RACC Blog

Donate to the Oregon Cultural Trust: Impact of your Cultural Donations for Free

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If you gave to an arts and culture nonprofit this year (including RACC) you qualify to take advantage of Oregon’s cultural tax credit. The credit makes doubling the impact of your cultural giving free, but you have to act before December 31. As a supporter of arts and culture in Oregon, you don’t want to miss this opportunity! Here’s how it works:

  1. Make a donation to any one, or combination of, the 1400+ cultural non-profits in the state
  2. Donate the same amount to the Oregon Cultural Trust by Dec. 31
  3. Claim the cultural tax credit when you file your taxes. You will get 100% of the Trust donation back as a tax credit. Not a deduction. A credit.*

*up to $500 for individuals, $1000 for couples filing jointly, and $2500 for a class-C Corporation

I urge you to make your matching donation to the Cultural Trust before Dec. 31. Learn more here: http://culturaltrust.org/get-involved/donate/

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH7TRzEZSD

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Search Committee update for November 21

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Koya Leadership Partners has reached out to hundreds of potential candidates and continues to discuss the job with potential applicants. In addition, the opportunity has been posted on numerous websites and job boards targeted at arts leaders, cultural leaders and philanthropy professionals, with added emphasis on organizations that cater to diverse audiences.

Koya’s human capital group is providing the RACC Search Committee with an implicit bias training session on December 1st. After the training is completed, the Search Committee will begin reviewing some of the initial applications as presented by Koya.

The position profile is available online at https://koyapartners.com/search/racc-executive-director-21/. The position profile can also be downloaded as a PDF (3 MB).

Applications are still being accepted and will continue to be accepted through at least the end of December 2017. All inquiries should be directed to Koya Leadership Partners, a national retained executive search and human capital consulting firm.

 

 

Senate Restores NEA Arts Funding for FY’18

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Issued by Americans for the Arts on November 20,2017.

Thanks to you and thousands of Arts Action Fund members, we advanced another big victory today in the United States Senate to #SAVEtheNEA. Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who received our Congressional Arts Leadership Award this year, soundly rejected President Trump’s attempt to terminate the nation’s cultural agencies by fully restoring FY 2018 arts funding to $150 million for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Congress extended its deadline to December 8th to pass legislation to fund government agencies and programs, including the NEA.  At that time, they will need to either pass or further extend that deadline again in order to keep the government running. Other key factors still in play this fall include possible veto threats from the President, focus on tax reform, recovery funding, money to “build a wall,” and not reaching agreement on increasing the looming debt ceiling caps.

We’re close to the finishing line.  Help keep the pressure on Congress. Watch the above one million-plus viewed video featuring members of our Artist Committee speak out and then please come visit our online Action Center to send a message to Congress. See the Arts Action Fund blog for a detailed chart of the Senate-proposed budgets of the various federal arts agencies.

“Portlandia” display goes up at The Standard Plaza Building

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The $195 million, three year long renovation of the Portland Building has begun! Many already know that the City of Portland’s main administrative building is considered one of the first examples of Postmodern architecture, and that its western façade is the home of Raymond Kaskey’s iconic Portlandia. It is less well known however, that hundreds of additional public art works are normally housed within the building. This summer and fall RACC Public Art Collections staff prepared for the renovation by clearing the walls on all 15 floors of the Portland Building. Most of the contents of the 2nd floor Public Art Gallery also went into storage, but a few of the largest and most popular Portlandia related items will continue to be on display right across the street in The Standard’s Insurance Company’s Plaza Building.

This summer RACC reached out to The Standard to see if they would be interested in exhibiting Portlandia related artwork on the 2nd floor lobby of their Plaza Building at 1100 SW 5th Avenue. The L-2 lobby, with its towering floor-to-ceiling windows, looks directly across the street at Portlandia and the Portland Building. The response from The Standard was enthusiastic. Their team created space in the lobby, constructed additional display furnishings, and assisted RACC staff with the reinstallation of Kaskey’s original form and mold for Portlandia’s face. A tall pedestal and prominent location was also made for the 1/10th scale model created to guide the fabrication of the full sized sculpture.

What happens to the full-scale Portlandia during the renovation? The 35 foot tall symbol of our city will be completely covered for 15 months while work on the Portland Building façade takes place. During that time a “Portlandia fix” can be had at The Plaza Building where Kaskey’s delicately crafted scale model will serve as a stand-in. For a limited time, until the day Portlandia gets covered by her protective screening (sometime in late January) the public will have a unique opportunity to view both the large and small versions of the statue from the same spot on SW 5th Avenue.

Our sincere thanks go out to The Standard for their ongoing support of the arts and for making this display possible while the Portland Building is renovated!  www.standard.com.

See The Oregonian article, “City set to kick off $195M reconstruction of the Portland Building, shroud Portlandia statue.”

Four additional arts organizations to receive General Operating Support from RACC

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PORTLAND, ORE — The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has approved the addition of four nonprofit organizations to its roster of “General Operating Support” organizations that receive annual unrestricted funding from RACC in support of their mission. The four new “GOS” organizations are:

  • August Wilson Red Door Project, $12,000
  • CoHo Productions, $12,800
  • Oregon BRAVO Youth Orchestras, $14,600
  • Polaris Dance Theater, $12,300

These organizations bring to 55 the number of arts organizations in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties that receive annual, unrestricted operating support from RACC. GOS grants range in size from $8,000 to $427,000 per year depending on the size of the organization. A list of other GOS organizations and their historical funding amounts is available online at http://bit.ly/2y79puH.

“Last year we indicated our intention to distribute RACC resources more equitably, and to provide more groups with general operating support regardless of public and private funding increases,” said Jeff Hawthorne, RACC’s interim executive director. “Thanks to modest improvements in arts tax collections last year, and several internal budgeting adjustments, we are able to add these groups without reducing grants to other GOS organizations. We are also investing in a new capacity-building initiative for culturally specific arts organizations, and providing additional funds to groups that are doing deep equity and inclusion work within their organizations.”

Eleven organizations applied to be included in GOS this year. A panel of RACC board members, Angela Hult, Anita Menon, James Smith and Katherine Durham, ranked all organizations on established criteria that include financial health, artistic innovation and audience engagement. Among the four organizations recommended for funding, the panel noted a strong commitment to engaging with underserved communities, and plans to strengthen their ongoing equity work. The panel’s recommendations were approved by the RACC board on October 25.

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The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) provides grants for artists, nonprofit organizations and schools in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties; manages an internationally acclaimed public art program; raises money and awareness for the arts through Work for Art; convenes forums, networking events and other community gatherings; provides workshops and other forms of technical assistance for artists; and oversees a program to integrate arts and culture into the standard curriculum in public schools through The Right Brain Initiative. RACC values a diversity of artistic and cultural experiences and is working to build a community in which everyone can participate in culture, creativity and the arts. For more information visit racc.org.

RACC launches national search for new Executive Director

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(Posted October 26, 2017)

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) Board of Directors, together with its executive search firm Koya Leadership Partners, today released the job description for a new Executive Director. Applications are being accepted now, with a goal of having the new Executive Director in place next spring.

The position profile is available online at https://koyapartners.com/search/racc-executive-director-21/. The position profile can also be downloaded as a PDF (3 MB).

All inquiries about the position and search for candidates should be directed to Koya Leadership Partners, a national retained executive search and human capital consulting firm. The search committee selected Koya Leadership Partners because of their track record placing leaders in mission-driven organizations; their experience conducting searches for public arts agencies; and alignment with RACC on equity, diversity and inclusion.

“The RACC search committee and Koya Leadership Partners took an inclusive approach to designing the job description and the search process,” said Steve Rosenbaum, RACC’s board secretary and chair of the search committee. “We are confident that the search process will yield a new leader for RACC who is strategic and visionary, equity-focused and capable of building consensus.”

In June, RACC’s long-time Executive Director Eloise Damrosch retired, and the board spent the summer conducting a series of community conversations and surveys to reimagine and redefine the role of Executive Director going forward. RACC’s Director of Community Engagement, Jeff Hawthorne, has been serving as executive director in the interim.

 

 

Mauricio Robalino’s “Bird” sculpture was dedicated at Luuwitt View Park on 10/21

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Mauricio Robalino’s “Bird” sculpture was dedicated on Saturday, October 21st  as part of the Grand Opening of Luuwit View Park.  The Grand Opening was put on by Portland Parks & Recreation and ran from 11 am to 2 pm.  Attendance was high despite the rain. Events were officiated by Commissioner Amanda Fritz and began with a blessing by Native American Ed Edmo, a Shoshone-Bannock poet, story teller and educator. The artist, Mauricio Robalino, was introduced to the crowd by Parks Director Mike Abbaté and was enthusiastically cheered.

Mauricio’s abstracted “Bird” sculpture, which features glass mosaics sides, stands 16 feet high on a promontory on the western side of the park. Luuwit is the Native (Upper Cowlitz) word for Mount Saint Helens.

The park is located directly north of NE 127th Avenue and NE Fremont Street next to Shaver Elementary School.

For more information on Mauricio Robalino visit www.artpeople.com,  and for more information on Luuwit View Park https://www.portlandoregon.gov/parks/65392.

Fresh Paint sponsored by RACC & Open Signal

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Fresh Paint, a temporary mural wall project, began in early 2017 as part of a new professional development initiative of RACC’s Public Art Murals programming. Three artists have been selected to paint a temporary mural on an area of the exterior west-wall of Open Signal facing the highly-visible Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Each mural will be up for a period of four months and then painted over in preparation for the next mural.

The pilot program for Fresh Paint is a partnership between RACC’s Public Art Murals program and Open Signal, a community-driven media arts center. Artist participation required living in the Portland metropolitan area, having a consistent studio or mural practice, and not having received any public art commission through RACC nor having created an exterior mural in the City of Portland. The selected artists will receive a stipend for their participation and are offered the opportunity to engage with the myriad of resources at Open Signal.

Alex Chiu is the artist currently on display. His mural is a nod to stop motion animation, one of the many media classes offered by Open Signal. In addition, he will be teaching a youth animation class this fall.

 

Illustrator Molly Mendoza was the first artist to participate. On display from May – September, her mural was a nod to Open Signal’s youth programs with a vibrant image of Portland youth engaging with the community through broadcasting and video media. The third artist will be featured in early 2018.