Arts & Humanities Working Group (AHWG)

>About the group (.pdf) To join AHWG or learn more, e-mail WG's Christian Clansky.

From the WG Daily blog:

Uniting grantmakers to support and strengthen our region’s arts community and increase funding for the sector.

2010
As funders turn their attention to emergency services in the wake of the economic downturn, the working group will advocate for continued local investments in the arts and humanities. The arts and humanities are a complementary partner to other funding priorities, including education, youth development and community service, and an intrinsic component of the regional landscape, generating a vibrancy that should be maintained through dramatic economic changes.

Chair:
Michael Bigley, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

Follow AHWG's 2010 messaging campaign - "Arts and Humanities - Essential. Integral. Intrinsic."

Interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Sarah Kaufman (6/24)
The Meyer Foundation's Amy Harbison interviews the Washington Post columnist.

A.H: Why is this an important time for funders to consider investment in contemporary dance?

S.K: If funders are interested in an art form that promotes excellence, diversity, unity, discipline, self-respect and healthy living, that represents risk-taking, innovation and youthfulness, that serves to educate on a profound level about issues and experiences that are part of the universal human condition, there is no better exemplar than contemporary dance.

“A new look at older people” (5/11)
By Susan Perlstein, Founder, National Center for Creative

Aging Arts and creativity programs are fast becoming accepted not only for the benefits they provide to older Americans’ health, morale, but also for the consequent social contributions made by this cohort...older adults participating in such programs live longer, visit doctors less frequently, and are less depressed and more socially engaged.

Case study on cultural organizations provides universal lessons for funders (4/7)
Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County's Michelle Grove says, "As we make the case that the arts and humanities are integral, intrinsic, and essential, we should note that they also can be indicative of wider philanthropic issues."

Measuring the health of arts and culture (2/16)
AHWG member Glen Howard takes a look at Americans for the Arts' National Arts Index. "[T]he National Arts Index is the first rigorous national resource to help satisfy private and public funders’ demands for further evidence of the arts’ positive and wide-ranging impact."

Arts & Humanities: Essential. Integral. Intrinsic. (1/11)
In the series' inagural post, AHWG chair Michael Bigley (The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation) explains,

"The arts and humanities are key tools for building the kind of community in which we want to live and the kind of community where businesses want to be. They are proven engines for economic and community development, promoting healthy individuals and neighborhoods, and are powerful vehicles for educational achievement and youth development. And these practical, instrumental values of the arts and humanities are all in addition to their intrinsic, aesthetic value."