Hi Everyone,

Here is the latest COVID-19 news and update from AFTA.

Best,

Jessica Stern

Private Sector Initiatives Programs Manager

Americans for the Arts

212-223-2787 x2077

From: Jerelle Jenkins <jejenkins@artsusa.org>
Subject: September 15, Coronavirus (COVID-19) News Update

Greetings,

Here’s the latest Coronavirus (COVID-19) news…

A reminder that we are circulating this news digest weekly on Tuesday. We are continuing to update the Resource Center on a regular basis. If you see interesting or helpful items or have a resource to share, please email me at jejenkins@artsusa.org.

We invite you to share this news roundup with your networks and colleagues.

AFTA NEWS/UPDATES

• COVID-19’s Impact on The Arts Research Update: September 8, 2020 The coronavirus has had a devastating impact on America’s arts sector. Since the first U.S. case was reported on January 20, 2020 cancellations and closings are taking place at thousands of arts organizations across the country, and two-thirds of the nation’s artists are now unemployed. Americans for the Arts leads the three premier national studies tracking the human and financial impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on the arts.
• #artcreateshope. Tell us how the arts create hope for you! Share your story on social media of the arts creating hope in your life. Don't forget to tag @americans4arts and include #ArtsCreateHope in your posts. Need a little inspiration? Use our sample language and download images to get your social post started.
• OFFICE HOURS! Extended through the end of this year on Fridays (excluding holidays) from 11:00a to 12:00p EDT. Join Nina Ozlu Tunceli with the Americans for the Arts Action Fund to get answers to your most pressing questions about navigating the CARES Act relief programs. Check the link for any additional dates or occasional blackout dates.  
• CARES Act Table of Federal Arts Funding Opportunities – This helpful table breaks down the CARES Act so you can determine which funding opportunities apply to you, whether you represent a nonprofit organization, a governmental agency, a commercial arts company, a self-employed gig worker, or just a taxpayer. The table is regularly updated and links to helpful FAQs are listed on the last page.
• Book Nina for your next local, state, or national webinar related to CARES Act funding for the arts and/or ArtsVote 2020 legislative and political activities. Free for members.
• Please complete our revised COVID-19 survey for organizations. It still collects the critical up-to-date estimates that we need for our collective advocacy efforts. However, we’ve removed less relevant questions and added short sections on re-opening plans and the impact of the racial equity movement. You can keep up with the survey results by visiting the project dashboard as well as by downloading a handy 1-page summary of all our COVID-19 impact research. Link to Revised Survey: https://surveys.americansforthearts.org/s3/CoronavirusImpactSurvey
• Sample plans for reopening: AFTA is collecting and sharing reopening plans. Some communities are closer than others to restarting businesses and allowing the public back into museums and cultural sites. As we receive examples of plans to reopen (please send them to services@artsusa.org), we will be sharing them on the resource center. 

FIELD PROGRAMMING

(We will feature new offerings here – free to low-cost opportunities. Previous listings have been moved down to below the signature)

• Sept. 16 12:00p ET: Legal Issues of Livestreaming

Because of COVID-19, many performing arts organizations are considering livestreaming events or presenting prerecorded performances online, but there are many legal issues for presenters and artists to consider before moving into this new realm of arts programming. On Wednesday, September 16 from 12-1 pm, Georgia Lawyers for the Arts and Georgia Council for the Arts are presenting a webinar on the Legal Issues of Livestreaming. This session will present a broad overview of the issues performing arts organizations and artists should consider before livestreaming or presenting taped events. Participants may ask questions of the presenter.

• Sept. 16 - Oct. 21, Wednesdays 2:30p - 3:45p ET: Starting SmART: Strategies for Dealing with the Money Side of Your Creativity

Starting SmART: Strategies for Dealing with the Money Side of Your Creativity is a six-week process to jumpstart excellent financial habits for your creative career. Each session will address a common financial question faced by creative entrepreneurs through an action-oriented answer. Participants will receive materials and personalized answers to their questions throughout. All sessions will be recorded, so participants can catch up if they miss a session.

• Oct. 7, 2:00p ET: Fast Forward to Digital: Government Billing and Payment Trends by Generations

Billing and payment preferences for citizens are evolving, a trend that was true before COVID and that has been accelerated by the pandemic. Now, with the push to move services online, local officials must understand how preferences and security concerns differ across generations, what new payment methods are emerging and how to serve all citizens within the county. This webinar, developed in partnership with ACI Worldwide and the National Association of County Collectors, Treasurers, and Finance Officers, will address these issues and share consumer research findings on each topic.

• ON DEMAND - 2020 Awakening: Reimagining Art for the New Normal Hosted by Artist Relief, members of For Freedoms and the Wide Awakes joined to discuss the art community's role in the age of COVID and the possibilities ahead. In this current moment and new era, how can art serve efforts toward equality, justice, and healing?

FIELD NEWS

• Indianapolis Monthly: How COVID-19 is Drawing The Curtain On Local Performing Arts Groups
• Washington Post: While members of Congress chew the scenery, the arts wait for scraps
• The Art Newspaper: It is not just artists who are starving: how the US can rebuild its creative industry post-COVID
• The Washington Post: New York City can't rebound without Broadway. And Broadway's road back is uncertain.
• Associations Now: Associations Focused on Communicating Value as They Navigate Pandemic-Driven Challenges
• Fast Company: Are concerts, festivals, and live events ever coming back? Here's what 6 experts say
• NaCo: Senate's Targeted COVID-19 Package Fails to Advance; Path Forward Remains Unclear

• Associations Now: Coronavirus Tracker: Vaccine Distribution Will Be "the Mission of the Century"
• MUSEUMS

• American Alliance of Museums: Bridging Isolation: The Anchorage Museum's Virtual Movement Workshops for Older Adults during COVID-19
• American Alliance of Museums: "My Primary School is at the Museum…During the Pandemic"

• THEATRE & DANCE

• Broadway World: GALA Hispanic Theatre Shares Safety Guidelines in Place for October Reopening
• BalletMet: A Message from BalletMet Leadership
• Broadway World: Artists Gather in Times Square for Be An #ArtsHero Campaign
• American Theatre: How to Teach Design in a Pandemic? Software and Social Distance, for Starters
• Observer: Without Rent Relief, 60 percent of NYC's Independent Theaters May Close for Good
• ABC 6: CAPA furloughs nearly 400 positions amid COVID-19 pandemic
• American Theatre: Online This Week: Dates Vs. Streams
• Theatre Story Archive, an oral history project, is currently collecting Quarantine Stories from actors, stage hands and audiences. The goal of the project is to capture the feelings, experiences, and responses to the challenge of COVID-19 in our individual and shared lives. Theatre communities create together in shared spaces and with shared energy. Artists have an impulse to create and share stories with others. We have had to wrestle with creating art in new ways or not being able to create art. Social media can’t capture the depth of our stories. Let’s share the valuable connections we have and our impulse to create by capturing the setting, the feelings, the journey that each of us has gone through and are still going through. We are storytellers, often of the stories of other characters, however, there is power in telling of own stories and connect through the diversity of our lived experiences.

• RELIEF FUNDS

• Authors League Fund: Aid amounts vary depending on the applicant’s writing credentials and the severity of their emergency. During the COVID-19 crisis, our support is modest and based on a set of standard amounts, but available to most qualified applicants. This emergency fund helps authors, journalists, and poets struggling to pay basic living expenses and/or facing medical crises. No deadline.

GENERAL NEWS

• Bloomberg: Investing in the Arts Will Speed Economic Recovery
• University of Denver: Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Marketing
• Nonprofit Quarterly: A Pandemic Pivot: The University of Chicago and the City
• TIME: As Colleges Open During a Pandemic, Student Life Remains Closed
• NPR: Report on the Impact of Coronavirus On Households in Major U.S. Cities
• Reuters: How drugmakers can keep their pledge and still deliver an October vaccine surprise
• Huffpost: What's The Best Way to Store Face Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

EQUITY/MENTAL HEALTH

• The Lily: Positive affirmations and playing solitaire: This is what helps with my anxiety
• Artist Relief: Artist Wellness: Meditation, Herbalism, and More Here are some movement, mindset, and energy healing tools to remind yourself that you *always* have access to deep creative power, no matter what the circumstance.
• CIDRAP: COVID-19 tied to poorer parent and child mental health
• The Lily: An Ohio county had the second-highest infant mortality rate in the nation. Then they started listening to Black moms.
• Darien Arts Center: Parenting During A Pandemic

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

• Good News Network: Two-thirds of Americans Believe They Have Become a Better Person This Year
• Hyperallergic: A Rom-Com Miniseries Made Entirely in Quarantine
• The Lily: I've survived working from home in a studio apartment for 6 months. Here's how.
• Good News Network: Grandmother-Grandaughter Team Delight Community with Enchanting Fairy House Tours

Thanks for reading. We hope you find this news digest to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at services@artsusa.org. If you were forwarded this and want to sign up for the Local Arts Network listserv to receive it directly, click here.

____________________

Jerelle Jenkins

Local Arts Services Coordinator

Americans for the Arts

FIELD PROGRAMMING

• Sep 15, 1:00p: APAP Break/Room Conversations

In partnership with Sozo Creative and sponsored by Rena Shagan Associates and Performing Arts Readiness, join APAP for another installation of APAP BREAK/ROOM Conversations on Tuesday, September 15th , 2020 from 1pm - 5pm EDT. APAP BREAK/ROOM Conversations is a unique series of virtual dialogues with leaders across our field---artists, presenters, producers, agents, managers, funders and other cultural workers---launched in response to the current crisis. Industry voices engage in discussions to provide insight and thinking about the current crisis, stabilization, recovery and transformation.

• Sep 16, 3:00p: Supporting Individual Artists: Keep Arts Working - Creating More Than A Message

On March 14th, 2020, the Arts Council for Long Beach cancelled its monthly art walk because of COVID-19 health orders. We knew that this moment was already catastrophic because so many artists sell their art, perform their music, and promote their practice to the community during this event. So, on March 26th, we launched our first virtual live stream event and created the Keep Arts Working project. Since then we have partnered with 2 local media outlets, more than a dozen businesses, and over 25 artists of various genres. We are still finding new partners daily. Keep Arts Working has continued to grow after Long Beach residents protested George Floyd's murder and the city met social unrest on May 31st. The project was adopted by the city and other business improvement partners in order to address the damage left on June 1st. This project and marketing campaign is strongly grounded in valuing grassroots connections that can be uplifted with established communication organizations.

• Sep 17, 2:30p: Small Businesses & COVID-19: Supporting Firms at Risk of Failure

More than 400,000 U.S. small businesses are estimated to have failed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite a range of approaches taken by the federal government to support firms through shutdowns—including loans, payroll support, and grants—hundreds of thousands of additional small businesses are at risk of failing. If the federal government does not develop a cohesive, robust policy solution to counter reduced consumer demand, the continued devastation of small businesses will slow the economic recovery, worsen labor market conditions, and weaken productivity growth for years to come.

• Sep 25, 8:00a: "Events" in the Post-"Information" Age

Will the word information acquire new meanings under the pressure of technological transformations caused by the Covid-19 digital lockdown? How will people understand, define and experience major or minor events when they are limited to virtual encounters, online meetings and social media catch-ups? The webinar will interrogate old meanings and explore emerging connotations of what becomes information and whither the nature of an event in the seamless enfolding of the two in the online world.

ON-DEMAND - Because That's Where The Money Is: Fully Secured Borrowing For the Arts

Fully secured borrowing is our approach to borrowing for nonprofits that has been used for over four decades. It really works. It places control in your hands, not the lender. It is available to all nonprofits. And this includes every art-related nonprofit. In this webinar, you will learn about an approach that is particularly well suited for these COVID-19 times. You will see how you can use this resource as a solid base for all your fundraising and earned revenue strategies. You will discover how to do this for your organization and how to quickly and easily place a firm fiscal foundation under your institution as you move ahead. Through the resources listed on this event page, you will have all the documents that you need to successfully use this approach. While we cannot know the future, we can prepare ourselves to adapt in a way that works.