NEW YORK, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Rockefeller Foundation announced the opening of its 2010 New York City Cultural Innovation Fund competition. The fund, established in 2007, annually awards $2.5 million in grants - ranging between $50,000 and $250,000 - to spur and support cultural innovation in New York City's creative sector, a vital economic engine. Today's announcement comes after a difficult economic year for the industry in which 80 percent of NYC's nonprofit cultural organizations were forced to reduce their budgets and more than half have reduced staff and postponed or canceled programs.
The Rockefeller Foundation also announced today that Edwin Torres has been hired to replace the long serving Joan Shigekawa, who recently left the foundation for a position as Senior Deputy Chair for the National Endowment for the Arts. Torres comes to the Foundation from Parsons the New School for Design where he was Director of external partnerships. Prior to his work at Parsons, Edwin worked at the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Ford Foundation. Torres will oversee the Foundation's Cultural Innovation Fund competition, as well as being responsible for the Foundation's New York City grant making.
