Betsy Peterson, Fund for Folk Culture (bpeterson@folkculture.org) and Amy Kitchener, Alliance for California Traditional Arts (akitch@actaonline.org) send this info those of us who work in the folk arts:
If you work or with the Folk and Traditional Arts, please take 5 minutes to complete this online survey by February 5, 2009. Please forward this survey to your colleagues.
These are challenging times for many of us working in folk & traditional arts. It is vital that we gather this basic information about the effects of the recession on our field to improve our advocacy efforts by having data that is comparable to other sectors. With programs, jobs, and funding being cutback or eliminated it is imperative that we collect good information. To paraphrase President Obama, it's time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off & get on with the business of addressing these challenges and rethinking and remaking our field. We hope this survey is a step in that direction. But, it will ONLY work if you take the time to fill it out and to forward it to others working in our field.
Click here for survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=CZNbwiBVmVEy6eVkGDuYeA_3d_3d
The summary results will be shared immediately with the Obama Transition Team for the Arts which is retooling a new national arts and culture policy for the first time in America's history. It is CRITICAL that the Team understand our field's needs. The Team has requested all of the discipline-based national service organizations (such as Dance/USA, American Symphony Orchestra League, American Association of Museums, etc.) to compile parallel data. In order to be part of the stimulus planning with these other disciplines we must have data to share. The summary of findings will be posted on multiple websites inluding http://www.folkculture.org/ and http://www.actaonline.org/ for use by our field. We will inform you when they are posted.
