Racial Equity

Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) is committed to addressing structural inequities and increasing philanthropic and government support for BIPOC artists and arts organizations. Racial equity is a lens through which GIA aims to conduct all of its work, as well as a specific area of its programming.

Since 2008, GIA has been elevating racial equity as a critical issue affecting the field. To actualize this work within the sector, GIA published its Racial Equity in Arts Funding Statement of Purpose in 2015. Through webinars, articles, convenings, and conference sessions, GIA provides training and information to support arts funders in addressing historic and structural inequity through their grantmaking practices as part of an effort for racial justice as a means toward justice for all.

GIA believes that all oppressed groups should benefit from funding. We give primacy to race because racism is the means by which oppressed groups are manipulated into opposing programs that assist them. Therefore, Grantmakers in the Arts’ equity work – including our discussions of support for trans artists, artists with disabilities and for disability arts – is NOT race-exclusive but IS race-explicit. GIA’s vision for the future of our work is to increasingly reveal how the liberation of all oppressed people is interdependent.

GIA has made a strategic decision to foreground racial equity in our work for several reasons:

  • Within other oppressed peoples’ communities (including women, members of the lgbtqi community, people with disabilities, and others), it has been well-documented that people of color still face the worst social outcomes.
  • GIA feels that others’ strategies of combining considerations of race with other considerations too often result in racialized people being pushed into the background or ignored.
  • The U.S.’ creation of race was established to keep oppressed peoples separate.

Unless we articulate our support for racialized peoples, while calling out this separation strategy, we inadvertently reinforce this separation strategy.

Specific themes of our racial equity programming include:

  • The analysis of how funding practices create structural challenges for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)/ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native-American) organizations (Eurocentric quality standards, matching requirements, among others).
  • The impact of these practices, as manifest in racialized disparities in levels of funding.
  • An exploration of the use of coded language to justify racial inequity (i.e. referring to white audiences as “general” or “mainstream,” while organizations of color are “culturally-specific.”

When it comes to self-identifying language, GIA seeks to use terms that communicate our respect. We do not seek to impose language on members of any group. We respect the manner in which anyone prefers to self-identify. When referring to issues of racial equity, “we use the term BIPOC to highlight the unique relationship to whiteness that Indigenous and Black people have, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to white supremacy for all people of color within a U.S. context.” We take this explanation and practice from the BIPOC Project.

GIA has also used the racial and ethnic identifiers African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American. We have used African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American – represented using the acronym ALAANA – because we know that many believe the term, “people of color,” conflates together entire groups of people and as a contrast to white. This results in a continued centering of whiteness as the norm and the standard from which other identities deviate.

GIA does not refer to organizations that are founded by, led by, and feature the work of ALAANA/BIPOC communities as “culturally-specific,” as we believe this term centers whiteness as the norm from which other organizations deviate.

GIA is committed to communicating respectfully. GIA does not ask that anyone self-identify with or use any term other than ones they prefer.

April 30, 2018 by Carmen Graciela Díaz

This May, after five years, the art space 356 Mission in East Los Angeles will be closing its doors. But, as Nonprofit Quarterly wrote citing Hyperallergic, there were mixed reactions to the news. From artists, there was a sadness as they acknowledged the work the space has done for the arts and for its neighbors. And, with a very different reaction from community activists who “applauded the announcement as a victory against developers and the artists and galleries they see as their enablers and collaborators.”

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March 20, 2018 by Carmen Graciela Díaz

The Memphis Music Initiative (MMI), dedicated to broaden and strengthen existing music engagement offerings in and out of schools and supporting youth-centered, community-based music spaces, released a new study that looks at the landscape of equity in arts funding alongside patterns of exclusionary funding practices which all too regularly confront black and brown arts organizations.

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February 27, 2018 by Carmen Graciela Díaz

In a recent blog post, Barry Hessenius, author of the nonprofit arts Barry’s Blog, highlights the importance of increased diversity at the top as a step toward greater funding equity.

Racial diversity is not racial equity, but as Hessenius explores, enhancing racial diversity in leadership positions is a step toward increasing racial equity in arts philanthropy.

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February 24, 2018 by Eddie

This is the first of a series of blog posts Eddie Torres, president and CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts, will be writing on arts philanthropy and principles, like racial equity, that drive GIA’s mission.

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February 15, 2018 by Carmen Graciela Díaz

Fred Blackwell, CEO of The San Francisco Foundation (TSFF), recently tackled racial equity after the organization made a bold commitment to racial and economic equity in the Bay Area as a regional anchor.

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February 14, 2018 by Carmen Graciela Díaz

What changes are necessary for the arts sector to foster thriving institutions of color? That is the question that a newly released report posed to New York City–based African, Latine, Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA) arts and culture organizations.

Jointly commissioned by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The New York Community Trust, a report by Yancey Consulting shapes a conversation on how to do targeting funding for ALAANA-led organizations and questions whether sustainability is a valuable goal.

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February 14, 2018 by giarts-ts-admin

The arts and culture sector continues to have conversations on multiple levels about how to advance the causes of equity, inclusion, and diversity. The discussion is not new, but the momentum toward implementing clear action steps is building. A new level of understanding of the ways in which racial and social inequities are the result of complex systemic issues has given rise to a realization that the path to truly effective solutions will require deep, and deeply challenging, institutional change.

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February 14, 2018 by giarts-ts-admin

Social movements need the arts. Should we ask tougher questions to optimize their influence?

Creative voices, widely and rightfully credited as moving “hearts and mind,” are increasingly understood as playing a core role in speaking to, supporting, or even triggering broader social change. Talented storytellers are disrupting the status quo, fostering new connections, challenging dominant narratives, sharing bold visions for equitable and joyful futures, and creating vehicles for action.

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December 6, 2017 by Monica

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, in partnership with the Ford Foundation, The JPB Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations, have announced the launch of the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (AACHAF). The multi-year national initiative is aimed at uplifting the largely overlooked contributions of African-Americans by establishing a grant fund for the protection and restoration of African-American historical sites. From the protection of Shockoe Bottom in Richmond to Fort Huachuca Black Officer’s Club in Arizona, the fund will help to support direct action needed to protect threatened sites of historic significance, address critical funding gaps for the preservation of African-American historic sites, and help uncover hidden stories of African-Americans connected to historic sites across the nation.
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November 29, 2017 by Monica

The Walton Family Foundation and Ford Foundation announced they are each committing $3 million over three years to support creative solutions to diversify curatorial and management staff at art museums across the United States.

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