Arts, Culture & Humanities

On Tuesday the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown District's only school of its type, received a $17.2 million endowment from the Eugene B. Casey Foundation.

"We have struggled for so long and waited so long for an angel, and now we've got one," Dr. Mary Jane Ayers said.

At a time when for-profit theaters may be feeling the pressure to cave in to the economic pinch and roll out the revivals, nonprofit San Francisco-based American Conservatory Theater is still taking chances.

This year the Whitney Museum of American Art offers devotees a respite from licking envelopes and stamps. The non-profit museum’s new donation videogame, Clickistan, asks online visitors to score points and advance levels—before asking their appreciation.

Clickistan is a witty and sometimes biting respite from instant-gratification Flash and Facebook games. On the last screen, players can choose to donate as little as $5 and as much as $10,000. (The more goal-oriented can also skip all of the levels to make their online donation.)

United States Artists, a nonprofit group founded by foundations and wealthy art donors to broaden support for working artists, will unveil a new Web site on Tuesday that solicits small donations from regular people to help underwrite specific artworks.

Part social network, part glossy brochure, part fund-raising mechanism, the site seeks to democratize arts patronage as government support for the arts continues to decline and private sources of financing also shrink.

Collaboration is a catalyst for nonprofit growth and improvement. And the newly formed Catalyst Fund for Nonprofits was created to help foster that collaboration.

Barbara Allen will receive $50,000 as one of 10 winners of the Purpose Prize, given to Americans over 60 who have reinvented themselves, tackling social problems in this latter stage of life.

As founder of Fresh Artists, Allen, 62, of Lafayette Hill, in just two years has put more than 400 pieces of bold, lush, gorgeous "refrigerator art" from Philadelphia schoolchildren into corporate boardrooms and surprising spaces around the region and nation.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $50 million to the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum announced late Wednesday.

The money will go principally to the Youth Access Endowment, a new entitly created by the Smithsonian. Gates is giving $30 million of the gift to "reach underserved students" in the United States. The endowment targets students in grades K-12, and will create a series of interactive Web sites and online conferences.

Both fundraising revenue and donor growth remain flat from the first half of 2009 to the first half of 2010, according to the 2010 Target Analytics donorCentrics Index of National Fundraising Performance: 2010 Second Quarter Results report.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is poised to allocate at least $100 million in Federal funds to a future performing arts center at the World Trade Center site.

On Wednesday, a committee of the LMDC recommended that the new arts venue receive a portion of the more than $200 million previously earmarked for utilities companies, which sustained infrastructure damages during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

As a fundraiser, you understand the importance of leveraging every budget dollar to produce tangible benefits. Art exhibits are a proven, cost-effective method of doing just that. Here are 10 steps to a successful exhibit program.