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Funding Increase for NEA in House Subcommittee

The House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee has approved a $2.5 million increase for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), bringing NEA funding to $170 million for FY 2011. Current funding for the agency totals $167.5 million. This is a noteworthy increase given the current discretionary spending freeze in place. To know more and support this increase, click here for full Action Alert from Performing Arts Alliance.

Help Philadelphia grow, restore cultural funding!

Mayor Nutter announced new cuts to the city budget that directly impact our neighborhoods, including a 35% reduction to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund (or $1,120,000), the Recreation Fund, and the Community Land Care Program run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (or $840,000). These cuts will impact cultural groups that directly support our communities and contribute to the long-term health, vitality, and sustainability of our region, serving thousands of city residents and visitors. Join the campaign to lobby for restored funding. Click here to sign the GPCA petition. Fax a letter to the mayor. Click here for a sample letter and more info. Join forces to fight these cuts!

Stepping in to keep UArts dance robust

Donna Faye Burchfield, dean of the American Dance Festival (ADF) School in Durham, NC, succeeds Susan Glazer, who retires this month from UArts after 29 years. Read complete article by Merilyn Jackson in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation

This report describes the demographic characteristics of U.S. adults that participated in the arts (such as concerts, plays, and dance performances) via electronic media (e.g., TV, radio, computers and portable media devices) in 2008, based on the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). Separately, the report examines broad categories of arts participation via Internet and considers the relationship between media-based arts activities and other types of arts participation, such as live attendance and personal arts creation. Click here for more info.

summer reading

Check out the Cultural Alliance’s summer reading list. Compiled by the staff, it includes favorite books from a variety of genres.

Best Practices for Fiscal Sponsorship

The National Network of Fiscal Sponsors (NNFS) today announced the release of the first ever Guidelines for Fiscal Sponsorship. Fiscal sponsors are nonprofits that enable the movement of resources from funders to projects, ideas, organizations, and activities. Unveiled at the 2010 Annual Conference of Council on Foundations in Denver, the guidelines are of particular value for fiscal sponsors, funders, and nonprofit leaders. Read more here.

Archiving your work

Click here for Best Practices on archiving your performance videos!

MetLife Foundation Partners with Dance/USA to Launch the New Stages for Dance Program

Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional, not-for-profit dance, has received a $150,000 grant from the MetLife Foundation to support the New Stages for Dance (NSD) pilot programs in Chicago and San Francisco and the third year of a similar program in Philadelphia. Read more here.

New Report Available on the Convergence of Five Trends that will Reshape the Social Sector

La Piana Consulting announces the release of a new report as part of its NonprofitNext initiative. The report, Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector, was funded by the James Irvine Foundation.
Read the new report, watch a video, or listen to a podcast.

Fractured atlas to develop open source ticketing software with support from Mellon and Duke

National non-profit organization, Fractured Atlas, has announced plans to build ATHENA, an open-source software platform for the cultural sector, with a ticketing software application called ATHENA Tix as its initial component. ATHENA Tix is the first piece of the ATHENA project, Fractured Atlas' ambitious plan to develop an integrated open source software plaform for the cultural sector. ATHENA – which is an acronym for Advanced Technology Hub and Extensible Nexus for the Arts – will ultimately include applications related to constituent relationship management (CRM), non-profit accounting, student records management, donor relations, and more. Full information on ATHENA Tix is available at http://athena.fracturedatlas.org

THE ADVANCE PLANNING CALENDAR

Dance/USA Philadelphia Advance Planning Calendar is a tool to help us avoid, not all conflicts, but hopefully, the disastrous ones. This tool is designed for producing dance companies and presenters. List tentative dates as well as confirmed dates for future performances, anniversaries, festivals and fundraising events. The information is for internal use only; not for the general public.
To request access: email or call 215-922-5970.