Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin announced today the first award recipients of the Foundation's $2.6 millionNew York City Cultural Innovation Fund. The Fund celebrates innovation and the creative sector through grants for trailblazing initiatives that strengthen the City's cultural fabric. "The sixteen organizations selected to receive grants from our New York City Cultural Innovation Fund embody the excitement, diversity and dynamism of the City's creative wellspring," said Dr. Rodin. "We're delighted that these creative pioneers -- through their performances, festivals, community events and other visionary projects -- will energize the cultural vitality of the city that has been the Rockefeller Foundation's home for nearly 100 years." Individual grants -- between $50,000 and $250,000 -- over a two-year period are being awarded. New recipients of the Fund will be awarded annually. A major impetus behind the Rockefeller Foundation's creation of the New York City Cultural Innovation Fund was a 2005 report, prepared by the Center for an Urban Future, entitled "Creative New York," which presented troubling evidence that new economic pressures may result in New York City losing its traditional creative and competitive edge as a global cultural leader.
One of the recipients is the Museum of Chinese in America for The Chinese American Experience, a comprehensive historical interactive exhibition to mark the debut of its new museum in Chinatown. (Source: Reuters, Dec 7, 2007).