Community_Arts_and_Education_Committee
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 COMMUNITY ARTS, EDUCATION, and GRANTS COMMITTEE
October 14, 2008
4:30 p.m.
25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 70
San Francisco
Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 4:40 p.m.
Commissioners Present: Young, Nínive Calegari, Maya Draisin, John Calloway
Staff Present: Community Arts and Education Program Director Judy Nemzoff, Cultural Equity Grants Program Director San San Wong, WritersCorps Project Manager Janet Heller, Cultural Equity Grants Program Associate Lucy K. Lin, Cultural Equity Grants Program Associate Weston Teruya
- Cultural Equity Grants Program Director's Report
Ms. Wong reported on the Creative Space Grants review panel. Commissioners received Creative Space Grant panel comments and rankings of the applicants in advance of the meeting. The panel comments had project summaries; and comments were organized under headings of the grant's Criteria for Evaluation. Commissioner Young observed the deliberations of the panel.
Commissioner Young commented on the strong peer panel review process, which reaffirmed her thinking that the process works. She said that this is what a peer review is about. Commissioner Young felt Ms. Wong directed the panel's evaluation well and she was very pleased with what she observed.
Commissioner Young made the following motion:
Motion to approve recommendations to award eight grants totaling $120,000 in the 2008-2009 cycle of Creative Space grants to the following organizations, and to authorize the Director of Cultural Affairs to enter into grant agreements with each for the amounts listed:
509 Cultural Center/Luggage Store, $15,000
Chinese Historical Society, $13,500
CounterPulse, $18,000
Croatian American Cultural Center, $18,000
Dance Brigade, $15,000
Joe Goode Productions, $9,000
Southern Exposure, $18,000
Women's Audio Mission, $13,500
The motion passed unanimously.
Ms. Wong continued to her report of the panel review of the Cultural Equity Initiatives - Level Two (“CEI-L2”) grants program, which is a substantial two- or three-year grant of $100,000 with the purpose of supporting substantial capacity-building and/or infrastructure development initiatives. Ms. Wong said that when she began as Program Director, she changed the application process to require an assessment interview and the submission of the organization's strategic plan as part of the CEI-L2 application, with the idea that the CEI-L2 grant would fund a component of an organization's greater developmental plans and that there was an overall culture of organizational planning in place. In the first year of the requirement, which was last year, the number of applications dropped from twelve to five, potentially reflecting the number of organizations without plans. This year there were eight applications.
Ms. Wong stated that one concern articulated by the panelists was the generally poor or average quality of strategic plans. Another concern was the effect of the current economic downturn, and how organizations are, or are not, planning for it. The economic situation is affecting foundations relative to their endowment corpus and payouts, but for organizations, the impact will be at every revenue stream, including ticket sales, admissions, fundraisers, individual donations, major donors and return on investments. Ms. Wong remarked that organization directors have informed her about losing a great amount on their investments. She said that she is working with other funders to potentially develop forums around the economic downturn and survival strategies.
Another issue raised by the panel was a number of strategic plans written specifically for this grant application process, indicating that applicants may not have undertaken an extensive organizational assessment or planning process which would include such processes as building constituency or community buy-in and analysis of the economic ecology. During the CEI-L2 policy discussion, some technical assistance in the areas of financial planning and strategic planning was discussed.
Commissioner Calegari said that she attended part of the CEI-L2 panel and was moved by the panel. She also stated that Ms. Wong was very fair to everyone, and was glad to observe.
Commissioner Draisin referred to a concern expressed in previous committee meetings that the same organizations applied for different grants. She cited the example of the Dance Brigade.
Ms. Wong responded that this had occurred in previous years, but this instance is the first time this year. There are some “sit-out” policies, but the issue of restricting the number of grants that a grantee can receive in one grant cycle has not been assessed. She said that the staff will analyze and bring the information back to the CAEG Committee for further discussion. For example, because of the size and scope of the CEI-L2 grant, should receipt of this grant make grantees ineligible in other grant categories?
Commissioner Calloway said that he has been on panels and knows some of the concerns. He mentioned that at one point, there was an issue of need for grant writers and holding workshops for organizations to work on their strategic plans.
Ms. Wong stated that before her tenure, CEG had the CEI-L1 and CEI-L2 deadlines one immediately after the other. She separated them so that organizations can apply to the CEI-L1 if they do not receive the CEI-L2. She felt that there is a need for more technical assistance in strategic planning, and she is trying to assess what that involves. She raised the question whether CEI-L1 is actually excluding entry-level organizations. Should CEG have a grant category which provides a strategic planning support with a smaller implementation grant? This would mean allowing a small, supportive environment to develop the strategic plan and then a grant to implement it.
Commissioner Calloway inquired what the panelists are being asked to assess and what they are looking at in terms of the strategic plans in order to make it consistent and easier to compare.
Ms. Wong responded that panelists assess the thoroughness and feasibility of the strategic plan, and what a healthy organization looks like. She explained that at one point, the National Endowment for the Arts' Advancement Program wanted organizations to follow a similar organizational model and that wasn't successful. Now there is a push toward “right-sizing.” In terms of strategic plans, it is important to look at who employs really good strategic plan processes, and the different models for that. Ms. Wong believes that there needs to be a good diagnostic and assessment at the beginning of the process.
Commissioner Draisin calle for public comment. Commissioner Young made the following motion:
Motion to approve recommendations to award three grants totaling $300,000 in the 2008-2009 cycle of Cultural Equity Initiative Level Two grants to the following organizations, and to authorize the Director of Cultural Affairs to enter into grant agreements with each for the amounts listed:
Fresh Meat Productions, $100,000
ABADA Capoeira San Francisco, $100,000
Dance Brigade, $100,000
The motion passed unanimously.
Commissioner Young made the following motion:
Motion to approve the following individuals as grants application review panelists for Cultural Equity Grants:
Neela Banerjee, Writer and Youth Worker
Eugenie Chan, Playwright
Sarah Crowell, Program/Artistic Director, Destiny Arts Center
Daniel Gray Kontar, Writer, Youth Worker, Ph. D. student
John Jota Leanos, Professor of Social Practice and Community Arts, California College of the Arts
Jessica Mele, Program Director, Performing Arts Workshop
Indra Mungal, Community Program Manager, Oakland Museum of California
Sean Nash, Painter; Professor, California College of the Arts
Dr. Margaret Paloma Pavel, Executive Director, Earth House
David Perez, Literary and Performance Art Program Coordinator, Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana
Theo Rigby, Filmmaker
Gabriela Shiroma, Dancer; Choreographer; Teacher
Judy Young, Executive Director, Vietnamese Youth Development Center
The motion passed unanimously.
Ms. Wong distributed schedules for the upcoming Individual Artist Commission grant panels, which are organized by discipline. She said this will be a great process to observe and see what artists are creating now.
Ms. Wong made a presentation about the history and mission of the Cultural Equity Grants Program. She explained the current state of the arts ecology and some strategies CEG implemented to address certain issues.
Commissioner Draisin asked how CEG is dealing with equity and making sure underserved communities are being funded. She referenced the case with the San Francisco Black Film Festival in the past year.
Ms. Wong responded that one need was to better analyze which applicants were rooted in historically underserved communities and where these communities are located in the broader Bay Area; that is tied to shifting demographics. She explained that it is somewhat difficult to track applicant demographics because the demographic information is voluntary, and exact information is not necessarily available. She has been talking with the City Attorney's office about this issue.
Commissioner Calloway asked what Ms. Wong meant when she mentioned the decline of 501(c)3's and a rise of alternative models.
Ms. Wong answered that there are more fiscally sponsored programs, some LLC's, and artist collectives that form temporarily and then move on to other projects. Ms. Wong referenced the Irvine Foundation scoping study, which reported changes in how people are looking at the 501(c)3 model. She also said that she believed that 501(c)3 organizations were perceived as being a permanent thing, and some newer groups did not necessarily want that permanence. In addition, since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, she said, there is more scrutiny of organizations' tax and financial information. Some organizations also do not want to be locked into a particular governance structure.
She said that CEG does not fund the LLC's directly, but some of them can be community partners for our Arts and Communities grant program.
Commissioner Draisin requested, if there was time at the end of the meeting, that Ms. Wong inform new Commissioners of the source of funds for the new Native American Arts and Cultural Traditions grants program.
- Community Arts and Education Director's Report
Ms. Nemzoff reported on the Arts Education Program, which held two highly successful events this month. October 2nd was the closing reception for the Arts Education Funders Collaborative (“AEFC”). AEFC will continue to support the arts education program over the course of the next two years for the publication of Inside/Out. October 8th was the principals' reception at the de Young Museum with all San Francisco Unified School District elementary school principals in attendance.
She announced that on October 15, the San Francisco Arts Providers Alliance would hold the Arts Resource Fair at the African American Art & Culture Complex (“AAACC”) with more than 40 arts organizations participating.
Ms. Nemzoff also announced that on October 18, CAE would represent the Arts Commission and the Arts Providers Alliance at the Mayor's Family Day Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens.
- WritersCorps Report
Ms. Heller reported on WritersCorps. The program is celebrating its 15th anniversary with an exhibition at the SFAC Gallery called This Place Called Poetry. The exhibition is an installation of multimedia work by artist Katharine Gin, and follows the lives of 11 youth who have come up through WritersCorps. Ms. Gin interviewed the youth for film portraits. The exhibition also features text, images, and audio from the youth and there will be lesson plans for teachers who wish to bring their students to the Gallery on a field trip. The exhibition runs from November 7, 2008 to January 24, 2009, with an opening reception on November 13. Ms. Heller is hopeful that foot traffic to the Nutcracker and other holiday events will bring people into the Gallery to see the show.
Ms. Heller invited Commissioners to the exhibition opening, and to a reception on December 1 for author Sherman Alexie, who is doing a reading that evening at City Arts & Lectures. The reading benefits WritersCorps and also features students from “Tell the World,” a WritersCorps anthology published by HarperCollins featuring WritersCorps youth from San Francisco, the Bronx, and Washington, D.C.
- Cultural Center Report
Ms. Nemzoff said that improvements at AAACC, funded through the Mayor's Office on Disability, are continuing. The building will be closed during February and March, 2009, and will be partially opened for programs in April and May so that the building can be fully open by June, 2009.
She reported that Bayview Opera House just brought five new members onto their Board of Directors and the board has selected three finalists for the managing director position. The candidate will be selected at their November 6 board meeting.
Ms. Nemzoff reported that SomArts' new executive director, Lex Leifheit, will begin on Monday, October 20. Ms. Nemzoff said she has a strong background in finance, programming, marketing, media, and presenting and Ms. Nemzoff is looking forward to working with her.
Ms. Nemzoff reported that CAE staff is working closely with staff at the Cultural Data Project (“CDP”) to transition all Cultural Center reports into alignment with the CDP. A special meeting will be held on December 4 with Center directors and staff from the CDP to review the new forms.
Ms. Nemzoff announced that Center directors and their boards of directors are invited to an evening with Heather Kitchen, Executive Director of the American Conservatory Theater, on October 27. Ms. Kitchen will discuss board development, capital campaign planning, and staying afloat in troubled times. Ms. Nemzoff said that Commissioners are also invited to attend.
APICC report:
Pam Wu, director of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (“APICC”), said that APICC exists because of the CEG Program and that issues of equity with the Cultural Centers led to the establishment of the virtual centers.
Ms. Wu announced that APICC just completed its 11th annual festival. She distributed copies of the 2008-2012 strategic plan, funded by the San Francisco Foundation, which established that the organization's mission should stay the same. She said the research found that space is still an issue, the community wants to see the festival stay, 50% of organizations want the festival to remain but they also want to have programming year round to increase opportunities. Ms. Wu said that APICC offers free performance rentals, marketing, a technical director, and 75% of ticket sales during the festival.
Commissioner Draisin asked about Cultural Center space and whether a virtual center was sufficient. Ms. Wu said there is a demand for space for programming.
Ms. Nemzoff asked if the long-range plan lays out next steps for the organization. Ms. Wu said the report has goals and timelines for five areas. She said Vinay Patel will serve as interim executive director.
Commissioner Young had many questions and not enough time to ask them, particularly around staffing.
Ms. Nemzoff suggested that, due to the limited time for discussion and lack of opportunity to review the strategic plan in advance, Ms.Wu return to next month's meeting to schedule a more in-depth review and conversation. She thanked the two members of the board who attended and asked that they return for next month's meeting. Commissioners will review the strategic plan and prepare their questions prior to next month's meeting.
MCCLA Report:
Jennie Rodriguez, the director of Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (“MCCLA”), said that 2007-2008 was a productive and challenging year.
Commissioner Calloway said he was in awe of the number of people served and the quality of the programming at MCCLA. Commissioner Draisin concurred and said she appreciated Ms. Rodriguez's commitment to growth.
Ms. Nemzoff said she was thrilled with the professional development offered to MCCLA staff but is frustrated with the lack of funds to pay the staff higher wages. She said she was also pleased with the work the board is doing to support growth through professional development trainings.
Commissioner Young said she loved the marketing materials but was concerned that the SFAC logo was not on them.
- Adjournment
As there was no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:05 p.m.
10/30/08 RT
