The Heritage Foundation formulated a number of arguments against the NEA decades ago. These arguments are listed below with corresponding rebuttals.

Americans for the Arts knows that engaging business employees through volunteerism and the arts is key to fostering a desirable work environment, increasing efficiency and morale, and doing good in the community. We're pleased to announce the release of our fourth workbook in a series dedicated to helping nonprofits start arts-based employee volunteer and engagement programs, focused on Berea College's AIR Institute arts incubator program.

Today's The Hill newspaper carried a disturbing but not unexpected article related to funding for the arts in the incoming administration. The article said that policy advisors to the President are calling for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and privatizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

From the beginning, the goal of the NAMP program has been to connect, strengthen, and advance our nation’s growing community of arts marketers. The new website provides arts marketers with an improved and dynamic digital space to grow and connect in their community, with four distinct spaces to get smarter, get together, get involved, and get inspired. 

Vans invites high school art students throughout the country to join in the eighth annual Vans Custom Culture art competition to embrace youth creativity and support arts education. Starting today, high school art teachers can register their classes to compete for the grand prize of $50,000 towards their art program by creating their most artistic and inventive designs using blank Vans shoes as their canvas.

As Congress and the Trump Administration prepare the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2018, Americans for the Arts is working to remind our elected officials about the economic importance of federal funding for the arts, specifically through the National Endowment for the Arts. This morning, ads appeared in the New York Post and The Hill newspapers with the bold headline “The Arts Put America to Work.”

Americans for the Arts wants you to elect art professionals from the field to serve on one of four network advisory councils: Arts Education, Emerging Leaders, Private Sector, and

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner closed all state museums on September 30; he cited the closures as “part of his efforts to manage state finances” while a budget deal with Democratic Legislature is still being negotiated. Chairman of the State Museum Board Guerry Suggs decried the governor’s actions and said that the closure of the 138-year-old museum in Springfield and its four satellite facilities will only save the state less than $400,000 of the Illinois' projected $5 billion budget deficit. 

Americans for the Arts invites all Americans to celebrate October as National Arts & Humanities Month (NAHM). Towns and communities across the country are hosting special events that capture the spirit that the arts and humanities bring to everyday life. 

Turnaround Arts and Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts announce a national partnership to support arts-integrated learning in early childhood classrooms across the country. Through in-class services for young children, ongoing training for educators, and resource development for the early childhood community at-large, the two organizations will work together to use the arts as a tool to improve student outcomes and school culture.

Illinois is entering its second month without a passed budget after Governor Rauner vetoed the Legislature’s proposed Fiscal Year 2016 budget—the Legislature did not support the governor’s reforms and surpassed state revenues by $3 billion. To cut down on government expenses due to the budget stalemate, Gov. Rauner ordered the closure of state facilities which include five state museums.

Composer Jimmy López will make his operatic debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago this winter, largely thanks to the decision to upload his vocal music onto YouTube. After an extensive quest for a composer to musically adapt Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto to the operatic stage, Lyric Opera came across Lopez’s samples on YouTube and immediately contacted him.