January 2012 Board Press

December 2011 Board Press Highlights Woodward, Tom, “Art and Culture Have Huge Impact” Developments: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fall, 2011 Di Domizio, Tony, “Passion Plea: A coalition of former Lansdale youths are bringing a business plan for the future of 311 W. Main St.” Montgomeryville-Lansdale Patch, 12/14/2011 Kaiden, Tom, “Letter to the Editor: Protect investments in the arts” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 12/12/2011 Dow, Liz, “Leaders who help the city dance, sing, soar and grow” WHYY, 12/8/2011 Steuer, Gary, “Cultural Journalism – Alive and Well in Philadelphia? (Or At Least Not Dead…)

Arts, Culture and Creative Economy (Blog), 12/8/2011 Pompilio, Natalie, “Lily Yeh finds beauty in broken places” The Christian Science Monitor and Yes! Magazine, 12/5/2011 Editor, “Spark-The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance” 18th Century History (Blog), 11/29/2011 Editor, “Special Events” Glenside News, Globe, 11/24/2011 Mastrull, Diane, “Commercial broker’s unusual niche” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/20/11 Editor, “Military Discounts For Veterans Day” Philadelphia Public Record, 11/10/11 Di Domizio, Tony, “Task Force to Choose A7E Consultant by December” Montgomeryville-Lansdale Patch, 11/6/2011 Di Domizio, Tony, “311. W Main St. Task Force: The Building” Montgomeryville-Lansdale Patch, 11/2/2011

Di Domizio, Tony, “311. W Main St. Task Force: The Team” Montgomeryville-Lansdale Patch, 11/2/2011 Editor, “Region’s Cultural Organizations are Adapting During Recession” Momentum!, 10/31/11 McDonald, Natalie Hope, “Philly’s First For Culture” GPhilly (Philadelphia Magazine), 10/28/11

http://lansdale.patch.com/articles/music-to-their-ears-a7c554d6

Passion Plea: A coalition of former Lansdale youths are bringing a business plan for the future of 311 W. Main St. Tony Di Domizio December 14, 2011

The 311 W. Main St. Task Force got exactly what they’ve been looking for Tuesday night when a coalition of Montgomery County residents, representing a subculture of a 20-plus-year Lansdale history, spoke out about the passion of revitalizing the giant eyesore on Main Street and offering their help in raising funds, spreading the word and changing the town.

“I think it was great and fantastic. There’s a lot of energy,” said task force Chairman Mike Sobel after the meeting. “It’s a lot of passion is really what it is. They very sincerely want to get involved in this. We asked for community input, and we got it tonight.”

Remember these names: Kevin Thomas, Derek Calhoun, Dave Heck and C.J. Morgan.

They are on the brink of bringing a business plan to the borough in order to inspire the community at-large. […]

Task force member Bob Willi said he has advocated for a place for the youth to go and do something.

“I welcome you aboard,” he said to Thomas.

Ex-officio task force member Nancy DeLucia, of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, was impressed with the amount of people from the community that came out in support of the arts center.

“I would suggest you put something in writing about your vision, on paper, so that the task force has it, and can forward it to whoever is picked in the next round of the Request for Proposal consultant. It is an outline of what the building can be and how to use it,” she said. “I applaud you all for coming out.”

Montgomery County Planning Commission member Brian O’Leary, another ex-officio member, said the places that have been successful are those which had passionate groups and individuals behind them.

“That passion for this type of thing to succeed is critical,” he said.

Leaders who help the city dance, sing, soar and grow Liz Dow December 8, 2011

Sometimes in Philadelphia it seems like every public leader ends up enmeshed in controversy and scandal.

That’s not true, really. The city is full of exemplary leaders doing extraordinary things.

But often those leaders operate away from the highly covered arenas such as politics and sports. To notice them, you have to broaden your definition of "leader " and look beyond the usual suspects who dominate the media.

Leadership Philadelphia began its Connectors project in 2006 to shine a light on all the good leadership that happens in this region, and to see if that might encourage more leaders to step.

In the third phase of that effort, Leadership Philadelphia compiled a list of the top 76 Creative Connectors, members of the local arts and culture community who are the glue that binds it together. These are the folks who seem to know everyone, connect for the common good, and get things done without worrying about getting credit for it. That’s leadership.

Meet the Connectors […]

Julie Hawkins Assistant Professor, Drexel University; Executive Vice President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance Until August, Julie Hawkins was executive vice president for policy at the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. She has been a leader at the intersection of the arts, culture and public policy. […]

Tom Kaiden President, Greater Philadephia Cultural Alliance Kaiden became President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance in 2010.

Since then he's been leading several collaborative arts initiatives. He is chief architect of Engage 2020, a civic engagement initiative focused on doubling cultural participation in Greater Philadelphia by 2020

http://artscultureandcreativeeconomy.blogspot.com/

Cultural Journalism - Alive and Well in Philadelphia? (Or At Least Not Dead...)

Gary Steuer December 8, 2011

Much has been written about the decline of cultural journalism in America, an outgrowth of the larger challenges being faced in the journalism sector. The now defunct Columbia University National Arts Journalism Program published a study in 2003 "Reporting the Arts II" that followed the original "Reporting the Arts" that was published in 1999. RTAII found that during this period when the number of arts organizations was growing, editorial coverage of the arts was flat or shrinking in most markets. Philadelphia was one of the cities studied and here is the link to the Philadelphia section of the report.

The big news at that time was a dramatic decline in the average length of arts and culture stories, though the number of stories remained steady. And perhaps it is not a coincidence that the National Arts Journalism Program itself at Columbia now longer exists […]

But I have to say, for all the talk of gloom and doom in local cultural journalism, I believe Philadelphia is faring pretty well, and we should not lose sight of that. […]

We also have at the Inquirer and Daily News excellent reporters like Stephan Salisbury, who covers general stories about the arts that have elements of policy, civic and community issues, etc. Not to mention writers/critics like Howard Shapiro, David Patrick Stearns, Inga Saffron, Wendy Rosenfield, Toby Zinman, Carrie Rickey, Molly Eichel, Ed Sozanski, Gary Thompson (and all those Drexel students participating in the Art Attack program). I know I am missing some - apologies and please don't hold it against me, whoever you are! We even had the Inquirer recently publish an editorial citing our recent Number One ranking for Culture from Travel + Leisure and calling on policy makers to "face up to the need to create a sustainable funding source for the cultural assets that, even with strained government and corporate help, manage to earn so much praise." This was the second such arts-centric editorial in the past few months, the first being inspired by the recent Portfolio report issued by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. […]

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/432762

Lily Yeh finds beauty in broken places Natalie Pompilio December 5, 2011

Her Barefoot Artists project helps heal war-torn, broken, and economically devastated communities through art.

Lily Yeh founded Barefoot Artists, which works with local artists in places such as the Palestinian Territories, China, and Rwanda to create art that transforms lives.

(Courtesy of Fleisher Art Memorial) “I have found that the broken spaces are my living canvas,” Yeh says. “In our brokenness, our hearts reach for beauty.”

Lily Yeh was home in Philadelphia, between planes – back from Palestine, en route to Taiwan – and yet she was practically bubbling over. She was infused with energy because she was doing what she does best: using art to bring about healing, selfempowerment, and social change.

Yeh is the founder of – and force behind – Barefoot Artists, an organization that revitalizes neighborhoods around the globe through the transformative power of art. In Palestine, that meant working with villagers to create a wall mural that Yeh calls “The Palestinian Tree of Life.” In China, it meant transforming a once imposing, prison-like school into a bright and brilliant place for learning. In Rwanda, it meant helping people heal the still-raw wounds left from that country’s genocide with a memorial to the lost.

In each of the locations, Barefoot Artists collaborates with locals, joining with them to create something beautiful or soothing or enlightening. As Yeh sees it, she is igniting the light of creativity that rests in all people.

“My message is that your light is as bright as mine. It’s like sunlight. There’s no difference. You just need to have it lit,” she says. “It’s not about just me. It’s about a lot of people, working together.

“The project has to take root in people’s minds, emotions, and hearts. How do you do that? By working with them, by listening to them, by opening my heart. And when I have the space to listen, they usually open their hearts and share something and then we have the deep bonding and we can do something meaningful together.”

The Barefoot Artist, a documentary about Yeh that will be released next year, showcases these projects. The film reveals how Yeh’s journey led from the search for healing from her own brokenness to the healing of brokenness in others. And the result of that journey, says Tom Kaiden, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, has shown the world “how art can help tackle really difficult social and economic issues.”

Making Whole What is Broken Yeh is 70, yet she seems at least 20 years younger. She is a petite woman, about five feet tall, but she has a larger presence, seeming to fill a room with her positive energy.

When talking about her work, she jokes that “This old girl did something good.”

But it’s hard to think of her as old. She still scurries up precarious ladders to paint, still enthuses about her projects, her hands waving in the air as she speaks. Recently, on a trip to Rwanda, villagers gave her a chief’s staff, a sign of respect. They said she could use it when she gets old and needs help walking.

Born in China but raised in Taiwan, Yeh credits her parents with encouraging her creative side. “I owe everything to them,” she says.

Her childhood also set the stage for her later drive. Her father had three children from another marriage as well as the five children he had with Yeh’s mother. For years, the two families existed in totally separate worlds. Yeh talked about an unspoken pain she felt when she was growing up but could not quite name.

“My work is about finding what is broken and turning it into whole. This endeavor to make things whole may have derived from my life’s desire to bring the two families together into one,” she says.

When Yeh was 15, she began studying traditional Chinese landscape painting. She loved it, but she recognized its main drawback: She was copying the works of her teachers and other masters, not creating her own. In her book Awakening Creativity, she compared it to having her feet bound.

Her creative awakening came after she moved to the United States in 1963 to study painting at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts. She found the art scene there to be wild and experimental.

“I felt transported from the wispy and idyllic art world of the past into the volatile and powerful new reality of the twentieth century,” she writes in Awakening Creativity.

“Coming in contact with modern art in America shook to the core my understanding of art, its purpose, value, and relationship to society.”

So even though her teachers in Taiwan lamented her creative transformation, Yeh blossomed. She began teaching at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, eventually becoming a tenured professor.

Still, she says, her work didn’t finally mature, didn’t find its center, until 1986, when she began working on what would eventually become the Village of Arts and Humanities in a tough pocket of North Philadelphia.

Years later, people would tell her she saved the neighborhood. Yeh sees it differently: “I was the one being helped in the most profound way,” she says.

Vision Amid the Desolation North Philadelphia is marred, not only by empty, overgrown lots and decrepit buildings, but also by drug dealing and more serious crimes.

While Yeh saw potential, the local children called her “the crazy Chinese lady.”

But when they saw her working on a lot in their neighborhood, they grew curious and drew closer. Soon she had them, and their once-suspicious parents, working on cleaning lots, creating mosaics and murals, building benches, and planting trees. A neighborhood transformation had begun. It would continue for years, eventually encompassing more than 200 lots.

“There she was, in this place that was so extraordinarily abandoned and desolate, but she had a vision,” says Jeremy Nowack, president and CEO of the philanthropic William Penn Foundation. “I always loved the metaphor that she used the existing rubble and abandonment to make something beautiful. She’s someone who has made the city into a canvas.”

The Village of Arts and Humanities eventually developed into a nonprofit organization with everything from after-school and theater programs to home refurbishment initiatives. Some see it as a national model for neighborhood revitalization.

Yeh loved the work. But after 18 years, she was ready for a new challenge.

“I wanted to bring the gift of beauty to true broken and traumatized places in the world,” she says. “That’s why I started Barefoot Artists.”

And while she’s no longer at the Village, she’s left behind her legacy.

“As Philadelphia deals with these hard economic times, many of us are looking at Lily’s projects to spark new ideas and find new ways that we can use art to empower communities, bring people together, and transform lives,” Kaiden says.

Art as Shared Prosperity Barefoot Artists is a bare-bones operation. Whereas the Village at one time had a budget of more than $1 million, Barefoot Artists gets by on about $75,000. It is a largely volunteer organization. It has no office or paid staff.

“Although we are very small, we deliver so much,” Yeh says. “We collaborate and utilize the resources and expertise of volunteering individuals and organizations.”

Once, when Yeh was building the Village of Arts and Humanities, a neighborhood resident asked her why she was “pouring money into the ground” when there were real problems like AIDS and drug abuse in the community.

Yeh said it was a tough question, but a fair one. Her answer? “I can’t solve these huge social problems, but I can open up new possibilities and spaces where, through creativity and working together, we might come to new solutions.”

And Barefoot Artists has shown it’s not just about painting or art workshops. In Rwanda, it’s launched many innovative programs, including job training in sewing and basket weaving, and a Saturday arts program for children. It has also started a system of microcredit lending which provides community adults, especially women, with money to start their own businesses and to buy livestock.

When Yeh first went to Rwanda seven years ago, the Rugerero survivors’ village of 100 families where she focused her work only had two water taps and no electricity. She obtained grants and partnered with others, including Engineers Without Borders, to bring the village water, sanitation, and solar power.

“It isn’t just the beauty of the artwork,” she says. “It really is a shared prosperity. Not the Wall Street prosperity, not the capitalist prosperity but simply a shared prosperity for all villagers.”

The Palestine trip, Yeh said, was one of the most challenging projects she’s ever undertaken. There were political tensions beyond her control. At one point, she worried about completing her mission.

Yet she persevered. And she left behind a transformative piece of art, covering one wall outside a girls’ school with a mural that so moved residents that they could only say, “Beautiful, beautiful” as they beheld it. The design features an ancient olive tree bursting with huge flowers surrounded by doves of peace in a star-filled night sky. It was inspired by the stories and images that emerged from the workshops she had with residents.

Yeh completed the painting with the help of locals and volunteers.

“It’s a new kind of empowerment. People’s minds are opened to new possibilities and affirmation,” Yeh says.

She worked with a local leader and left behind resources so that the new creative energy released in the refugee camp can continue to inspire people to take positive action in their struggle for justice and human dignity. Already, others have requested that someone beautify their buildings – and their lives – with the bright colors brought by Lily Yeh. “When I see people’s lives transformed for the better, it gives me deep fulfillment,” she says. “It makes my life meaningful.”

• Natalie Pompilio wrote this article for The YES! Breakthrough 15, the Winter 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. Natalie Pompilio is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

She is the co-author of "More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell" (Temple University Press, 2008) and her work appeared in "Best Newspaper Writing 2006" (Poynter Institute).

• This article appeared first online at Yes! Magazine.

http://lansdale.patch.com/articles/task-force-to-choose-a-e-consultant-by-december

Task Force to Choose A&E Consultant by December Tony Di Domizio November 6, 2011

Seven arts and entertainment consultants have been sent Requests for Proposals to guide the 311 W. Main Street Task Force in its goal toward refurbishing the former performing arts center in Lansdale.

The RFPs were sent out ahead of the inaugural meeting of the task force.

“I ask forgiveness on that,” said borough manager Timi Kirchner to the task force last week. “We did it essentially so the task force could hit the ground running.”

Proposals are due Nov. 14, at which time a selection committee will choose three to present their proposals to the task force. The committee will then select one at its meeting in December, and give its recommendation to council so it can hire the consultant next month.

“We sent this proposal out to seven consultants who were recommended to us by different folks who work in the field,” Kirchner said.

The selection committee is Kirchner, parks and recreation director Carl Saldutti and councilwoman Mary Fuller, and task force members Doug Pett, Dawn Harvey and James Royale.

Kirchner told the task force last week that $50,000 is in the proposed parks and recreation department budget to fund the services of a consultant in 2012.

She said there is no requirement of taking the highest or lowest bidder; it is not a bid, but a professional service.

She said the RFP included language to explain the need for a consultant. The RFP contained background on the situation, including how “the building is in the heart of the downtown and because residents and businesses have shown interest in turning the building into a downtown destination, hence promoting the economic vitality of the downtown, borough council enacted an ordinance creating the 311 W. Main Task Force.”

“We need somebody with expertise who has taken communities through this process before and who will then guide us through it,” Kirchner said. “We are asking for a consultant with strong backgrounds in artistic and technical capabilities, experience with

similar projects, who know who the project personnel area and their qualifications and references. We are asking them to tell us what the proposed duration of the project is, we are asking for a proposed price, and an outline for what the task force should be doing.”

Kirchner said the borough has received several calls about the consultant position.

After the meeting, Kirchner said the task force’s goals are defined by the ordinance, and any RFP going out will be putting words from the ordinance in it.

“It wasn’t as if the task force was having to create what their tasks were going to be. We already have the ordinance to say how the task force should move forward,” she said.

“We weren’t going to select a consultant without the task force being involved.”

Kirchner would not reveal the names of the consultants who were sent the Request for Proposals.

She said six of the seven are from Pennsylvania, with three from Philadelphia and one each from Narberth, Wyndmoor and Paoli. The seventh consultant is from Vermont.

“For the most part, the consultants sent to us were recommended by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. They are well connected in arts and entertainment field, and they have an extensive list of organizations associated with them,” she said. “They do this work in communities all over the place, and that’s who we felt would be most helpful to us.”

The $50,000 proposed budget for the consultant is coming from parks and recration because the department has a strong arts and entertainment component in its programming.

Furthermore, the task force also has the services of Spiezle Architects, who is the firm conducting the borough-wide facilities study. Kirchner said the firm will give the task force “a reality check as to what this building really can do.”

Spiezle will be paid from the capital fund, she said.

http://lansdale.patch.com/articles/311-w-main-st-task-force-the-building

311. W Main St. Task Force: The Building (video) Tony Di Domizio November 2, 2011

The 311 W. Main Street Task Force got a reprisal Tuesday night from Scott Malin, senior associate of Spiezle Architects, on the code violations inside the building at 311 W. Main St., and possible conceptual ideas for what the property could become in the future.

“Our codes department went into the building, and essentially determined there are code issues in the building,” said borough manager Timi Kirchner. “Two questions were asked: Can and should the building be opened to the public? Are there any significant issues with regard to life and safety?”

Kirchner said a report by engineers Remington, Vernick and Beach determined there were 39 code violations found in the building: 14 dealing with accessibility; 10 with firerated construction; seven with electrical; two with mechanical; and five related to structural.

“The total cost of fixing this, keeping it as is, is between $240,000 and $400,000, depending on options,” Kirchner said. “The bottom line was do not allow access until all code-related items are recognized and restart the process. The first part of that is to review the building architecturally.”

Malin revived the presentation he gave to the public on August 2. You can view the story about that presentation here.

Spiezle Architects, Malin said, has been hired by the borough to conduct a facilities study of the town. The study on the arts center was accelerated because of the real issues there.

Malin said his firm has a whole team of consultants on board, including structural, mechanical, electrical, civil and maintenance engineers.

“We will bring all skill sets to the building to come up with what could this building become and we see it as a great destination to enhance the downtown experiences here,” Malin said. “The building had a lot going for it. We did see a lot of code problems, but we saw a lot of advantages and opportunities as well.”

He said if the borough fixes it, then there are opportunities to make it wonderful.

“What you see here is one vision,” he said of the presentation, “but it will help guide you as far as what the constraints of the building are. It has some issues as far as dimensions and heights, but it has a lot going for it as well.”

Malin said the price tag for complete renovations and completion of code violations would be around $3.8 million.

That price tag includes $2.8 million for new construction and improvements, $250,000 for façade improvements, $300,000 for contingencies and $450,000 for soft costs.

The overall idea, he said, is to create a community center for the town.

With a concept of making two auditoriums in the building, task force member Lindsay Schweriner asked how many seats could be in the second-floor auditorium.

Malin said it has room to seat about 300 to 350 people; the larger auditorium is only about 50 percent larger than the first-floor space.

“It’s not going to be a 1,000-seat auditorium,” he said. “The building is just not big enough. Two people on August 2 suggested that’s what we need, but you need a different building to do that.” […]

Ex-officio member Nancy DeLucia, of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, said it was a great design.

“My question is about how this informs the work of the task force and whether this is a flexible design – just one idea – or if this is what a consultant will be working with?” she said.

Kirchner said it was one idea that gives a visual of possibilities.

“With an open process,” DeLucia said, “there would be many ideas that don’t quite fit here.”

Task force chairman Mike Sobel said there would be many ideas to channel into one common vision.

“This is a conception. This is not written in stone,” he said. “We’re not saying this is absolutely what this is going to be. We don’t know that yet. This is the beginning of the process.”

O’Leary said it comes across as very much a performing arts layout.

“Perhaps something else, maybe fine arts, may change things very much,” he said.

[…]

http://lansdale.patch.com/articles/311-w-main-task-force-the-team

311 W. Main Task Force: The Team (video) Tony Di Domizio November 2, 2011

Advisors Assemble!

The 311 West Main Street Task Force convened for its inaugural meeting Tuesday night, where they elected a chairman and vice-chairman and reviewed the structural integrity and conceptual plans for the former performing arts center.

Councilman Mike Sobel was elected chairman of the task force by unanimous vote. He was nominated by councilwoman Mary Fuller and seconded by Robert Willi.

Charles Booz, owner of Chantilly Floral, was unanimously named vice chairman, nominated by Fuller and seconded by council president Matt West.

Task force member Amy Rims nominated James “Royale” Collins. However, Collins said he would be willing to work with anyone.

“I’d like to take a crack at it,” said Booz.

The Board Each member introduced himself and herself, and provided insight as to why they wanted to be on the task force.

Borough manager Timi Kirchner said Nancy DeLucia, director of policy and community engagement for the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and Brian O’Leary from the county planning commission will serve as ex-officio members of the task force.

“I’ve been working in this area for the last eight years. I’ve been coming up to Lansdale and working in other communities like Pottstown, Lansdowne, and a lot of older boroughs in our region,” she said. “Our organization has worked with many groups that have projects to bring to councils or performance facilities to bring to their communities.” […]

The Vision

Sobel, as chairman, thanked everybody on the task force and the audience in attendance.

“It’s going to be massive undertaking. I think if we all put our heads together and work diligently on this, we’re going to make this work very, very well,” he said. “We’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and work a little bit here.”

He said he wished he had a blackboard behind him, because what’s behind him in his imagination is a clean slate for the building and task force.

“I don’t want to get into any bashing or talk about the past. It’s happened. It’s history.

We’re not even interested in that anymore,” he said. “This is what we have to work with.

What can we do to make it right? The possibilities are endless.”

He said nothing gets done in the building with Fire Marshal Jay Daveler’s approval. He will make decisions on public safety and will be kept in the loop.

The most important thing is everybody has a vision of the building, and the task force is here to listen.

“We need community involvement here. We have a whole bunch of different ideas, different views, different points of view,” he said. “We will work with architects or experts with what’s feasible. It’s very, very hard to channel into one common goal and that’s a solution of what we need to do with this building.”

Kirchner then reviewed the ordinance with the task force, including its composition and direction.

She said the most important aspects of the task force are the following three things: Formulate recommendations and advise Borough Council on correction of the identified structural issues pertaining to applicable building codes and limitations of the structure itself.

Formulate recommendations and advise Borough Council on development of the facility that could support a wide range of programs for the varied needs of the Lansdale community including fine and performing arts programs as well as gatherings and events for neighborhood and community groups such as meetings, open houses, educational forums and various other social events. The goal is to make the Facility a downtown destination that will promote the economic vitality of the Borough. The recommendations should consider the role of the public sector and the role of the private sector in the development of the facility.

Formulate recommendations and advise Borough Council on the implementation of future management for 311 West Main and formulate recommendations related to the role of the public sector and the role of the private sector in the future management of

and ultimate success of 311 West Main as a multi-purpose facility with a diversity of programs for the varied needs of the Lansdale community.

“Welcome aboard everyone,” she said. “This is our team.”

Sobel said the team is going to have great participation from the community.

“I think we’re going to do just fine,” he said. “Let’s get ready and let’s go.”

http://www.selectgreaterphiladelphia.com/news/newsletter/2011/10/regionscultural.htm

Region's Cultural Organizations are Adapting During Recession Editor October 31, 2011

The recession has hit the region's arts and cultural sector hard, yet attendance was up and the number of cultural events was stable, according to the 2011 Portfolio report published by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

Among the key findings: •

• • •

Almost half of the 405 organizations that submitted information are in the red.

Operating margins (excluding investments), which had been thin in FY 2007 (+2%) became negative in FY 2009, dropping to -9%.

Revenues fell 12% excluding investments; including investments, revenues fell 43%.

Organizations reported much less margin for error. Working capital fell 24% and liquid assets dropped 12%.

Organizations made deeper workforce cuts to administrators than to artistic and programmatic staff. There was a 16% growth in the number of independent contractor positions and a 2% drop in full-time-equivalent jobs. Currently, only 39% of cultural positions in the region offer full-time employment.

"Arts and culture helps drive our economy, unite our communities and educate our children, and it is highly valued by residents of Greater Philadelphia," said Cultural Alliance President Tom Kaiden. "Portfolio 2011 tells the story of adversity, but it also tells the story of adaptation in the face of adversity."

The report found that attendance at arts and cultural events was up 5%; admissions prices and the number of cultural event were stable. There were almost 17 million annual visits to regional cultural organizations – equivalent to four visits for every resident of Southeastern Pennsylvania, with more than half free. And individuals proved to be the greatest source of support for cultural organizations during the recession, with revenue from admissions, tickets, tuition, subscriptions and individual donations up.

The report concludes with a call to action: " Our cultural sector is now operating in the red—a trend that is unsustainable … Both within and outside cultural organizations let us adapt to advance the civic vibrancy of the region we love."

http://blogs.phillymag.com/gphilly/2011/10/28/phillys-culture/

PHILLY’S FIRST FOR CULTURE Travel + Leisure readers like us, they really like us Natalie Hope McDonald October 28, 2011

Finally Philly catches a break. While our city usually ends up on all of the worst, ugly, scary and fat lists, for the first time readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked Philadelphia number one in the nation for culture in the “Americans’ Favorite Cities” survey. Philadelphia beat out not only New York City (second), but also Washington D.C. (third) and Chicago (fifth) in the overall rankings of cultural vitality.

The city’s also number one for “Historical Sites” and “Monuments,” and is in second place for “Classical Music.”

We also get a nod for having good street food, hamburgers and being, as they say, “Sports Crazed.”

“It’s great that readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked Philadelphia as first in the nation for culture. What’s exciting about this survey is that visitors are beginning to learn what our residents already know, that Philly is world-class destination for theater, music, museums and all kinds of cultural activities,” says Tom Kaiden, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

We also like to think the city’s bold LGBT tourism campaigns have had something to do with diversifying the way people view this town.