Granted, It’s a Big Task . . .

This may be the season of conspicuous getting and giving, but there’s a certain kind of gift giving that goes on all year. It’s called philanthropy, and in the world of nonprofit theater, the grants that are its most common form are no less than lifeblood.

Without grants, after all, many small and mid-size organizations would die. Likewise, larger institutions would have to cut back on a range of vital programs, including education and community outreach.

Yet arts philanthropy--even apart from the nearly decade-old brouhaha about controversial projects funded by the National Endowment for the Arts--has never been free from internal disagreements. With no single Santa calling the shots, there is ongoing debate, even among those who agree that the arts should be subsidized with public funds, over how best to nurture grant recipients.

Some say the best way is to fund specific projects by specific artists. Others like to give money, or other kinds of support, to organizations on an annual or seasonal basis. The former is more of a know-where-your-money-goes approach; the latter is the grant giver’s version of the old adage “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”

Such are the choices facing those who fund the arts here in L.A., including the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the granting body that takes funds from the NEA, the California Arts Council and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and channels them back to the county’s arts organizations. As one of Los Angeles’ key public arts funders--along with the city of L.A.’s Cultural Affairs Department--the county arts commission has long embraced both strategies.

Recently, however, the county commission announced a restructuring of its programs. The new emphasis will be on stabilization grants to mid-size organizations, meaning those with annual budgets ranging from $100,000 to $800,000.

Given that the commission will award a record $1,269,000 in grants this year--up from $730,000 in 1997-98, thanks to matching grants from the Board of Supervisors--this is likely to make a difference to its 115 grantees, if not to the arts life of the city in general.

The commission’s definition of “mid-size” is not to be confused with the term mid-size used in reference to venues. Mid-size venues have long been in comparatively short supply in Los Angeles, and while that situation continues largely unrectified, it’s only tangentially related to the county commission’s focus on groups with mid-size budgets.

Rather, the kind of groups it targets ranges from the very modest in producing capacity (such as We Tell Stories), to those that are in small venues but growing (such as Deaf West Theatre Company), to those housed in larger facilities and, in some cases, still expanding (such as East West Players and A Noise Within). What the 15 theater companies that received grants in the mid-size category have in common, however, is enough of a track record to justify a serious attempt at organizational stabilization.

In other words, this is philanthropy that proceeds from the premise that keeping a theater going and growing is just as difficult as starting one. The commission’s intent is not simply to support the groups’ work, but also to create, or shore up, its organizational infrastructure. And the form that may take can range from supplementing administrative salaries to providing technical assistance--which can mean anything from teaching marketing skills to creating a Web site.

This focus on mid-size organizations grew out of a pilot program launched by the commission in 1992: the Arts Organization Stabilization Initiative. And now the county arts commission’s new mid-size grant program is, in turn, going to be watched by the National Arts Stabilization project. For the next three years, it and three other international groups will be studied and evaluated as prototypes of programs aimed at sustainability. The results should shed some light on the long-term care feeding of the majority of L.A.’s arts organizations.

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In other grant news . . . the two theaters that received Los Angeles County Arts Commission funds in its large-budget category were the Pasadena Playhouse, which was allocated a grant of $15,530 to help with the marketing of “If Memory Serves,” and the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, which received $60,000 to support educational and community outreach. The Taper, it should also be noted, has been doing particularly well lately when it comes to winning grants from sources outside L.A.

In early 1998, the Taper’s Latino Theater Initiative received an NEA/Theater Communications Group grant to fund the residency of Caridad Svich. A former playwright-in-residence at Intar in New York, Svich studied with veteran playwright Maria Irene Fornes.

Svich, who is also a translator, has spent her tenure at the Taper developing herself as a writer and working with other Latino artists. In the former regard, she fine-tuned a new script, “Prodigal Kiss,” for inclusion in the Taper’s New Work Festival, which ends today. And in the latter, she has been conducting workshops with emerging writers, as well as providing online dramaturgy to an additional group of playwrights who live outside L.A.

Although Svich’s grant is up in January, she will stay on at the Taper. “We’re going to keep her on, through the LTI budget,” explains Latino Theater Initiative co-director Luis Alfaro. “She’s part of our team.” Which isn’t to say theatergoers should be looking to see Svich’s adventurous work on the main stage any time soon. “It breaks my heart to say it, but she’s not the kind of writer the Taper does,” says Alfaro. “But she’s a writer who can at least be in these meetings [at the Taper] and bring up that [alternative] point of view.”

Another Taper artists’ group, the Other Voices Project, has also received funding for a playwright residency. In this case, the California Arts Council is picking up the tab for the stay of playwright Lynn Manning, through the summer. Manning’s residency will include introductory theater workshops, including one in progress in the Neuro-Rehabilitation Department at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital.

This workshop and another, which will be held at the Taper in early 1999, are geared to the needs of young people who’ve become disabled through acts of violence, as did Manning himself. The playwright (“Private Battle,” “Love Is Blind”), whose work has been seen at the Taper’s New Work Festival and elsewhere, was shot in the eye and blinded in a bar brawl at age 23. He has since gone on to win acclaim for his writing and his achievements in the martial arts.

HOLIDAY NUGGETS: As if the L.A. County Arts Commission weren’t busy enough passing out the dough, the commission is also giving away nuts. The group presents its free annual holiday marathon of theater, dance and music at the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday, from 3 to 9 p.m. This year’s lineup features both L.A.-based and visiting companies in a number of versions of--what else?--”The Nutcracker.”

The theater portion of the holiday celebration program will be presented by We Tell Stories, one of the grantees mentioned above. The group weighs in with “Nutcracker Behind the Scenes,” a piece that presents a half-dozen varied approaches to the parts of the ballet’s story line that the dance versions don’t cover.

Information: (213) 974-1396.