Is Amateur the Next Best Thing?
by: Tom Wolf

In the past few months, I have been clipping articles about a so-called "new" trend towards more amateur participation in the arts.  First there was an article in Newsweek that pointed to the global recession as an explanation for the uptick in non-professional arts activity.  More recently, the New York Times, in a heart-felt story of amateur music-making gave credit to an inspiring teacher.  My own feeling is that we are not experiencing something new, but a pendulum swing back to a time when Sunday living rooms - like the one I grew up in - were full of non-professionals who enjoyed making music together.  On the walls and tables were paintings and sculptures made by people who lived there.  Perhaps the return to this kind of participation is the best indication that the arts are alive and well.

When Information Becomes Power
by: Rebecca Ratzkin

I've been thinking a lot lately about the intersection of research and planning.  How do research and planning work align?  When does too much research become "information overload?"  What makes research "actionable?"  Recent work speaking directly with community groups, funders and arts administrators here in the Bay Area has been an eye-opening experience for me in terms of illustrating the power of qualitative data-gathering and its impact on strategic thinking for organizations and individual artists.  As part of a larger study of donor motivations for The San Francisco Foundation and the East Bay Community Foundation that we are doing in partnership with Helicon Collaborative, Fund For Artists grantees conducted participatory interviews with donors to arts projects.  In addition to gathering data, the exercise helped artists and arts managers learn how to talk to donors about their underlying values and motivations.  Sure, the exercise served a research purpose.  But it also helped to develop a new skill set that will pay dividends long into the future.  Similarly, in our current work with World Arts West, the presenter of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, a series of meetings with representatives of different ethnic dance communities generated a good deal of insight into their challenges and aspirations, but also opened a door to building stronger community ties.  These two examples have shown me how powerful information and, more importantly, the act of gathering that information, can be to creating new relationships and exposing strategic opportunities.

Tax Deductions -- Do They Make A Difference?
by: Laura Mandeles

I haven't found a nonprofit administrator or development professional yet who isn't concerned about the Obama administration's ongoing desire to limit the tax deductions for charitable contributions.  I worry along with them that at the upper levels, especially, giving will be more expensive and therefore will decrease.  I recently came across a March 2009 brief from the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy that examined this issue by looking at historical tax data.  I found their conclusion interesting but not entirely comforting: "In looking at charitable giving at a national level, changes in personal income and changes in wealth play a larger role overall in shaping charitable giving than do changes in tax rates. Changes in tax rates matter in the short-term, the year before they take effect and the year they are implemented."  The brief, How Changes in Tax Rates Might Affect Itemized Charitable Deductions, estimates perhaps a two percent decrease in contributions overall from a tax rate change.  But, of course, that would come on top of the other challenges that they measure.  They also caution that their conclusion is based on one year of data (2006), and acknowledge that longer term changes  would require analysis of multiple years of donor behavior.  So, I'm still worried.