Americans for the Arts

There are moments where you sense things so intensely they have a texture and vibration all their own. One experiences joy and humility in the same breath and it brings a lump to your throat even though you are smiling broadly. I had many grateful moments like these over the course of Convention. To me, our Convention is a graduation experience of sorts (true confessions from a former high school teacher). It happens in June. It’s a culmination of a year’s worth of work. And, when it happens, you forget all the hard times in between and fall back in love with your work all over again. If we did a yearbook, this text would be on my senior page.

Feeling faithful...stuck to private sector tract.

Trends in corporate giving and Arts giving from small business. Corporations: volunteer program is the largest growing segment. Good news for cities and regions with BVA programs.

Members of the Corporate Volunteer Council in Los Angeles informed me that creating individual volunteer opportunities for their employees are difficult. It's much easier to sign up 500 people for an AIDS walk. It falls to us to make it easy for the HR departments to tap into their most important asset knowledge capital , allowing us to leverage their knowledge, advice and expertise into stronger, better run arts organizations. However give this a read before you take advice from a corporate type.

The National Arts and Humanities Month website is fresh with new content in anticipation of October's activities. One of the new features is the National Arts and Humanities Month Events Map. The Wayfaring website hosts user-generated Google maps that track everything from the best places to go ice fishing to art district walking tours.

Americans for the Arts is encouraging you to share your NAHM events by using the map and create your own Waypoints. After the jump is a short tutorial to get you started.

We are really excited to be heading to Seattle for the 2009 Annual Convention. Although Americans for the Arts hosts the convention, it is really YOUR convention. You are the presenters, participants, and consumers of this event. You are the ones who make it successful. We just set the stage for you to connect, listen, and learn from one another. 

We are currently accepting proposals to present. DEADLINE: AUGUST 1.

Below are some suggestions for what separates a good proposal from a weak proposal.