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02/01/2012
OK Senator Blocks 9/11 Memorial Funding
"Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is blocking legislation that would provide $20 million a year in federal funding for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero, demanding that co-sponsors of the bill come up with cuts to pay for the spending, his office confirmed to POLITICO...
The move has angered co-sponsors, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both New York Democrats.
'This is sacred ground not just to New Yorkers, but to all Americans, and it deserves the same treatment as other memorials,' said Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat whose office was notified by POLITICO about Coburn’s hold. 'Senator Coburn heard our arguments on the Zadroga bill and eventually supported it. We hope he will do the same this time.'
Coburn, a physician often referred to as the Senate’s Dr. No, initially blocked that earlier bill, which provided health care and other aid to first responders sickened by dust from the World Trade Center attacks, over objections it was being rushed through the Senate. But he eventually relented and the bill passed unanimously during the 2010 lame duck session...
The bill authorizes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to provide technical assistance to help operate the memorial and museum and sets aside $20 million a year starting in 2013 for those activities. The legislation also requires private matching funds.
The memorial was unveiled last year on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which toppled the Twin Towers, but the museum isn’t slated to open until Sept. 11 of this year.
The memorial and museum came under fire this week after news outlets reported executives there paid themselves $6.5 million in salaries, including a $300,000 golden parachute when one of them left."
POLITICO 02/01/2012
01/26/2012
Advocacy, Civic Engagement Create Big ROI
"Every dollar that foundations and other donors invested in advocacy, community organizing, and civic engagement over a five-year period provided a return of $115 in community benefit, a new report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy finds.
The report, Leveraging Limited Dollars: How Grantmakers Achieve Tangible Benefits by Funding Policy and Community Engagement, examined a hundred and ten organizations in thirteen states and found that the groups leveraged $231 million in funding from grantmakers into $26.6 billion in benefits to low-wage workers, communities of color, rural residents, and other marginalized groups. To assist other funders interested in supporting advocacy to achieve maximum impact, the report provides suggestions on how to get started and explains why the strategies used by organizations in the survey were successful.
The findings are based on seven reports conducted as part of NCRP's Grantmaking for Community Impact Project, which aims to demonstrate the positive consequences of foundation-funded advocacy. As part of the project, NCRP compiled a directory of monetized and non-monetized impact achieved by the surveyed organizations over the five-year reporting period."
Philanthropy News Digest 01/20/2012
01/12/2012
$200K Budget Proposed for Kansas Arts
"Gov. Sam Brownback plans to resume state funding of arts programs and merge the arts and film commissions to focus on job creation under the new state budget outlined January 12.
The proposal would establish a Creative Industries Commission within the state Department of Commerce and provide $200,000 for both arts and film programs. That's the same subsidy Brownback offered for the Arts Commission last year, when he proposed eliminating the body and turning the administration of arts grants over to a private, nonprofit foundation.
Legislators rejected last year's plan; Brownback responded by vetoing the commission's entire $689,000 budget, making Kansas the first state to eliminate funding for arts. That decision prompted the National Endowment for the Arts and a regional arts alliance to cut funds, costing the state an additional $1.3 million.
Budget Director Steve Anderson presented the governor's latest proposal to the House Appropriations Committee and said the administration had listened to the complaints about the governor's veto. Brownback's actions brought Kansas national attention.
'We funded the arts,' Anderson said. 'That was a bit of a hot point last year.'
Under the proposed budget, the Creative Industries Commission would 'focus economic and workforce development efforts to expand creative industries across the state.'"
Associated Press 01/12/2012
01/09/2012
NBC Unveils School Theater Program
"NBC is funding an initiative to create musical theater programs in U.S. schools in need of arts education.
The network said the effort to launch stand-alone musical theater programs will begin this month with a pilot group of 20 schools nationwide. NBC is joined on the Make a Musical project by iTheatrics, which adapts musicals for student productions and provides tools for teacher training.
The nonprofit iTheatrics’ Junior Theater Project aims to begin another 180 programs this fall, building toward a 2014 goal of 1,000 school programs reaching one million students, NBC said. Schools may apply for the fall program at makeamusical.org...
The pilot programs are in cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Houston, Nashville, and Seattle, with specific schools to be announced January 15."
Associated Press 01/06/2012
01/09/2012
Kansas Governor Rethinking Arts Funding
"Gov. Sam Brownback is working on ways to provide funding for the arts after his controversial veto last year that made Kansas the first state in the nation to stop funding the arts.
Rep. TerriLois Gregory (R-Baldwin City) said arts funding strategies are being developed by the governor’s staff.
She said the funds may be channelled through the Kansas Department of Commerce in the form of grants, and that the still-existing, but unfunded Arts Commission could be merged with the Kansas Film Commission.
'The grants would be more focused on job creation,' Gregory said.
The 2012 legislative session started January 9 and Brownback will outline his priorities in the State of the State address on January 11.
At a Lawrence Chamber of Commerce breakfast with legislators, Gregory said some of the avenues being explored is providing arts funding through the sales of a special arts supporter license plate or donations through a tax checkoff.
In a recent interview with the Lawrence Journal-World, Brownback said he would re-visit the issue but didn’t elaborate.
Brownback vetoed state funding of the Kansas Arts Commission, saying that the arts was not a core function of state government and that he expected private donors to step up. After his veto of the $689,000 state appropriation, the state lost $1.2 million in federal funding."
Lawrence Journal-World 01/09/2012
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