Back in the early 90s, when George Bush, Sr. was President, I remember being at a Federation board meeting when the advocacy request for the year was being discussed. It seems like a long time ago now, and it will seem even long ago when I tell you that when the Legislative Committee chair reported on the request for a funding increase that the committee was recommending, one of the board members, who was attending her second meeting of the board, declared that she could not in good conscience support a request for an increase for the councils when there were so many other pressing needs that the government should be attending to. There was a very long and somewhat stunned silence around the table, until one of the board members rallied and said, "I think we need to think of this request as part of the effort toward a kinder, gentler nation."
Even that "kinder, gentler" phrase seems quaint these days, when we have substituted for that aspiration a hope that we should at least try to be civil, but the admonition about all the other needs in a very tight budget climate is one you should be prepared to respond to in your visits this week. It's a valid question, but I want to encourage you not to be daunted by it. The work you are doing deserves at least twice the federal support it is receiving. If it got four times the current support, the country would be far better off than it is right now, tight budgets or not.
So let me review some of the components of our message, and as usual, the best suggestions I have to give you come from your own messages to me.
First, the federal funding available at the state level through the state humanities councils is a lifeline at present for community institutions and organizations. Last year in this setting I suggested that the economic message, though important, was not where our real strength lay. I still believe there are many more important long-term reasons for Congress to support your program. But over the past year it has become increasingly clear that state councils are unmistakably contributing to the health of the economy and the survival of the cultural infrastructure in the communities they serve. In response to the request I put out for information on the impact of your support for small institutions and organizations, I received statistics both sobering and impressive.
* Several councils reported that they were received twice as many grant proposals last year than in previous years
* The New Hampshire council, just as an example, reported that the number of organizations asking for programs rose by 109 percent from 2008 to 2009
* The Wisconsin council-one of the councils that reported double the average number of proposals in their most recent major grant round-further reports that the council is often the only possible source of funding. This is especially true in those areas where these organizations are also the only source of programming for their citizens.
* The New York council reported that more than half the organizations they work with have had to cut services or staff, and that 86 percent of those organizations would not have been able to conduct humanities programs without the council. Indeed, the council kept afloat the only cultural center for African, Caribbean, and African-American humanities in Upstate New York.
* The Oklahoma council, seeing the devastating cuts made by the state legislature, created a new grant line called "Partnership/Program Contracts" and invited state agencies with seriously reduced budgets to enter into one-year contracts with the council of up to $20,000.
* The Nebraska council recently changed their grantmaking policies to allow open budgeting for grant to organizations that have had a successful ten-year funding history with the council. Since last April, nearly half the organizations funded by the council were eligible to use 75 percent of their grant money to sustain their organizations.
Even when council grant funds are not contributing directly to financial viability of organizations, they are definitely doing so in an indirect way by enabling them to remain a vital presence in their communities. One library reported to the New York council that "Our adult programming budget is very small and shrinking. Our community is hungry for the kind of intellectually stimulating programming we have been able to provide through the assistance of the New York council." Erik Jorgensen of Maine makes the point that "lively programming is essential to local organizations making their case to the public and enlisting community support." A number of councils reported that many libraries and other organizations in small communities no longer have a program budget at all, and council programs therefore constitute the only offerings they can claim in serving their citizens.
Some of you told me you were not sure that you could claim that your grantmaking saved jobs, but I hope you will not be shy about asserting the critical role your programs are making in ensuring the economic, social, and intellectual vitality of your state's institutions and organizations-and by extension the individuals and communities they serve.
Second, and even more important for the long-term health of the country, these programs that you support in libraries and museums and other organizations are not simply ways for citizens to pass the time but are substantive, educational, enriching experiences for both citizens and communities. Over and over, in the materials I received from all of you, I heard accounts of programs that create opportunities for reflection on important and often difficult issues. These discussions sometimes take place around discussions of books, sometimes in response to a stimulating speaker, sometimes in facilitated discussions involving people holding very different viewpoints, sometimes through reflection on a film or an exhibit. They always get people thinking-not just reacting but actually thinking. Who knows what changes for the good this might lead to?
Councils have always been seen as honest brokers, their programs viewed as neutral ground, a safe space for expression and exchange of ideas and viewpoints, even when those viewpoints differ. The programs you have reported to me cover all the topics that it is essential for the citizens of this country to address at this particular moment in our history-immigration, race relations, religious and ethnic differences, the economy, the environment, medical ethics-all seen through the lens of the humanities. But the programs don't have to address controversial issues to make a difference. Simply looking at a community's history has the capacity to move the members of that community to a greater understanding of their current circumstances. Learning about the culture of a new immigrant group can increase the acceptance and appreciation of that group by community members and ease the transition to a new home for the newcomers. The need for programs that educate, enlighten, and expand minds simply cannot be overestimated at this time, when the national dialogue is characterized by inflammatory rhetoric and polarization and when the problems before us are so challenging and so intractable if only tired and divisive methods of addressing them are applied.
Third, councils are not providing resources just for existing institutions and individuals. They are also providing invaluable resources for the future, through the support for K-12 education in your communities. The teacher institutes in Texas, in Alabama, in New Jersey, and in dozens of other states where councils provide this support are both educating and inspiring teachers, who go back to their classrooms with renewed energy and new knowledge. These and the other resources you provide for teachers, including a whole new range of online resources, as well as the enrichment of the classroom experience through support for such partnership programs as Capitol Forum and National History Day-these are an invaluable investment in the future of our nation.
I know you all have packets of materials that describe such efforts in detail. I know these materials will show your members what an incredibly good investment the state humanities councils are, even in tight times.
Last Sunday the Washington Post published an editorial that recounted a speech made to Congress twenty years ago by Vaclav Havel. "Havel gave a brilliant speech," he said, "perhaps most of all for its affirmation that political destiny is not fixed by materials forces, as Soviet Marxists had claimed, but is a product of people and ideas. At the center of the speech was this passage: 'The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility.'" This is your work, promoting ideas and reflection and responsibility for the betterment of our world. They need to know how well you are doing it. You just need to tell them.