Potpourri

Good Morning

“And the beat goes on…………………………….."

Announcements:

• GreatNonprofits is a nonprofit organization that gathers and publishes people’s personal stories about their experiences with nonprofit organizations, serving as a sort of Yelp for the nonprofit sector. They are currently preparing for an Arts Campaign, starting January 1st, to raise public awareness about the many excellent nonprofit organizations that work on arts and media issues. The campaign will highlight the nonprofits that are making a difference in this field. The idea is that the public can access this information and identify highly ranked arts organizations whose work interests them and which they might want to support. There are people involved in this effort who I respect very much and so when they asked if I would agree to be a media partner and promote their arts campaign, I agreed.

In this campaign, nonprofit arts organizations that attract ten or more positive user reviews during January will be listed on the sites’ Top-Rated Arts Nonprofits List, which will be published at the end of the campaign. The list is intended to be national in scope. While getting your own people to send in positive user reviews is sort of like stacking the deck, if in the end it helps you to attract more people to what you do and even support you, then I think that is obviously in your best interest.

If you would like to see an example of one of the campaigns in action, please check out the Arts Campaign. Should you have any questions, please email Shivam Punjya at shivam@greatnonprofits.org.

• The California Arts Council is announcing a nationwide search for the position of Director. This position will no longer be a Governor’s appointee, but will be hired by the Arts Council members. Please note that the Arts Council office is in Sacramento.

Qualifications, background materials, a duty statement and other specifications will be posted officially at http://www.arts.ca.gov/ on January 3, 2011, and the application process will be open through February 26, 2011.

No materials will be shared or contacts made until January 3rd, when the law designating that the Director be selected by the Council goes into effect.

I hope many people will apply for this position. While the California economic situation remains problematic, there is indication that newly elected Governor Brown may be more appreciative of the value of the arts to the state and more sympathetic to the needs of the sector.


• I love large public acts of art – whether planned out like this planned piece by artist Spencer Tunick (those are nude bodies comprising the piece), or this multiple city semi-flash mob of Santa Clauses. The more we can bring art to people and garner attention in the process the more we can get people to think about creativity. Good for us.


• The Wallace Foundation has posted its internal Employee Handbook as a example and possible template for organizations to use. Kudos to them for sharing things like this.


• WESTAF launches a new web based grants management system called GO – Grants Online – a fully customizable system to configure and manage all aspects of grantmaking .


• Belated congratulations to Aaron Dworkin on his nomination by President Obama to the National Council on the Arts. Aaron Dworkin is the Founder and President of the Sphinx Organization, the leading national arts organization that focuses on youth development and diversity in classical music. I met him in Chicago at the GIA conference where he delivered a keynote. I was very impressed with his credentials, his passion and his and his organization’s accomplishments. This is a very good appointment from the White House.


• Great piece from Brain Pickings –“ How Music Works”.

Wishing you all the Happiest of Holidays.

Sé4A 2012

Don’t Quit.
Barry