Orchestra gets $84k award for fiscal responsibility

Orchestra gets $84k award for fiscal responsibility

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norman lebrecht

November 16, 2017

Only in America…

Press release:
Georgia Symphony Orchestra awarded significant grant from Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta

[Marietta, Georgia] The Board of Directors of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, Inc. has approved a grant to the Georgia Symphony Orchestra in the amount of $84,000 from the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund.

The highly competitive General Operating Support grants are provided to organizations in the Metropolitan Atlanta area that demonstrate a culture of fiscal responsibility, commitment to community, high quality programs, and best practices in organizational structure and governance…

The Georgia Symphony Orchestra plans to strategically reinvest the significant funding within the organization as a means to strengthen and grow the programming, impact, and musical opportunities in the community…

Comments

  • Ungeheuer says:

    WTF. How about an award for musical/orchestral excellence (that rises above the mere anonymous and provincial)?

    • Paul Wells says:

      Since there can only ever be one award, you have an excellent point.

      • BillG says:

        A careful reading of the second para –

        “The highly competitive General Operating Support grants are provided to organizations in the Metropolitan Atlanta area that demonstrate a culture of fiscal responsibility, commitment to community, high quality programs, and best practices in organizational structure and governance…”

        hides this qualifier in plain sight, “. . . high quality programs. . .”

  • Halldor says:

    Hardly “only in America” – one of the criteria upon which the Arts Council of England awards grants is fiscal responsibility (also described as financial stability or sustainability). They have in the past withdrawn grants from companies that fail to meet these, irrespective of the artistic value of their work.

    As one of a range of criteria, it’s not actually a bad idea. Trustees of charities, as well as public bodies, have a responsibility to ensure that the funds they disburse are used well, and for the intended ends. Some call it “bean-counting”; I call it ensuring that artists can pay their mortgages and feed their families. Otherwise you end up with this sort of thing (whose managers made lots of pious noises about anti-elitism, art-for-arts sake, etc, before proceeding to piss £72 million of public money up the wall in one of the UK’s most economically-deprived regions):

    https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/aug/14/public-inevitable-end-arts-centre-architecture

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