Upcoming: Seminar on Cultural Data Project, Creative Alliance and Wyatt Brand at Dougherty Arts Center, September 13

Received directly from David Wyatt of

The Austin Creative Alliance

presents

The Pew Memorial Trust Cultural Data Project

Dougherty Arts Center - 1110 Barton Springs Road (click for map)
Tuesday, September 13 from 6- 8 p.m.
free admission
www.austincreativealliance.org

In its third meeting on "crisis and opportunity," the Austin Creative Alliance is having a look at the numbers. Because earlier discussions touched on a recurring theme of understanding and strengthening organizations’ advocacy efforts, the Alliance is bringing in representatives from the Cultural Data Project operated by The Pew Charitable Trusts to help the area’s creatives make sense of their own institutional and community information. Neville Vakharia—the Director of the Cultural Data Project—and Senior Associate Flo Gardner are traveling from Philadelphia to facilitate.

The Cultural Data Project (CDP) is a powerful online management tool designed to strengthen the arts and cultural sector. [Click image or title to visit their website] Now operating in 11 states, the CDP is a unique system that enables arts and cultural organizations to enter financial, programmatic and operational data into a standardized online form.
Organizations can subsequently quickly and easily generate reports to use as part of the application process for participating funders. They can also use the CDP as a tool to track their own trends over time or to benchmark key components of their operations against others in aggregate by discipline, budget size, geographic location and many other criteria. This knowledge is power: organizations have leveraged increased board support or lowered their rental costs thanks to their findings.

With more than 11,500 arts and cultural organizations now entering data into the Cultural Data Project each year, the CDP’s database has become an important resource for arts advocacy organizations and researchers seeking to report on the value and needs of the cultural sector. The first resource of its kind for those involved in arts policy, the CDP can provide standardized, high-quality, comprehensive data to help arts advocates illustrate how many jobs are supported or how much earned income is generated by the cultural sector in a particular city or region. As a result, when public support for the arts is on the chopping block, the CDP helps decision makers to be informed by solid facts.

From the AustinLiveTheatre.com article of April, 2009 "Pew's Cultural Data Project: Why Not Texas?" -- an interview-discussion from 2008, via Collective Action, the blog of the Chicago League of Theatres:

Philanthropy Chat: Janet Camarena Interviews John McGuirk of the James Irvine Foundation and Bobbie Lippman of the Pew Charitable Trusts
San Francisco, CA March 12, 2008

For this edition of Philanthropy Chat, Janet Camarena, director of the Foundation Center-San Francisco, interviewed John McGuirk, program director for the arts at the James Irvine Foundation and Bobbie Lippman, senior officer for culture and director of the Cultural Data Project for the Pew Charitable Trusts. They discussed the new California Cultural Data Project, its impact on grantseeking and reporting for California arts and culture organizations, and other benefits to having a centralized, online data management system for arts organizations. (40 min., 32 sec)

Upcoming Seminar: Crisis and Opportunity 2.0, sponsored by Austin Creative Alliance at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Ctr, July 28

Received directly from the

[Apple users: can't see the video? Click to go to YouTube!]

Crisis & Opportunity 2.0

with Matt Lehman

July 28, 6 - 8:30 p.m.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center, 600 River Street (click for map)

Thank you to all who attended the Crisis & Opportunity open meeting on June 7th. We were very pleased that so many of you took the time to gather with us for discussion.

On July 28th, from 6-8:30pm, we will be back at the MACC for a follow-up-forum.
After conversations with attendees, and review of comments and suggestions, we felt we had a clear direction for the next gathering.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .