GrantGrantss FORFOR THE THE ArtsArts The First 50 Years Acknowledgements Grants for the Arts appreciates the many who contributed recollections to this retrospective. We acknowledge all who have been important in our first 50 years, the hundreds of grantees, public and private donors, fellow funders, and the city’s many far-sighted policymakers and elected officials whose guidance and support over the decades have helped ensure GFTA’s continuing success. Edwin M. Lee, Mayor of San Francisco Amy L. Brown, Acting City Administrator Grants for the Arts Citizens Advisory Committee Clara Chun Daniels, Attorney, Kirin Law Group Berta Concha, Community Consultant Donna Ficarrotta, Managing Director, Union Square Business Improvement District Dan Goldes, Strategic Advisor, San Francisco Travel Linc King,Vice President and General Manager, Beach Blanket Babylon Ebony McKinney, Emerging Arts Professionals Jackie Nemerovski, Arts Manager/Consultant Tere Romo, Program Officer for Arts and Culture, The San Francisco Foundation Charles Roppel, Certified Professional Life Coach Ruth Williams, Program Officer, Community Technology Foundation Grants for the Arts Staff Kary Schulman, Director Renee Hayes, Associate Director Valerie Tookes, Senior Finance and Operations Manager Khan Wong, Senior Program Manager Brett Conner, Administration and Communications Manager Grants for the Arts … The First 50 Years Produced by San Francisco Study Center Reporter and Writer: Marjorie Beggs Editor: Geoff Link Designer: Lenny Limjoco Grants for the Arts’ first 25 years is documented in detail in “The San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund: Twenty-Five Years of Innovative Funding,” by Cobbett Steinberg, published in the Spring 1986 issue of Encore, the quarterly magazine of the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum. Much information in this text about Grants for the Arts’ early days is based on this lively, authoritative resource. Cover: City Hall. PHOTO: LENNY LIMJOCO Copyright ©2011 Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund GRANTS FOR THE ARTS 2 Grants FOR THE The First 50 Years Arts Foreword … San Francisco’s vibrant artistic life 4 Chapter 1 … The First 25 Years 7 Christopher’s crusade: Arts a surprisingly hard sell 7 1964: Mellon’s reign 10 1976: Boas as boss — brings in advisers 12 1981: P&A hires soon-to-be leader 16 Democratic grantmaking 18 Chapter 2 … Years 26-49 21 1986: Nothenberg — P&A gets a new name 21 1991: Cultural Affairs Task Force 24 2005: New task force calls for restructuring 29 GFTA and the private arts funders 33 Chapter 3 … Year 50, Looking Ahead 36 2011: GFTA at 50 36 The business of art 37 Zaccho aerialists rappel from the Ferry Building clock in Joanna Haigood’s 1995 “Noon.” ‘An investment in our prosperity’ 39 PHOTO: THEODORA LITSIOS Hotel taxes in other cities 41 Index 44 GRANTS FOR THE ARTS 3 San Francisco’s vibrant artistic life ne by one, the leaders of 50 San The money for the grants, more than Francisco arts and cultural groups $300 million since 1961, comes from the Omove to the front of the meeting Hotel Tax Fund as an annual allocation. room and, in their allotted three minutes, Grants for the Arts staff vet the applicants, highlight their activities during the past year. recommend awards and monitor the They cram in the good news: new and grants. For five decades, these grants have expanded programs, awards, collaborations, helped fuel one of the city’s powerful celebrations and milestones, pending economic engines: tourism. recordings and publications. And they At this March meeting, held in a city- touch on the less certain: their push to leased conference room three blocks from add audience and increase visibility, take City Hall, 38 current grantees share their greater artistic risks, seek permanent experiences as 12 new applicants pitch performance or exhibition venues, and, their programs to GFTA staff and advisory of course, find more funding. committee. GFTA Director Kary Schulman sits unobtrusively in the audience, alternately beaming and frowning at the encouraging or worrisome news about the state of San Francisco’s arts scene implicit in each group’s scenario. At the helm of Grants for the Arts for 31 years, Schulman knows the scene like few others, and has a reputation as a straight shooter who is prudent, yet has compassion for artists. GFTA staff and their 10-member Citizens Advisory Committee begin meeting each April in a four-month process to decide on awards for the coming fiscal year. Steep city budget deficits are expected, perhaps affecting GFTA’s final allocation, though the bottom line for grantmaking won’t be known for months. TenorSándor Kónya and “It’s a wing and a prayer every year,” This year, 15 new applicants hope to soprano Leontyne Price says Debi Durst, who has organized share the hotel tax bounty. If eligible and sing of their love in San Comedy Day in Golden Gate Park since they make the final cut, they’ll join more Francisco Opera’s 1961 the early 1980s. than 200 grantees on GFTA’s annual production of Madama Heads nod in accord. Some presenters’ docket. If they don’t, they’ll be encouraged Butterfly. groups are a few years old, others come to try again. Given the somber economic PHOTO: from venerable institutions. The recession news, GTFA worries it might be unable to CAROLYN MASON JONES has made all sympathetic to their peers’ fund any new groups, a setback that has plight, and everyone eagerly listens for seldom happened. signs of recovery. Nail-biting during funding cycles is It’s Grants for the Arts’ 2011 spring common, especially in hard times. After meeting, the annual convening of growing throughout the 1980s, dipping nonprofits that are funded — or hope after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, to be — by the city agency that turns then bumping up in the ’90s, hotel tax 50 this year. revenues slipped again after the dot-com GRANTS FOR THE ARTS 4 We have to reapply every year, but we don’t have to dance around and say we’re something we’re not. The grants say ‘‘ that we’re interesting, that we’re doing good work.” Barbara Heroux, artistic director Lamplighters Music Theatre bubble burst in 2000. Revenues plunged after 9/11, decimating tourism and diminishing GFTA’s sole funding resource. Allocations rose slightly, then tanked in 2008 when the recession hit. The last 10 years have been parti- cularly tough: In 2000, GFTA awarded $12.2 million to arts groups; by 2011, distribution, which varies according to the annual hotel tax collection and the health of the city’s overall budget, had slumped to $8.8 million. Despite roller-coaster allocations, Grants for the Arts remains this country’s oldest and most successful government Heidi Schweiker and Levi Toni perform Margaret Jenkins program supporting arts and culture using Dance Company’s “Danger Orange” at Justin Herman revenue from a city hotel tax. In a half Plaza, 2004. PHOTO: BONNIE KAMIN century, 502 groups have joined the GFTA family, and 92% of the 7,453 grants “The grants are for our season, and awarded have been for general operating that’s just so cool,” says Brenda Wong support, to any nonprofit the best kind Aoki of First Voice, the dance, theater and of grant there is. storytelling organization she and husband “That this money comes from the city Mark Izu founded in 1995 with perform- tells us San Francisco loves and supports ances based on Asian American life us,” says Barbara Heroux, artistic director experiences. of Lamplighters Music Theatre, producing “We’ll premiere a piece at home,” she Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas since 1952. says, “then take it on the road nationally Lamplighters’ first GFTA grant was in — it’s so wonderful to say you’re an artist 1962. That uninterrupted, 49-year support sanctioned by the city.” from the city amazes Heroux, who’s been Funding fairly with tax dollars is a with the company since 1974. “We have complicated grantmaking process, difficult to reapply every year, but we don’t have to keep impartial and equitable, divisive to dance around and say we’re something and negative if you don’t. we’re not,” she says. “The grants say that Peter Pastreich was Symphony execu- we’re interesting, that we’re doing good tive director from 1978-99. He remembers work.” how impressed he was in 1977 when he Lamplighters presents 20 to 30 per- arrived in San Francisco from St. Louis formances a year to a total audience of and heard about Grants for the Arts, then about 17,000, about 60% of them tourists. the Publicity and Advertising Fund. With a $1 million operating budget, “Its long-term general support seemed Lamplighters received $53,450 from so enlightened to me,” says Pastreich, now Grants for the Arts for 2011-12. executive director of the highly respected GRANTS FOR THE ARTS 5 unrestricted funds, to open the door, to promote ourselves, to pay staff.” Philharmonia Baroque’s first grant from GFTA was $15,000 in 1988. In 2010, its budget of $3 million was supported by a $105,700 grant. “The city made an intelligent decision 50 years ago,” Pastreich says. “The hotel owners, the supervisors, the mayors down the years, the people who’ve run Grants for the Arts — they’ve all recognized that the arts are uniquely important to our economy. And, as a result, we have a rich, vibrant artistic life today.” San Francisco’s reputation as an arts haven is well-deserved. Besides establishing the nation’s first Hotel Tax Fund in 1961, first Neighborhood Arts Program in 1967, first CETA arts program San Francisco Mime 30-year-old Philharmonia Baroque in 1975, it outspends most other cities on Troupe presents Turandot Orchestra, which performs baroque, the arts, even in tough times.