joined forces to make sure everyone could contact their loved ones. Professional rescuers of all kinds did their jobs splendidly. People and businesses did their best to bring people together and offer them reassurance. I know of one bakery that handed out free cupcakes.

Both the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art opened free to the public on Tuesday. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which is not open on Tuesdays, was free on Wednesday. Each of them released a statement expressing sympathy for all those impacted by Monday’s events, but the MFA put it most succinctly: “MFA admission will be free today. We hope the Museum will be a place of respite for our community.” Interestingly, all three museums made more of an announcement on social media than their websites, and appear to have taken down the announcement on their websites at the day’s end. Their Facebook and Twitter followers responded with very appreciative comments, affirming the idea that people do seek solace in museums. One commenter said, “thank you for giving us a sanctuary.”

ICA by Vanderlin on Flickr

I don’t want to take advantage of a bad situation to make a point. If you are not comfortable reading about the administrative side of the response to the tragedy, here are some articles you may prefer: USA Today’s sampling of the kind things people did, a comedian’s serious response to what happened, and Boston.com’s list of ways to help.

For those still reading, I wanted to share one thing on my mind: making a museum free for a day is not free for the museum. While only about seven percent of the MFA’s revenue comes from admissions, adult tickets to the MFA are $25 per person, and that adds up. On average, the institution brings in $18,880 in ticket sales per day ($6,79700 in admissions revenue for 2013 /360 open days per year – data from their 2012 annual report). While museum visitation tends to vary highly by season, April is likely to be the midpoint, so an “average” day is probably more or less representative of what they would have made on April 16 if they had charged admission. The MFA essentially made a $19k donation to the city of Boston and to the community visiting for the marathon. Comparable data is not available for the ICA or the Gardner, because they report their ticket and program income together, but adult tickets are $15 at each institution, and that adds up too.

To me, the fact that these institutions opened their doors for free is a powerful argument that running nonprofits well cannot be done on a shoestring, break-even budget. While skeptics, and some funders, feel that lean budgets ensure that nonprofits are responsible with their money, nonprofits are actually more able to be responsible members of their communities when they have a robust budget. The institutions that offered free admission, with no way to have planned for Monday’s events, must have enough wiggle room in their budgets to withstand an unexpected loss in revenues, either permanently or until a donor or several respond with their own generosity. They may find that the goodwill they built was a good economic investment, or it may always be a loss on the balance sheet, but they did it anyway. The money may have come from risk capital or from building extra room in their budgets for seasonal ups and downs. Regardless of the mechanism, an institution constrained by a “lean” budget that constantly watching the bottom line would not have been able to afford to offer a spontaneous free day without its leaders wondering if it would jeopardize their ability to make payroll at some point down the road.

Whatever else you may say about how nonprofits run their finances, what the MFA, ICA, and Gardner did was commendable. They participated in a community effort to support everyone affected by the events, directly and indirectly, and gave people a place to go be with their neighbors and reflect on the beauty in the world.