Seward Johnson, “A Reason to Smile,” installed at Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ. (Photo by Flickr user Wally Gobetz)

On November 13, gunmen opened fire on approximately 1,500 unsuspecting audience members at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris’s historic Le Bataclan music hall, killing 89. The Bataclan was the deadliest site in a cluster of coordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city that evening for which ISIS claimed responsibility. While U2 frontman Bono described the Bataclan massacre as “the first direct hit on music in this so-called war on terror,” the scale and locations of these attacks only solidified an unsettling new direction in terrorism: concert halls, stadiums, cafes, museums, and other cultural institutions (not just local or politically symbolic international sites) have all been targets this year. Indeed, ISIS’s statement of responsibility indicated that the attack sites were carefully chosen as symbols of “abominations and perversion.”

Leaders have responded by bolstering both physical and financial security for cultural venues. In addition to new safety measures, French cultural minister Fleur Pellerin established a “solidarity fund” of approximately $6 million to protect music groups from “expected declines in business and other financial hardships.” President François Hollande revealed a proposal for France’s museums to temporarily house Syrian cultural objects “at risk” of ISIS looting. Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged 1 billion euros to spend equally on culture and security, which has raised concerns among Italy’s business leaders that a corporate tax cut could be postponed as a result. How to protect concert halls and stadiums, and who will ultimately pay, have likewise come up in New York City: Ray Waddell, a senior editor at Billboard, suggested that more metal detectors and bag checks may mean higher ticket prices.

While questions remain about how best to allocate resources, protecting culture now seems especially urgent in “fighting back against a group that is notorious for destroying cultural symbols and objects it deems idolatrous.”

STEM education just got a little STEAMier: In what arts education advocates considered a “huge win,” the joint House-Senate Conference Committee unanimously accepted a bipartisan amendment to the rewrite of the nation’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (aka “No Child Left Behind”) that will integrate the arts into STEM education. Introduced by Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), the amendment sets the stage for new K-12 education policy by acknowledging that arts integration can “improve attainment of STEM-related skills” (science, technology, engineering and math). Last week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that reauthorizes ESEA and includes additional language about the importance of the arts to a “well-rounded education.” ESSA’s more flexible math/reading test requirements and emphasis on state-level decision-making may also be friendly to arts education strategies, according to a detailed analysis by the National Art Education Association. This victory for arts ed advocates comes just after the Arts Education Partnership launched a five-year Action Agenda for Advancing the Arts in Education. It similarly emphasizes the importance of arts integration especially in underperforming and impoverished schools, and recommends incorporating the arts into training for teachers and academic leaders.

A new day in Canada: In a November letter to Minister of Culture Melanie Joly, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demonstrated his intentions to make good on campaign promises to double the Canada Arts Council budget, provide $150M to CBC/Radio Canada, reinvest in Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board, and provide increased support for indigenous culture and youth initiatives. This is welcome news to arts groups after nine years of arts funding cuts under former conservative PM Stephen Harper. According to the Globe and Mail, Joly’s youth and relative inexperience in government will hopefully be an asset rather than liability in achieving this ambitious agenda while also redefining the ministry with “symbols of progressiveness.” Trudeau also gained popularity with social scientists when he announced in early November the reinstatement of a mandatory national census, which serves as the bedrock of all government data collection.

Ford Foundation’s new inequality-focused agenda will include the arts: In June we reported on Ford’s announcement that the foundation will shift its entire focus to fighting inequality. Three months later, president Darren Walker has revealed more detail on the specifics of the new strategy, which will involve consolidating 35 program areas into 15. While detailed arts funding guidelines have yet to be announced, Ford’s website lists a reframed creativity and free expression program encompassing “social justice storytelling” and “21st century arts infrastructure.” Walker’s “New Gospel of Wealth” essay suggests that the foundation’s ultimate goal is a reformed capitalist system, and creative expression is considered a piece of the puzzle. Ford will privilege initiatives for broader structural change over those providing direct assistance to the poor; discontinued programs include direct cash transfers in Latin America and microfinance, as well as causes like LGBT rights that have gained philanthropic support from other sources in recent years.While Ford’s program to construct new art spaces will also be cut, the foundation will increase its general operating support–with a new BUILD initiative to specifically strengthen the operations of social justice-oriented institutions and partnerships.

Cleveland arts organizations light up on election day as cigarette tax for the arts is renewed: An overwhelming majority of voters passed Issue 8, which will renew Cuyahoga County’s 10-year, 30-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to support arts and culture. The original approval of this tax in 2006 turned a region with scant arts funding into “one of the most highly ranked metro areas in the country in local public support for the arts.” More than 300 large and small arts organizations have depended on the $125 million in cigarette tax proceeds distributed since 2008 for both general operating support and special projects. The campaign to renew the levy was propelled by an Arts and Culture Action Committee that raised over $1 million for advertising, but the renewal faced very little visible opposition.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• Prince Charitable Trusts welcomes Carolynn Brunette, who will head its Washington, D.C. office as Managing Director and also co-direct the Rhode Island program, beginning on January 1. Carolyn succeeds retiring Managing Director Kristin Pauly, who has been with Prince Charitable Trusts since 1998.
• New Orleans Arts Council CEO Kim Cook announced her departure at the end of 2015; Acting Director Nick Stillman will oversee the organization in the interim. Cook is moving to the Bay Area to serve as Burning Man’s Director of Art & Civic Engagement, a newly created position.
• Longtime theater critic Steven Leigh Morris will assume the role of LA Stage Alliance’s new executive director.
• UC Davis Law professor and international human rights scholar Karima Bennoune has been appointed special rapporteur on cultural rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
• The nonprofit sector mourned the sudden November 17 death of Rick Cohen, nonprofit advocate and national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly. Cohen previously led the led the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a foundation watchdog, and was known for focusing on the needs of low-income and underrepresented populations.
• CERF+, a national nonprofit that “provides a safety net to artists through readiness, education and relief programs,” seeks a Director of Programs. Deadline 12/18.
• The Newark Arts Council seeks a new Executive Director. Deadline January 1.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• The new book Making Culture Count: The Politics of Cultural Measurement, part of Australia-based publisher Palgrave Macmillan’s New Directions in Cultural Policy series, explores diverse approaches to cultural measurement and their political implications.
• Nesta, a UK-based foundation, presents a potentially fresh approach for measuring the intrinsic benefits of the arts–including asking people how much they would need to be paid to compensate for the removal of cultural institutions.
• An initial report on spillover effects of public investment in arts and culture in Europe reviews existing evidence and recommends a future “holistic research agenda” for the European Union.
• In the United States, the Nonprofit Finance Fund published an arts-specific analysis of its annual State of the Sector Survey, encompassing data from over 900 arts, culture and humanities organizations. Trends include decreased debt (but ongoing challenges with sustainability), and an emphasis on expanded programming and audience-building, as well as more focus on outcomes measurement.
• The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s new assessment of the nonprofit arts sector spanning 11 U.S. metropolitan areas (using Cultural Data Project data) found that increased earned income is driving many organizations’ recession recovery, but they also face decreased contributed income among other fiscal challenges.
• A Theater Communications Group study indicates that U.S. nonprofit theaters still face shrinking attendance despite increased revenue; offering more family-friendly programming may help. Early exposure to theater could benefit young people in various ways; the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published findings from a randomized control trial that suggest theater training may boost skills in kids with autism.
• A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia offers a closer look at the pros and cons of gentrification in the City of Brotherly Love, with implications for national urban policy.
• The arts management workforce still does not match the diversity of the general population. Meanwhile, a survey of UK arts professionals suggests a “stark gender pay gap.”
• A Los Angeles County Arts Commission report analyzes the importance of volunteers to arts organizations – and of volunteer management.
• With Adele’s new album enjoying record-breaking sales last month despite not being available for streaming, researchers continue to debate the impact of digital music distribution. The NEA responded to a methodological debate that broke out earlier this year between the New York Times Magazine and The Future of Music Coalition by looking at what two alternative datasets might tell us about the viability of making a living as an artist in the digital age. Meanwhile, an analysis of two years of Spotify data from the Bureau of Economic Research suggests that music streaming “brings virtually no financial gain to the industry, but it also prevents losses.”
• Several reports explored the “dark side of creativity,” with growing evidence that creative people may be more dishonest and prone to depression and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
• Finally, will there be more to be thankful for than usual this year? A Charities Aid Foundation study found that charitable giving is up around the world, including an increase from young people and men.

“Day #244 The Colour of Money” — photo by flickr user Martin Weller

Next time you hear someone complaining yet again about hard times for the arts, you might want to point out that Giving USA Foundation and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy reported in June that charitable giving is up for a fifth consecutive year. In 2014, contributions increased more than 7%, and were up across all four categories tracked: living individuals, foundations, bequests, and corporations. Not only that, giving in the arts increased by 9.2%, the biggest jump of any sector. Overall, 4.8%–roughly $17.2 billion–of the $358.38 billion in charitable donations given in 2014 was directed towards arts and culture, placing seventh out of ten cause areas. (Religion, the perennial winner, pulled in $114.9 billion, though its share continues to drop.) Total gifts last year–driven by mega-gifts given by tech entrepreneurs–surpassed the peak last seen before the Great Recession.

Supreme Court Upholds the Affordable Care Act: We would be remiss to pass by June without acknowledging the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of allowing the federal government to provide tax subsidies to help individuals buy health insurance. This is the second time the Affordable Care Act has come before the Supreme Court, and the second time that Chief Justice Roberts–a Republican–sided with his liberal colleagues on the bench. In 2012, his controlling opinion was belabored; in 2015, affirmative, establishing an expansive precedent that will make future challenges difficult. Had the Supreme Court not upheld the subsidies, residents of the 34 states which refused to set up exchanges of their own (and thus use exchanges managed by the federal government) would have lost their subsidies, affecting at least six and half, and as many as nine million, Americans. Much has been written about the benefit of the Affordable Care Act to independent artists, and we can only imagine that the loss of subsidies in states without their own exchanges would have been a disaster for this community.

Ford Foundation Focuses on Inequality: In the first major overhaul of its grant making priorities since 2007, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker announced that the foundation will direct all its resources to curbing global inequality. Although the foundation is committed to asking hard questions of its grantees, its view of inequality is broad, encompassing wealth, race, ethnicity, and gender as well as issues of access to technology and the arts. Crucially, Mr. Walker has also pledged to double the foundation’s general operating support to 40% of its grant-making budget, which will no doubt be welcome news to grantees the world over. As the second largest private foundation in the United States, one with a rich history of supporting the arts, Ford’s choices will have deep and far-reaching impact. Still, given the foundation’s pre-existing focus on social justice, it remains to be seen whether this new focus will result in significant changes in the way the foundation functions or simply new branding for the work it’s already doing.

Apple Unveils its Music Streaming Platform: Apple is the latest to jump on the increasingly crowded music streaming bandwagon. In June, it unveiled Apple Music, its own music streaming platform spearheaded by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. There’s nothing particularly innovative about Apple’s platform, though a few features may ultimately set it apart: Netflix-level hyper-customization, hyper-vigilant personalization, Beats 1 radio with shows by Dr. Dre, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, Drake, Q-Tip, St. Vincent, Ellie Goulding, Jaden Smith and others, and an emphasis on the artist-centric social network (as opposed to the friend-centric one, embraced by Spotify and others.) There’s also no free version, only a $9.99/month subscription, but Apple has a marketplace advantage: the app is packaged into every iOS download, and it integrates neatly with iTunes, which at last count had some 800 millions user accounts. The roll out was overshadowed, however, by a letter posted by New York’s attorney general mere hours after the reveal, announcing that the streaming music business, Apple included, is under antitrust investigation.What everyone’s really talking about, however, is Taylor Swift, and how she–along with others–managed to pressure Apple into paying royalties for music played during the app’s three-month trial period. If only authors had a similarly powerful superstar who could pressure Amazon into paying royalties on the number of Kindle books downloaded, rather than on the number of pages read (currently applied only to self-published books, but the backlash has been quick).

Canada Council to Simplify Grant Programs: In a major restructuring, the Canada Council announced in June that it would streamline its grant making programs, reducing 147 separate programs–each with its own guidelines, deadlines and reporting–to a mere six. The new format will kick in in 2017, when the council turns 60. With this restructuring, the council hopes to eliminate administrative redundancies and increase organizational capacity, which would allow it to expand and refine the peer-review evaluation system and offer more application dates, making it easier for artists and organizations to apply on a cycle that makes sense of their work.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• After serving nearly three decades as the 13th Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington will step down from his post in January – opening up some new possibilities for copyright policy.
• Elspeth Revere is leaving her post of Vice President for Media, Culture and Special Initiatives for the MacArthur Foundation after 24 years with the foundation.
• Ben Cameron, currently Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Foundation, was named president of the Jerome and Camargo Foundations.
• Eileen Wiseman has been appointed Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Tow Foundation.
• Angelique Power has been promoted to Program Director, Culture for the Joyce Foundation.
• Jaime Cortez joined the Barr Foundation from the San Francisco Arts Commission as a program officer for Arts & Culture.
• Eric Jolly, current president of the Science Museum of Minnesota, has been tapped to become the head of Minnesota Philanthropy Partners.
• DanceUSAorg seeks a Director of Information Services. Deadline July 8.
• The National Endowment for the Arts seeks a Media Arts Director. Posted June 15; deadline July 14.
• Zellerbach Family Foundation is hiring a Program Executive, Promoting Culture. Posted June 15; no closing date.
• Irvine Foundation is hiring a Senior Program Fellow, Arts. Posted June 16; no closing date.
• Fractured Atlas is hiring for a newly created position: Director of Programs. Posted June 18; no closing date.
• Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation seeks a Program Associate. Posted June 19; no closing date.
• The Pricing Institute seeks an experienced arts marketing professional. Posted June 28; no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A study commissioned by the James Irvine Foundation in San Francisco, The Cultural Lives of Californians: Insights from the California Survey of Arts & Cultural Participation, takes a broad view of arts participation in California, revealing trends and statistics that are more favorable than recent NEA studies on the same topic.
• EmcArts released in-depth case study documenting the successes of Latino New South, one of its Innovation Labs for the Arts, featuring a collaboration between Levine Museum of New South, the Atlanta History Center, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
• The Center for an Urban Future released a report, a decade after their initial study, charting changes in New York’s cultural landscape.
• The Center for the Future of Museums has drafted a self-assessment tool for internal practices related to social justice within museums.
• A new guide published by the Wallace Foundation looks at benefits of audience research, and offers suggestions for carrying out effective research.
• A groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience sheds light on the cognitive costs of poverty.
• A new Canadian study finds that despite increased access to musical genres, musical tastes still mirror class lines.
• A paper published in the Journal of Adolescent Research finds positive outcomes for families who use media such as TV “as a tool—to laugh together, to become informed, to connect, to spark discussion.”
• A new survey of executives reveals tips and tricks for influencing decisions at the executive level.
• A recent survey conducted by the Writers’ Union of Canada finds that despite the explosion in e-publishing, salaries for writers have dropped 27% for men, and more for women.
• Two reports of note from the UK this month. The first, A review of the Social Impacts of Culture and Sport, finds that ‘evidence gaps’ are in fact holding back policy development. The second reveals that arts engagement across England as a whole has been static since 2005/06.