Philanthropy In America - The Arts Get Short Changed! Big Time!

Well.. if you  haven't seen the bad news yet.. it's pretty sad. Today, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, for 2005, Arts organizations, as part of The Philanthropy 400, came up very short this year. Private Arts donations were down over 10% in 2005, while the largest charities overall, saw donations rise 13%. Ouch!

Well... at least religious groups were up an insane 24.2%, Praise The Lord..and pass the collection plate!! Yikes! Dr. Quiz..Is it too late for us to move to Canada?? How depressing.

Here are the sad numbers :

Granted these arts numbers are a bit depressed by all the Katrina & Tsunami Relief money, so they may not be all that grim. Thank you G. W. Bush!! So arts supporters, before you get out the arsenic checkbook, here are more details.. check out today's posting on The Chronicle of Philanthropy

In case you were wondering here are the top 5..

1. MOMA --------------------------------------------------- 239.2 Million
2. Houston's Museum of Fine Arts  --------------------- 210.2 Million
3. Smithsonian Intuitions in Washington -------------- 163.7 Million
4. The Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC ---------------  96.4 Million
5. American Museum of Natural History ----------------- 84.4 Million

Wow.. only $239.2 Million (MOMA), and $96.4 Million (MET).. so it's obvious why these greedy people they needed to raise their admission price to $20 per person. Well.. Here's a very delusional positive story from Bloomberg news by Patrick Cole with some more grim details.

Download Arts_Giving2005_bloombergNews.txt

Comments

[Patrick]

Hi Mike, thanks for bringing such a great story to your blog. As a Chief Development Officer for a non-profit theatre company, I can tell you first hand how difficult it is to get funding for arts related programming. However, as long as you continue to promote that MoMA and other larger institutions are doing fine, maybe we can keep people's eyes focused on more important arts foundations in need. I also think it's a great idea that every month, the winner of your quiz gets to pick an arts organization of thier choice and you'll make a gift there in that person's name.

Good for you!