Artists, Community & State Arts Organizations MUST assertively advocate direct quality of cultural presence in communities/country!

Arts Groups, Artists Face Second Year of State Budget Cuts

Faced with declining tax revenues, many states are slashing their arts funding for a second consecutive year, dealing a serious blow to arts groups and individual artists, the Associated Press reports.

According to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, states reduced their arts funding by 7 percent on average for the fiscal year that began July 1. However, the figure jumps to 14 percent when Minnesota, which this year nearly tripled its arts budget to $30.2 million, is excluded. In financially strapped states such as Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, and Florida, arts budgets fell by at least 30 percent, while in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, lawmakers are considering eliminating their state arts agencies entirely.

Indeed, over the past two years, arts budgets nationally have fallen some 20 percent, compared with 38 percent between 2001 and 2004 and 28 percent during the early 1990s, said NASAA spokeswoman Angela Han. This year, states got a bit of a boost from increases in National Endowment for the Arts and federal stimulus funding, but many state officials say the new funding won't make up for what they had lost. While states are responsible for just 2 percent of total annual arts revenue in the United States, according to Americans for the Arts, organizations often use those funds to leverage money from local governments, match federal funding, and attract private donations.

"[The cuts are] really going to have a devastating effect," said Terry Scrogum, executive director of the Illinois Arts Council, which saw its budget fall by 51 percent this year, to $7.8 million. "We're going to try to maintain as many of the operating grants as we can. They're obviously going to be at a reduced level. Others will be whittled down or suspended."

Twiddy, David. “Arts an Easy Target as Many States Cut Budgets.” Associated Press 8/29/09.

and this reader's comment: "Maybe we should just stop taking state and federal money and dispel the illusion that any govt. in the US significantly supports art or artists. Maybe then the public would stop complaining about misuse of tax money and take responsibility for funding art on themselves."
9/2/2009 10:17AM

Kennedy Center Launches Initiative to Help Struggling Arts Groups

The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., has announced a new initiative designed to help nonprofit arts organizations that are struggling to stay afloat during the current recession, the Washington Post reports.

The program, Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative, is a high-tech support service through which arts administrators can have confidential discussions with the center's executive staff about issues such as shrinking income sources, fundraising, budgeting, marketing, the use of technology, and other areas pertinent to maintaining a vital performing arts organization in a troubled economy. Any nonprofit arts group may sign up to receive assistance, which will be provided via e-mail, phone, Web chats, and/or site visits. Arts in Crisis has received $500,000 in seed funding, mainly from board member Helen Lee Henderson and Miami businesswoman and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht.

Over the past eight years, the Kennedy Center has amassed a reservoir of information about how groups have managed both successes and failures, and the need for a central place to share this type of knowledge has been building. Indeed, organizations from almost every part of the country have reported belt-tightening measures or worse. The Baltimore Opera Company, for example, recently filed for bankruptcy, while the Seattle Repertory Theatre asked its staff to take two weeks of unpaid leave and the Orlando Ballet cut live music for its holiday performance of The Nutcracker.

"Organizations that have endowments have seen them cut by one-third," said Kennedy Center president Michael M. Kaiser, author of The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations. "In cities like Detroit that are so dependent on the auto industry, the money is gone. Foundations are forced to cut back, and individuals have seen their wealth reduced."

“To Provide Planning Assistance From Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser and Executive Staff.” Kennedy Center Press Release 2/03/09.

Trescott, Jacqueline. “Kennedy Center to Help Arts Programs in Economic Trouble.” Washington Post 2/03/09.