Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

First off, let me apologize for having been so remiss in my blogging activities the past few months. I have tried to keep up with my social networking connections, so I have not disappeared entirely from the digital universe, but I have dropped the ball on my blog. No excuses other than the usual: work, kids, STUFF. So what momentous news has lured me back to the blogosphere? It is the launch of an exciting new project this week in Philadelphia: CultureBlock s. Click this link for the press release announcing the project. And here is a link to a one-sheeter describing the project. CultureBlocks is a web-based mapping tool that has built into it over 50 different types of data that can be layered onto a map of Philadelphia in infinite ways. The project was initiated by the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy along with several core partners: The Reinvestment Fund , the Social Impact of the Arts Project of the University of Pennsylvania (SI...

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) just now announced the recipients of grants under their new "Our Town" arts and placemaking initiative. $6.575 million in grants will go to 51 communities in 34 states that have created public-private partnerships to strengthen the arts while shaping the social, physical, and economic characters of their neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions. NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman made the announcement during a press conference this afternoon. The full NEA press release and descriptions of all the grantee projects is available here . I am very excited that the City of Philadelphia (the Office of Arts Culture and the Creative Economy, working with our Commerce Department) has partnered with The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) and University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) to secure one of the largest grants awarded, $250,000, to build and launch a Creative Assets Mapping Database for the City of Philadelphia (TRF is the ...

Yesterday was a jam-packed day, with NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman's whirlwind visit to the City of Brotherly Live and Sisterly Affection. The visit was documented in an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. It was great to be cited as "a model arts city."  After a morning meeting with the staff of The Reinvestment Fund, Rocco and the rest of the NEA visitors, which also included Deputy Chair Joan Shigekawa, our little band went on a quick tour of the City's cultural sites, but with a special emphasis on the role of the arts in neighborhood transformation. Rocco has been a big fan of the work done by Jeremy Nowak and the Reinvestment Fund in partnership with Mark Stern and his Social Impact of the Arts groip at University of Pennsylvania. In fact that work was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation when Joan was there before moving to NEA. We drove by Painted Bride and had a stop at Asian Arts Initiative before ending up at Crane Arts for a tour and a group conv...

The NEA has operated the Mayor's Institute on City Design since 1986. This year they are celebrating the program's 25th anniversary (which is actually next year but they wanted to fund projects that happen during the anniversary year) with a new grant program. The program has the snappy but literal title of " 25th Anniversary Initiative ." What is great about this initiative is that is open to the cities where a mayor has participated in the Mayors' Institute, at any time over the 25 years. This opens it up to several hundred cities. The guidelines are also very flexible, and could be used to support a wide array of design projects, from planning of arts districts, to promotion of design and the arts as central to a city's livability, to transformation of public sites through cultural activities, to festivals and public art.Grants will range from $25,000-250,000. And to all those individual arts groups getting excited about this grant program, the applica...