YouTube Launches $5 Million Grant Program

YouTube, a division of search giant Google, has announced the launch of a $5 million program to support amateur video creators and help them attract a larger audience to its Web site.

Several emerging YouTube video creators have been able to generate substantial revenues and command an audience that rivals those of the broadcast networks while managing all aspects of their business, from writing, filming, and producing content to the marketing, post-production, and distribution of videos. Despite this success, however, many video creators lack the resources and deep financial backing available to studio-backed production houses.

To remedy the situation, YouTube established the Partner Grants program to bolster the production budgets of a small group of YouTube video creators who are at the forefront of innovation. The grants will serve as an advance against the video creators' future YouTube revenue share, enabling them to invest in better cameras, shoot for higher production values, expand their marketing efforts, and hire more staff, with the ultimate goal of bringing a richer body of content to YouTube users and advertisers and raising the creative bar for online video.

"Ultimately the game has changed, and people are throwing the rules out the window," George Strompolos, partner development manager at YouTube, told the New York Times. "Folks who ten years ago couldn't even get their content shared to friends across the street are now connecting with audiences around the world. We see that not only as a cute thing, where someone has a viral hit, we see these people as the next content creators, the next brand in original programming. It's where our roots have always been, and we are doubling down on that type of programming."

“Investing in the Future of Video: YouTube Announces Partner Grant Program.” YouTube Blog Post 7/09/10.

Stone, Brad. “YouTube Will Back Its Most Promising Video Creators.” New York Times 7/09/10.

Kennedy Center President Advising Cultural Leaders Around the Country on 'Arts in Crisis' Tour

Over the past year, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts president Michael M. Kaiser has been traveling the country, speaking to arts executives about how to keep their organizations afloat in a difficult economy, the New York Times reports.

When it ends on July 20, the Arts in Crisis tour will have taken Kaiser to all fifty states, where he has hammered home the message he detailed in his 2008 book The Art of the Turnaround — that in hard times arts organizations retain audiences and donors by offering their most exciting programming, not by scaling back or trying more conservative fare. The tour is named after, and complements, an initiative launched by the Kennedy Center last February as arts groups across the country cut programming because of money woes. The Arts in Crisis initiative allows nonprofits to apply for free planning help from Kennedy Center staff members and a group of volunteer mentors; eight hundred groups have applied for help so far.

To many in the world of cultural nonprofits, Kaiser is regarded as a miracle worker for having helped save other major arts groups, including the Kansas City Ballet, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, and the Royal Opera House in London. At the Kennedy Center, which he took over in 2001, he has more than doubled donations and run a surplus every year.

In addition to the tour and book, Kaiser also spreads his passion for arts management on a Huffington Post blog and his Facebook page, which has the maximum-allowed five thousand followers. Rather than move on from the Kennedy Center in 2011, as he had once planned, Kaiser says he will stay until 2014 and then lead the center's DeVos Institute of Arts Management, which since 2001 has advised arts groups around the world.

"I'm trying to build a respect for the field," Kaiser told the Times. "I'm creating — it's not about me so much — but I'm creating the sense that there is a field out there, that there is something for people to talk about."

Taylor, Kate. “A Crusader for Boldness as the Arts Face Deficits.” New York Times 6/27/10.

Primary Subject: Arts and Culture

 

Ailing Museums Seek 'Bailouts' From Universities

Tottering under years of budget deficits, accumulated debt, and declining donations, several of the country's small and midsize museums are turning to the art-world equivalent of a bailout and forging partnerships with academic institutions, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Museums' financial problems follow years of ambitious expansions, generous executive pay packages, and questionable real-estate investments undertaken during the real-estate boom. To finance that spending, many museums took on significant debt — only to have the floor fall out from under their endowments in 2008 when the stock market crashed. In response, some museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, and the Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California, are turning to universities for help, in some cases handing over artwork and moving to new locations. According to many museum directors, a university is more likely than a private collector to keep a collection intact and maintain public access.

Financial tough times can also present difficult choices to museum donors. A donor might decide to write checks to keep a museum afloat, only to see the museum fail. Or she might support a new partnership or leadership change, only to have it end up infringing on the institution's unique character. Donors also worry about the financial health of rescuing institutions; like museums, many universities are struggling with funding cuts, shrinking endowments, and declining private contributions. Indeed, according to the Giving USA Foundation, donations to arts institutions and education organizations declined by almost 10 percent in 2008, and many institutions saw their endowments shrink, in some cases by as much as 30 percent.

Still, despite less-than-rosy financial outlooks, some museums are holding out. The troubled Fresno Art Museum, for instance, considered a merger with California State University, Fresno earlier this year but eventually decided against the move. "We were concerned with turning over our art collection to the state system with no guarantee that the art would stay in our community," said the museum's chairman, Tom Speck. Instead, said Speck, the museum will cut expenses and develop a five-year strategic plan designed to increase donations. "It was definitely a wake-up call to stop spending beyond our means."

Banjo, Shelly. “Hit by the Downturn, Museums Seek Bailouts.” Wall Street Journal 5/20/10.

 

National Arts Index Reveals Lower Health and Vitality of Arts Industries in 2008

Due to losses in charitable giving and declining attendance at larger cultural institutions, the health and vitality of the arts in the United States was lower in 2008 than it was in 2003, a new report from Americans for the Arts finds.

According to the National Arts Index (146 pages, PDF), attendance at art museums decreased by 13 percent over that period, while audiences at popular music events were down by 6 percent. At the same time, the report found that between 1998 and 2008 there was a steady increase in the number of artists and arts organizations and in arts-related employment. Indeed, while attendance at arts events is shrinking, advances in technology are changing how Americans experience the arts.

Conducted over four and a half years, the first study of the health and vitality of the arts industry in the United States looked at seventy-six indicators in nine categories to arrive at a decade-long view of trends in arts philanthropy, participation, and creativity as well as the relationship of the arts to other areas of American life, including employment and education. The measures include capacity and infrastructure, participation, contributed support, employment, nonprofit, creativity, demand for arts education, arts business, and competitiveness.

Measured against a base acore of 100 (in 2003), the overall index score fell to 98.4 in 2008 and achieved its ten-year high, 105.5, in 1999. "The current economic crisis offers a unique and important opportunity to begin a national conversation about the value of the arts — to us as individuals, communities, and a nation," said Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and one of the project's advisors. "We need to rethink a nonprofit arts sector that in many ways remains tethered to support models that have remained unchanged for a half century. Arts organizations need to find creative ways to engage their audiences, build on the public's growing interest in personal creation, and stimulate audience demand."

Although the national study was funded in part by the Rockefeller and Henry Luce foundations, the Michi-gan-based Kresge Foundation has awarded $1.2 million to Americans for the Arts to create a companion Local Arts Index and provide workshops and materials necessary to assist communities in the effective application of the local data. "Our work in all parts of the country suggests that the National Arts Index will have a valuable impact on local communities of every kind," said Kresge Foundation president Rip Rapson "The Local Arts Index — the local application of this national tool — will help local leaders in one hundred communities make better-informed decisions about arts and culture investments. It will also contribute to heightened community understanding of the importance that arts and cultural activities play in a community's economic health and social vitality."

“First-Ever National Arts Index Measures Health and Vitality of Arts in the United States.” Americans for the Arts Press Release 1/20/10.

Trescott, Jacqueline. “The Nationals Arts Index, a New Survey by Americans for the Arts, Paints a Troubling Picture for Arts Organization.” Washington Post 1/21/10.