Corporate Funding to the Arts: Giving in the Recession of 2008/2009

This essay describes the corporate funding atmosphere of the 2008/2009 recession and analyzes its effects on nonprofit arts organizations. Through a series of interviews with various program officers at five corporate philanthropy programs, I lay out several patterns in the current funding behaviors of corporate funding to the arts and propose a number of strategies for withstanding the economic recession of 2008/2009 that arts organizations may consider.