1906~ A Day in the Life of Velocity Circus

Thursday, December 04, 2008

The Census for Arts Organizations

by Sottol Weng

Just mailed out a stack of fundraising letters. Fundraising is definitely one of the most creative types of office work you can find. Grant-writing, on-line and physical research, event planning, talking to potential and past donors, marketing - and those are just the fun parts!

Also recently put some information in for CUE on the California Cultural Data Project.

"What is the California Cultural Data Project?" you might ask. "Does it matter to me?"

As politicians at all levels of government look for ways to cut budgets in this time of national recession, we as artists and arts organizations will need to push back against attempts to cut funding to the creative sector. This is where the Cali Cultural Data Project will help make a difference. It's a bit like the U.S. Census applied state-side to arts organizations.

The California Cultural Data Project is a transplant from Pennsylviania, where it got started about 5 years ago when a group of foundations that realized their grant application demands on arts organizations often were redundant and therefore too time-consuming. It has since become a tool for Pennsylvania arts organizations to show, using hard numbers, the wide range of people served and economic contributions of arts organizations to residents of the Keystone State. See this article:
{http://www.hewlett.org/AboutUs/News/Foundation+Newsletter/California+Cultural+Data+Project.htm}}
The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance was able to put together this information and present it to politicians and business councils, showing them the big impact that arts programming has in the local economy, both by employing artists and by attracting people to local businesses through their proximity to the arts.

Participation in the Cultural Data Project is absolutely free because it is funded by several of the largest California foundations that realize the necessity of being inclusive of all arts organizations, be they as large as San Francisco Ballet or as small as an experimental theater project.

Do you need more incentive to get involved? Hot cocoa and marshmallows? Seriously.

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