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

On occasion in the history of my blog, I have deviated from talking about arts, culture, philanthropy, cultural policy, to talk about other things on my mind. Many years ago, when I became a father for the third time, I wrote about fatherhood, and being an "older" dad. Today, I want to share some thoughts on alternative transportation. I have been a lifelong bike rider, both for recreation and commuting. And in my family my wife and I share one car, so I am often using alternative modes of transportation. I was an "early adopter" of ride share programs like Uber and Lyft. Apologies in advance, because I am going to ramble a bit. Growing up in New York City, using mass transit was also second nature - hardly anyone I knew owned a car. And despite the recent woes of the aging mass transit system, it is still the dominant mode of getting around. While there is now an active bike share program, and a much better network of bike lanes (thank you Mike Bloomberg), a...

“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” are not just buzzwords, but the subject of critically important conversations among funders, nonprofits, cultural organizations, artists and civic leaders. These conversations – which are often difficult and even messy – can and should lead to action. I have served on the Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) board for the past few years, and they have been a leader in urging arts funders to apply a racial equity lens to their grantmaking and operations. In fact, they developed and disseminated a  Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy Statement of Purpose  in 2015, and followed it up with dialogue and in-depth training through their conference, webinars and publications. GIA has also been a leader in promoting the term ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American) as a replacement for the more common “people of color.” No terminology is perfect, and it is easy to get paralyzed in this work by the fear of using the wrong term. There is ...

At the Americans for the Arts Convention in Nashville In 1993 I became the Director of New York Programs of the Arts & Business Council Inc., the national organization for the network of Arts & Business Councils and Business Volunteers for the Arts programs around the country, and in 1996 I became its President and CEO, the same year that the National Association of Local Arts Agencies and the American Council for the Arts merged to become what is now Americans for the Arts.  As head of a national partner arts service organization of Americans for the Arts, I began what has become a very long association with the organization, and the Annual Convention , literally attending the first Convention under the Americans for the Arts name, and nearly every one since. I have watched the organization, and its signature convening, the Convention, grow and evolve over time, responding to the field’s changes – and the external environment in which we all operate. There h...

This spring was especially exciting for Bonfils-Stanton Foundation , between the announcement of our first ever “ Arts in Society ” grants, the Road to Results Forum we presented in partnership with the Wallace Foundation , and our 32 nd  Annual Awards Celebration . Now that we’ve officially wrapped up the excitement surrounding the Awards Celebration, we can take some time to reflect on the event and all of the elements that made it special, from the inspiring honorees and tribute films, to a flash mob performance by Central City Opera to pay tribute to our long-time chair Lanny Martin who was stepping down, to one particular moment at the event that had guests stunned – in a good way. When planning the Celebration, we knew we wanted to include an artistic element into the program. After all, that’s one of our core goals as a Foundation – to provide funding for some of Colorado’s best arts and cultural organizations. Little did we know when planning the performances, that ...

I recently gave the keynote talk for the Colorado Wyoming Association of Museums annual conference in Boulder, CO. This is the text of my remarks (you will understand the picture after you read the piece): In thinking about what to speak to you about today, since you are all experts in museums and I am more of an observer of museums, I decided what might be most helpful is to share my personal reflections, based on my experience and a lifetime of interacting with museums. There is probably nothing I can tell you about the technical aspects of operating a museum, dealing with curation, conservation and management that you don’t already know. I grew up in New York City, in Manhattan, with parents who while not working in the arts where stereotypical New York City culture vultures. From a very young age I was being taken to museums – MoMA , the Met , Museum of Natural History , the Whitney , Guggenheim . I also grew up in an era when even New York City public schools had regu...

I have been silent on my blog for quite a while - a combination of the usual press of work and family obligations that can push writing to the back burner, and a sense of shock and impotence in the face of the political discourse of our times. I am sure I will be back soon, sharing thoughts on the arts and creative enterprise, philanthropy and cultural policy, but for now I share this excerpt from a recent post by Grant Oliphant of the Heinz Endowments: There are truths that need to be spoken now, spoken out loud and unapologetically by people who know them to be true. Spoken with love, yes, but also fierce conviction—truths about the validity of science, the perils of climate change, the nature and price of injustice, the insanity of racism and all the other isms creeping out from beneath their ill-concealed rocks, the importance of civil and human rights and why they matter for all of us, how worsening poverty hurts everyone, the opportunities before us to create and innovate o...