SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION

COMMUNITY ARTS, EDUCATION, AND GRANTS COMMITTEE

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

1:00 p.m.

401 Van Ness Ave, Suite 125

 

MINUTES

 

The meeting was called to order at 1:08 p.m.

 

1.       Roll Call

Commissioners Present:

Charles Collins

Sherene Melania, Chair

Roberto Ordeñana

Marcus Shelby

Janine Shiota

 

Commissioners Absent:

None

 

Staff Present: Tom DeCaigny, Judy Nemzoff, Barbara Mumby, Cristal Fiel

 

2.       General Public Comment

Commissioner Melania called for public comment. There was none made.

 

3.       San Francisco Grants for the Arts Update

Community Investments Program Director Judy Nemzoff introduced Kary Schulman, Executive Director of San Francisco Grants for the Arts (“SFGFTA”). Ms. Nemzoff said that Ms. Schulman, as requested by the committee, would give an overview of SFGFTA so that the committee could better understand the difference between the organization and San Francisco Arts Commission’s (“SFAC”) Cultural Equity Grants (“CEG”).

Ms. Schulman gave a brief informational overview of the history of SFGFTA. She stated that SFGFTA original funding source was from the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund (“HTF”) in 1961 and predated the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts. SFGTA was the first City agency to fund private nonprofit arts organizations. While SFAC reports to the Mayor, SFGFTA reports to the City Administrator. This had to do with maintaining the nexus of the source of the grant dollars, which was under the HTF until a few years ago. Ms. Schulman said that the organization did not fund the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco or the Asian Art Museum because the organizations had their own City budget source. In 1996, the Board of Supervisors passed legislation that founded the Cultural Equity Endowment Fund to support smaller organizations that SFGFTA was perceived as not reaching. Ms. Schulman said that SFGFTA already supports some of the smaller organizations funded through CEG with general operating, while CEG provided project support and capacity building support. She said that a symbiotic relationship has formed between the two City arts funding sources.

Director of Cultural Affairs Tom DeCaigny commented that San Francisco had the highest density per capita of artists and arts organizations than any other city in the nation. As a result, the City has seen very few arts organizations leave because that would prevent them from applying for City funding. He said that the relationship between SFAC and SFGFTA supported this robust arts ecology.

Commissioner Collins asked how new grant recipients get on the SFGFTA funding list. Ms. Schulman said that new organizations could apply, and if they met the criteria that has been honed over the years, they could receive funding. She said the agency did not fund organizations that had less than a $35,000 annual budget.

Ms. Nemzoff added that SFGFTA allocated funds for the City-owned Cultural Centers every year; that allocation made up about one-fifth of the Cultural Centers’ annual grant. Mr. DeCaigny added that SFGFTA also work ordered $30,000 annually to support SFAC’s Arts for Neighborhood Vitality Grant and $25,000 to support the SFAC Galleries programming at City Hall.

Commissioner Melania called for public comment. There was none made.

 

4.       Community Investments Program Director Report

Ms. Nemzoff provided the committee with a brief update around arts education. She said that the San Francisco Unified School District (“SFUSD”) was working on the move of Ruth Asawa School of the Arts to the centrally located arts center on Van Ness Avenue and that SFAC staff would invite SFUSD representatives to discuss this move.

She also said that the Arts Education Master Plan (“AEMP”) advisory committee has put out a request for proposals (“RFP”) for a consultant to look at refreshing the AEMP. The RFP was created based on a number of focus groups and stakeholder engagement that was conducted and would be sponsored by SFAC, SFUSD, and two other philanthropic organizations to be announced. Ms. Nemzoff said that the hope was that there would be a refreshed AEMP strategy for increased access to high quality arts education for students within 18 months.

The committee discussed the possibility of including technical trades within the AEMP, and how technical trades training could be included in the Common Core Standards. Mr. DeCaigny said that staff would take that recommendation to the AEMP advisory committee. The committee also requested more data and performance measures on the value of arts from a financial perspective. Mr. DeCaigny said that this would be a key outcome of the work with the consultant for the RFP.

Commissioner Melania called for public comment. There was none made.

 

5.       Offset Policy for San Francisco Arts Commission Grants

Senior Program Officer Barbara Mumby gave an update of the grant process since the committee last met in July 2016. She said that the buildout of the online grants management system (“GMS”) was successful, and that staff was able to roll out the online grant applications in September 2016. There were staggered application deadlines throughout October and November 2016. The grants staff was amidst panel season, running through the end of March, where there would be eleven public panels and roughly 55 independent application review panelists. At the end of each grants panel, staff collected feedback from the panelists around how to improve the process for the future.

Ms. Mumby then moved onto give an overview of the Offset Policy. She said that the policy provided opportunity for more equity among the grantees and that the current default policy felt very punitive. Grants staff have worked a lot with grantees to make sure that their grant final reports and other documentation were complete within the grant window, but there have been issues with grantees being late because of a variety of barriers. She explained that the Offset Policy provided a clear outline for what would happen before a grantee would go into default, and included a late fee process that would scale up based on the number of days the final reporting for the grant was late.

Mr. DeCaigny added that the Offset Policy was a great solution to align with SFAC’s value of cultural equity, as well as to set up a clear accountability structure. He said that it was important for SFAC grantees to perform high-level work so that they could apply for more funding in the future.

Ms. Nemzoff added that this policy would be used for all SFAC grantees, including the Cultural Centers. Ms. Mumby concluded that this policy would be presented to the new grantees during grantee orientations beginning July 1, 2017.

Commissioner Melania gave the following motion:

Motion: Motion to approve the Offset Policy for San Francisco Arts Commission grant agreements.

Moved: Collins/Ordeñana

Public Comment: None.

The motion was passed unanimously.

 

6.       New Business and Announcements
Ms. Nemzoff presented a calendar of upcoming committee meeting topics. The committee discussed the upcoming presentation of a draft Default Policy for the Cultural Centers. The draft of the Default Policy would be presented at the March committee meeting, with the final policy being approved in May. Additionally, staff would bring the grant award recommendations to April’s committee meeting. 

Commissioner Ordeñana left the meeting at 2:41 p.m.

Commissioner Melania called for public comment. There was none made.

Explanatory Document: CAEG-Calendar_Jan–Sept2017.pdf

 

7.       Adjournment
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:46 p.m.

 

2/28/17 5:45 p.m. CF draft minutes posted

3/06/17 CF minutes adopted

Language Accessibility

 

Translated written materials and interpretation services are available to you at no cost. For assistance, please notify Program Associate Cristal Fiel, 415-252-2218, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org.

 

我們將為閣下提供免費的書面翻譯資料和口譯服務。如需協助，Program Associate Cristal Fiel, 415-252-2218, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org.

 

Materiales traducidos y servicios de interpretación están disponibles para usted de manera gratuita. Para asistencia, notifique a Program Associate Cristal Fiel, 415-252-2218, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org.

 

Ang mga materyales na nakasalin sa ibang wika at ang mga serbisyong tagapagsalin sa wika ay walang bayad. Para sa tulong, maaring i-contact si Program Associate Cristal Fiel, 415-252-2218, cristal.fiel@sfgov.org.