|
Greetings!
I recently attended a seminar with Holly Sidford of National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and wanted to share this important summary info with you about the Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change study. The study says that organizations with annual budgets greater than $5 million, representing about 2% of cultural organizations, collected 55% of arts grants in 2009.
 "The enormous increase in the number of cultural organizations in the past two decades is a testament to the universal desire for arts and culture in every community. The fact that three-quarters of all cultural groups have budgets under $250,000 is a testament to the disparity of resources available to support different communities' artistic aspirations...The reverberating impacts of the recession, the current political climate and the widespread hostility to government spending threaten prospects for arts and culture funding.
These trends are shifting the funding landscape for all cultural groups, but they are most ominous for the artists and organizations based in and serving lower-income communities and marginalized populations. Private funders cannot replace the role of the public sector, but the shifts in public sector funding have both immediate and long-term implications for the cultural ecosystem, particularly for the smaller, newer, edgier parts of that system and the artists and groups serving our least advantaged communities."
View the full report here and see Diane Ragsdale's article about the study on the ArtsJournal blog here. Warm regards,
Rhyena Halpern, Executive Director Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission |
