James Irvine Foundation
Since 2006, the James Irvine Foundation has provided capacity-building grants and technical support to regional arts organizations throughout southern and central California as part of its Arts Regional Initiative (ARI). The San Francisco-based foundation now has an endowment of over $1.8 billion dollars and provides grants to more than 3,000 nonprofits to "expand opportunity for the people of California to participate in a vibrant, successful, and inclusive society."
Arts organizations are currently working against tough odds: California is the lowest arts grantmaker of any state in America at just three cents per capita. In addition to the lack of government support, individual contributions and ticket sales have decreased in recent months due to the economy.
"Not only are there very limited dollars from government agencies for the arts," said John McGuirk, Irvine's Program Director in the Arts, "but we can also see how the recession impacts earned and contributed dollars. TCC Group has been a great resource when we've had to restructure grants based on the effects of the recession." TCC Group has been a strong partner, he adds, in helping our grantees achieve success.
Each of the 41 grantees of the Arts Regional Initiative received three-year grants to build their internal capacity (such as board development and leadership) and to fortify core programming, all in an effort to increase community access to and encourage greater cultural participation in the arts.
TCC Group helped Irvine through each step along the way, from ARI's inception to implementation. In the early stages, we assisted with proposal design, shepherded potential grantees through the application process, and developed surveys to determine grantee capacity-building needs. As the initiative progressed, we organized community-learning events and provided ongoing coaching to cohorts of grantees.
Another important component of TCC Group's work with Irvine has been to increase communication and learning among cohorts of grantees through a variety of media vehicles, including online social-networking sites, where grantees share information and lessons learned. "It's not just an information download," says McGuirk. "Grantees learn a lot from each other." On the TCC-managed site, member organizations can dialogue and ask questions. Experts in the field are often brought in to discuss particularly complex questions, to the benefit of all involved. McGuirk went on to say that "TCC's work has led our grantees to have increased clarity about their vision, planning, governance, leadership, and management."
