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Funding Philosophy and Approach
Philosophy
Arts and culture are vital to a healthy community. A vibrant arts community is one that is accessible to all and enriches people's lives. It celebrates diverse cultural experience and expression; stimulates and nurtures the creative and intellectual spirit; and values individual heritage as well as our common past.
Through grantmaking and other activities, the Foundation seeks to advance artistic achievement, increase residents' access to and appreciation of arts and culture, and promote public participation in and support for the arts. The Foundation's grantmaking responds to a variety of ongoing needs of the local arts and culture field.
In addition, the Foundation has an interest in grantmaking strategies that address the strengthening and regional advancement of the nonprofit cultural industry as a sector, a field, or a discipline.
Grantmaking Approach
Arts & Culture grantmaking strives to support a broad array of professional nonprofit cultural organizations of all sizes and types, and in varying stages of growth, throughout the region. These include visual, media, collecting, and literary institutions; performing arts institutions; historically significant sites; arts education, community arts, and arts service organizations; and arts organizations that produce work for children and young audiences. Organizations eligible for funding can represent any artistic discipline: architecture, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, media (including film, television, video, radio, and audio art), music, musical theater, opera, theater, visual art, and multidisciplinary work.
Grants are awarded in response to needs identified by arts and cultural organizations. The Foundation responds to these requests by actively engaging with the applicant in researching requests for support, and understanding, clarifying, and refining individual requests to ensure appropriateness within the overall mission, goals, strategies, and capacity of the organization itself. Artistic excellence and merit, management capabilities, community engagement, leadership, and fiscal responsibility are used to help gauge an applicant's well-being and likelihood of success in its proposed endeavor. Additionally, the request is evaluated within the larger context of the state of the field, the region and, at times, the nation. In this way, the Foundation ensures an effective investment in the organization.
Specifically, in making its funding judgments, the Foundation will look for those organizational attributes that were identified by the National Endowment for the Arts as critical to success as a “high-performance” arts organization: - Identity and Purpose – Does the organization have a clear sense of who it is, why it exists, and what it hopes to accomplish?
- Leadership – Is there a leadership vision for the organization? How does the organization manifest leadership qualities?
- Programming – Does the organization’s work consistently achieve high standards of excellence?
- Management of Resources – Is the organization’s operation well-run, and does it have the resources necessary to realize its mission?
- Audiences and Community – Does the organization have a clear sense of who it serves, and can it document the strength of its relationship to the community?
Once an assessment is made of the overall organization seeking funding, an evaluation of the specific request and its appropriateness and feasibility is carried out.
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Two Logan Square
11th Floor
100 North 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA
19103-2757
215-988-1830 (tel)
215-988-1823 (fax)
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