A. Grace Lee Mims Vocal Scholarship

Purpose: To provide scholarships for African-American vocal students who are U.S. citizens and pursuing graduate-level study in vocal performance or music education, with an emphasis on voice. Candidates must be committed to preserving the art form of Negro spiritual singing as exemplified by Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson...

How Can Nonprofits Avoid or Address Financial Emergencies?

A great look at what nonprofits can do to help solve their money woes: 10 resources from the Foundation Center: 1. It is critical that your organization develop and closely monitor a sound fundraising plan that includes detailed outlines for securing a diverse array of support and revenue. Learn how at our free class, webinar...

The disease of nostalgia

On Feb. 24 at the Idea Center, Mohsin Hamid, a Pakistani writer and 2008 winner of an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, came back to Cleveland to speak on "Literature, Pakistan and 'The West.'" The lecture was part of the annual series co-sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation and the Baker-Nord Center for Humanities at Case Western Reserve...

Renting audiences

It was not until I read the latest issue of the Wolf-Brown consulting firm’s newsletter that I encountered the concept of “renting an audience.” But according to Matt Lehrman, executive director of Alliance for Audience of Phoenix, this is what so many arts organizations are trying to do when they use advertising to attract new...

Philanthropy and civil society

Originally posted to this blog: 3/4/08 While preparing a talk to faculty and students of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University recently, I ran across a 2004 issue of the journal The READER. The journal is published by Grantmakers in the Arts, a national association of professional arts...

Winnovation

My first issues of Arts Journal for the year arrived, and the two top articles in the "Ideas" section dealt with the role of jargon in the field of arts and arts grantmaking. Judith Dobrzynski (yes, she’s related to our own Marsha Dobrzynski of Young Audiences) talks about "Inventional Wisdom," a term coined at the Massachusetts...

Evaluation is Not a Thing: It is a Way

I just returned from a very meaty and reflective meeting on the role of evaluation in philanthropy (NOT as dry a subject as it may sound!). It was organized by the Evaluation Roundtable, a program of the Foundation Center to improve philanthropy. The Roundtable was held in Baltimore, at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, headquartered there...

Dreaming a Better Reality

I’m an avid, daily reader of ArtsJournal, Douglas McLennan’s one-stop electronic newsletter that collects news and blogs from worldwide media and keeps me informed on relevant issues in the arts.  Today, the always interesting Andrew Taylor’s Artful Manager blog pulls together some thoughts on a rather scary but important topic...

Losing Sight of the Shore*

No, this isn’t about lakefront preservation. It’s about the arts. It’s about how Cleveland’s cultural community must venture into uncharted waters to find the new and next generation of individuals needed to maintain our remarkable cultural sector’s strength and excellence. On June 6, the Community Partnership for Arts and...