Tariana Navas-Nieves, Chair
Denver Arts & Venues
Tariana Navas-Nieves, Deputy Director for Denver Arts & Venues, City and County of Denver, has 30 years of experience in management, equity and race and social justice work, philanthropy, curatorial practice, translation and interpretation, television, and communications. She oversees the City departments of Public Art, Cultural Programs & Events, Creative Industries, SCFD Tier III (Tax District) funding, Arts Education, and the agency’s numerous cultural investments and grant programs. Navas-Nieves is also on the City’s Equity Leadership Team responsible for the oversight and implementation of the City’s equity platform working with all City agencies and ~13K employees. Navas-Nieves serves on national, regional and local boards including: GIA, Philanthropy Colorado (Chair), Philanthropy Colorado Arts & Culture Funders (Co-Chair), Denver Latino Commission, and the Community ACTS Fund focused on funding to support BIPOC, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, and other historically marginalized communities. She is co-author of the Re-Tool: Racial Equity in the Panel Process, and created the learning series “How to be an Anti-Racist Organization. A Conversation with Dwinita & Tariana.” With an expertise in Latin American and American Indian art, she has also served in curatorial posts at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Denver Art Museum, Museo de las Americas, and for private collections in the US and Puerto Rico.
Eleanor Savage, Vice Chair
Jerome Foundation
Eleanor Savage is president & CEO of the Jerome Foundation, which seeks to contribute to a dynamic and evolving culture by supporting the creation, development, and production of new works by early career/emerging artists. Savage has focused much of her work in the field of arts philanthropy as an advocate for racial equity and undoing racism. She is one of the founding members of the Racial Equity Funder Collaborative, a Minnesota-based learning and action cohort focused on furthering equity and justice in philanthropy. She recently authored the collaboratively developed RE-Tool: Racial Equity in the Panel Process, a discussion tool to encourage racial equity in the review and selection process. Savage is a co-chair for GIA’s Support for Individual Artists Committee. Previously, she was the associate director of Events and Media Production at Walker Art Center for 16 years. As a queer, civic-minded, anti-racist producer, Savage instigated many community-focused, artist-centered programs in the Twin Cities, supporting artists in all creative disciplines. Savage received an MFA in Arts Management from Virginia Tech and a BFA in Psychology and Theater from Mercer University.
Pam Breaux, Treasurer
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Pam Breaux joined the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) in 2015. As president and CEO, she works with the association’s board of directors and staff to advance NASAA’s policy and programmatic mission to strengthen America’s state and jurisdictional arts agencies. A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Breaux has held leadership positions at the local, state and national levels. While in Louisiana state government, she was secretary of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism (CRT), among other roles. She was executive director of the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana and managed southwest Louisiana’s Decentralized Arts Funding Program. She has served on the boards of the U.S. Travel Association, NASAA, South Arts and the Louisiana Board of International Commerce. Breaux is currently a member of the U.S. National Commission on UNESCO. She graduated from McNeese State University and earned an M.A. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Susan A. Anderson
Alaska Pacific University
Susan A. Anderson, M.Ed., was with The CIRI Foundation (TCF) 23 years and became President/CEO soon after she started. She is a remarkable steward, deeply dedicated to helping thousands of people change their lives through education, cultural, and artistic knowledge. Susan, who is of Tlingit heritage and an original CIRI enrollee, was one of the first recipients of TCF’s scholarships. She is the creator of the A Journey to What Matters: Increased Alaska Native Art & Culture work at The Ciri Foundation in partnership with the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. Grant funding is available to support projects driven by Alaska Native communities and promotes intergenerational transference of knowledge related to Alaska Native artistic and cultural practices and supports Alaska Native Artists.
Susan is the Board Secretary of Alaska Pacific University (designated as a Native Student Serving Institution and working toward becoming a Tribal University), Board Member of Cook Inlet Native Head Start, and the Alaska Children’s Trust. She has served as Chair of the Alaska Humanities Forum, the United Way of Anchorage, Best Beginnings Alaska, University of Alaska Foundation and served on the national Native Americans in Philanthropy Board. She is also a past member of the University of Alaska Anchorage’s College of Education and College of Arts and Sciences advisory committees, Philanthropy Northwest, and the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education.
Rocío Aranda-Alvarado
Ford Foundation
Rocío Aranda-Alvarado is part of Ford Foundation’s Creativity and Free Expression team. An art historian, curator and museum worker, she joined Ford in 2018 after serving as curator at El Museo del Barrio for nearly a decade. She received a Ph.D. from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and an M.A. from Tulane University. Aranda-Alvarado is also on the adjunct faculty of the Art Department at Hunter College and her writing has appeared in various publications. At Ford, she is leading work on support for US Latine art and artists in collaboration with the Mellon Foundation. She also leads support for AAPI grantees confronting Anti-Asian sentiment and is part of design teams for work around the US-Mexico border and a new national disability network initiative. With art historian and curator Deborah Cullen, she is also editing a book on the history of US Latine art for academic and general audiences.
Michelle Coffey
Lambent Foundation
As executive director, Michelle Coffey designs, implements, and furthers the strategic agenda, leadership, and vision of Lambent Foundation. Lambent Foundation leverages the critical role of arts and culture at the intersection of social justice. Through innovative grantmaking, they explore the impact of contemporary art as a strategy for promoting sustainable cultural practices in New York City, New Orleans, and Nairobi. Prior to the creation of Lambent Foundation in January 2009, Coffey was director of Starry Night Fund and Senior Philanthropic Advisor at Tides Foundation. With a global lens, her areas of focus included Human Rights, Women/Girls, Criminal Justice Reform, Arts and Culture and HIV/AIDS. In addition, she currently serves on the boards of Creative Capital Foundation, the Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Care Center in East New York, and most recently, Socrates Sculpture Park.
Jennifer Coleman
The George Gund Foundation
Jennifer Coleman is the Program Director of Creative Culture and Art at The George Gund Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. In her eight years at the Foundation, Jennifer has deeply explored Cleveland’s art ecosystem and the issues that are important to its vitality: prioritizing organization sustainability through operational support; equity in arts funding and resource allocation; arts education in the Cleveland public school system; the structure of the arts and culture civic leadership; and the continuing issue of maintaining public funding for the arts. A hallmark of her early tenure at the foundation was her work to integrate the practices of racial equity and justice within the Cleveland arts community. She has worked with both local and national organizations and foundations to form a committed network willing to imagine what a truly diverse and thriving arts community looks like in Cleveland and what must happen to make that vision reality. She was asked to organize the first-ever arts mayoral summit in 2021 to communicate the importance of the arts community to the city and worked closely with the City of Cleveland to develop a vision and framework for its first arts and culture cabinet-level position.
Sharon DeMark
St. Paul & Minnesota Foundation
Sharon DeMark (she/her/hers) is a program officer for the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, the F. R. Bigelow Foundation and the Mardag Foundation in the areas of arts and humanities, aging services, and legal services. She is an active member of the Racial Equity Funders Collaborative, working with other arts funders in Minnesota to address inequities and injustice in the field. Prior to working in philanthropy, she headed education/community engagement departments for theaters and performing arts centers in the Twin Cities and New York City. In that work she was instrumental in founding international children’s festivals at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Sharon has sat on selection panels for Saint Paul Cultural STAR, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Sharon is also a watercolor artist. She collaborated with poet Margaret Hasse on a book of poems and paintings entitled “Shelter,” published by Nodin Press. Sharon lives in Saint Paul with her family and loves seeing live theater and music and biking along the Mississippi.
Adriana Gallego
Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona
As an artist at the service of other artists, Adriana Gallego's work in arts administration and education is motivated by human rights, where she seeks to connect people with meaningful resources that grow personal and organizational capacity, build community, foster collaboration, and bridge cultural understanding. Leading from this perspective, Gallego was the first chief operating officer of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC). She also recently served as co-chair the Grantmakers in the Arts Support for Individual Artist Committee. Previously, she was director of Strategic Initiatives with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Educational Assistant at the Norton Simon Museum, and arts educator throughout the Southwest. She has served on many review panels, advisory boards, and committees including the National Endowment for the Arts, Arizona Mexico Commission, Arizona Public Art Network, Transportation Enhancement Review Committee, Asset Building for Artists of Color Advisory Board and Flagstaff Cultural Partners Arts Advisory Board, and The Association of American Cultures.
Amber Hamilton
Memphis Music Initiative
Amber Hamilton is a seasoned leader, coach, and trainer with expertise in leadership strategies and nonprofit management. Currently, she serves as the executive director for the Memphis Music Initiative, which invests in youth through transformative music engagement, creating equitable opportunities for Black and brown youth in Memphis.
Hamilton founded All Matters Handles Global Consulting, which advises nonprofits on strategic, operational, and leadership issues. Hamilton served as the Interim CEO of the Soulsville Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee, overseeing the work of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Stax Music Academy, and the Soulsville Charter School. She is also an active board member for the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center.
Hamilton has a B.A. in political science from Howard University, a master’s degree in executive leadership, and certification in executive coaching from Georgetown University.
Tina Kuckkahn
NDN Collective
Tina Kuckkahn, J.D., is a citizen of the Lac du Flambeau Tribe of Lake Superior Chippewa and a descendant of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. As the Managing Director for NDN Collective’s Foundation, Kuckkahn helps lead a holistic, multilingual grantmaking strategy for international funding streams across Turtle Island and related Island Nations. Kuckkahn was the Founding Director of the “House of Welcome” Longhouse Education and Cultural Center at The Evergreen State College, from 1996 until 2018, when she became Evergreen’s first Vice President of Indigenous Arts, Education and Tribal Relations. Kuckkahn serves on the Board of Directors for Grantmakers in the Arts, the Waaswaagoning Living Arts and Cultures Center, and the Advisory Circle of the NARF-Morning Star Sacred Places Protection Project.
Bao-Long Chu
Houston Endowment
Bao-Long Chu is program director, Arts and Parks, for Houston Endowment. Long directs grantmaking for the foundation’s arts and parks portfolio. Prior to joining Houston Endowment in 2015, Long was associate director of the literary-education nonprofit Writers in the Schools (WITS) where he developed his extensive background in literacy, arts, and community engagement and worked in collaboration with a wide variety of Houston-area institutions and organizations, including Art League Houston, Houston Grand Opera, Texas Children’s Hospital, and University of Houston Moores School of Music. Long has also written and presented extensively on writing pedagogy, the connection between art and the refugee experience, and non-profit programming. Originally from Vietnam, Long earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and psychology from Houston Baptist University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. His poems and essays have been published in several anthologies, including The New Anthology of American Poetry: Postmodernisms 1950-Present and From Both Sides Now: The Poetry of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. His libretto for the opera Bound, composed by Huang Ruo, premiered in Houston in 2014, New York in 2019, and Seattle in 2023.
Kathy Mouachepao
Metropolitan Regional Arts Council
Kathy Mouacheupao (she/her/hers) joined the MRAC team as executive director in June 2018. She has been an MRAC applicant, panelist, and board member and brings all of those perspectives to her role.
She is passionate about the intersection of arts, culture and community and has dedicated her personal and professional life to the field. Prior to MRAC, Mouacheupao served as Program Officer for Creative Placemaking with the Twin Cities Local Initiatives Corporation. In her earlier career, she was the Executive Director for the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent. She was a 2016 Roy Wilkins Fellow and a 2011 Bush Leadership Fellow. Currently, she is Vice Chair for the Forum of Regional Arts Councils of MN, and serves as a member of MN Citizens for the Arts Board, the Racial Equity Funders Collaborative, the We Are Still Here MN Philanthropy Task Force, and the Building More Philanthropy with Purpose Giving Circle.
Anna Needham
Arizona Commission on the Arts
Anna Needham is an enrolled citizen of the Red Lake Nation of Ojibwe. She is a theatre artist, Indigenous rights advocate, and arts administrator. She currently serves as the Tribal Relations Manager for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, acting as the agency’s liaison with the 22 Tribal Nations in Arizona. Anna graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Theatre and minor in Producing. She participated in the Spring 2018 Native American Political Leadership Program at George Washington University. As part of the program, she was able to intern at the National Endowment for the Arts. She then went on to intern at the Phoenix Office of Arts & Culture before she was hired in 2019 by the Arts Commission to be the Artist Programs Coordinator. In that role, she ran and developed grants, services, and programs for individual artists.
Beyond her work at the Arts Commission, Anna participated in the development of the first national Native Arts & Cultures Convening and companion federal resource guide produced in February 2020. She has been a panelist for other local, regional, and national funders, including the National Endowment for the Arts. She is currently part of the Circle of Advisors for the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ Strengthening State Arts Agency Relationships with Native Communities initiative. In 2022, Anna developed the foundational Tribal Consultation Policy for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the first and currently only of the total 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies in the United States.
Glenisse Pagán Ortiz
Filantropía Puerto Rico (Philanthropy Puerto Rico)
Glenisse Pagán Ortiz is executive director of Filantropía Puerto Rico (Philanthropy Puerto Rico), a philanthropy-serving organization connecting philanthropic entities and amplifying their voice and impact in areas of equity, collaboration, transparency and social justice. As a convener of funders with grantmaking focus on Puerto Rico, they lead efforts to improve the lives of the marginalized.
Pagán was born, raised, and lives in Puerto Rico where she leads a multi-passionate life learning, teaching, challenging others, and being challenged. She also loves technology, nature, adventure, but above all, she lives to inspire people to take action and help them find their purpose.
Upon graduating from Electrical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus (UPRM), Pagán began working with Kodak and later with Motorola, who granted her a scholarship for a Master’s degree at Georgia Tech. For the next 17 years, Pagán worked at Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems. She began her career as a Systems Engineer and ended as a Business Developer Manager in charge of teams throughout Latin America. In 2018, she began working as chief operating officer for Filantropía Puerto Rico (then called Foundation Network of Puerto Rico), and in 2019 she was named executive director.
Zeyba Rahman
Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts
Zeyba Rahman is senior program officer for the Building Bridges Program of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. Rahman joined the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, an extension of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in 2013 as senior program officer for the Building Bridges Program. Rahman manages the Program’s national grant making to support projects that advance relationships, increase understanding between American Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Prior to joining the foundation, Rahman led internationally and nationally recognized projects as an artistic director and producer to promote understanding and communal harmony between diverse communities. In that capacity, she has served as: director, Asia and North America, Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco; creative consultant, Public Programs, Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia Galleries; curator, Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Mic Check Hip Hop; senior advisor, Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas Festival led by Asia Society and Brooklyn Academy of Music in collaboration with more than fifteen leading New York City-based institutional cultural and educational partner; artistic director, Arts Midwest’s Caravanserai: A Place Where Cultures Meet; chief curator, Alliance Francaise’s World Nomads Morocco Festival and project director, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Global Cultural Connections. She is an advisor to Artworks for Freedom, an organization using the arts for strategic communication to fight human trafficking; and serves on the steering committee of the Switzerland-based Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s Music Awards and the nominating committee of the Civitella Foundation in Italy. Twice honored by New York City’s government, Rahman is the subject of two television profiles as a global arts leader.
Michelle Ramos
Foundation for Louisiana
Dr. Michelle Ramos applies critical race theory and lived experiences to disrupt long standing white supremacist structures and systems. Her work focuses on shifting power to Black and Brown people through pushing boundaries, challenging status quo and reflecting values of equity and justice in her day-to-day practice. Before leading Alternate ROOTS, she worked as Managing Director for the Vera Institute of Justice New Orleans and Program Officer for the Women’s Foundation of California. She serves on the boards of Foundation for Louisiana, Dancing Grounds and Performing Arts Alliance.
A licensed attorney with a PhD in Psychology, she has significant organizing experience and has committed her career to serving communities and individuals adversely impacted by issues of race, gender, disability, class, socioeconomics, inequitable laws and systemic oppression. She has consulted for over 20 years nationally and internationally. She is the proud mother of Broadway choreographer, Ellenore Scott, and since retiring from her own dance career, Ramos has continued to teach dance, has competed as an Ironman triathlete and now enjoys her southern New Orleans lifestyle.
Kristin Sakoda
Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture
Kristin Sakoda is the Director of the newly-established Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, the local arts agency dedicated to advancing arts, culture, and creativity throughout Los County, the largest county in the U.S. The Department of Arts and Culture provides grants and technical assistance to hundreds of nonprofit organizations; administer the largest paid arts internship program in the nation; coordinates public-private arts education initiatives; increases access to creative career pathways; commissions civic artwork; supports free community programs; leads the LA County Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative; and advances cross-sector cultural strategies to address civic issues. An arts executive, attorney, and performing artist, Ms. Sakoda has over 25 years of multi-faceted experience in the cultural field. She formerly served as the Executive Director of the LA County Arts Commission, which transitioned into the first-ever Department under her leadership. Ms. Sakoda previously served as a key strategist for arts and culture at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs holding the posts of General Counsel and Deputy Commissioner, and holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law and B.A. from Stanford University specializing in Race and Ethnicity and Feminist Studies. She is a member of the Americans for the Arts’ United States Urban Arts Federation comprised of the chief executives of the local arts agencies of the nation’s largest 60 cities, and previously served on the board of her former dance company Urban Bush Women.
Robert Smith III
Surdna Foundation
Robert Smith III (he/him) is Surdna Foundation's Senior Program Officer of the Thriving Cultures Program, leading a $10 million portfolio focused on unleashing the radical imagination of artists and culture workers in the service of racial justice. He manages the Program’s grantmaking, learning strategies, and collaborations with grantees, partners, and funders that further the Foundation’s social justice mission.
Robert’s work is guided by the long struggle for freedom as summed up in these two quotes. “As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make revolution irresistible.” — Toni Cade Bambara, Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara
“Without new visions, we don’t know what to build, only what to knock down. We not only end up confused, rudderless, and cynical, but we forget that making a revolution is not a series of clever maneuvers and tactics, but a process that can and must transform us.” – Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Before joining Surdna in 2019, he served as Associate Director of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, IL, the only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States. Robert has held positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Historical Society, and OutRight Action International. He has served on the boards of Project Fierce Chicago, a grassroots response to LGBTQ youth homelessness; PFund Foundation, an LGBTQ community foundation based in Minneapolis; and the Brown University Alumni Association.
Born and raised in South Florida, he is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Minnesota.
Quita Sullivan
New England Foundation for the Arts
Quita Sullivan (Montaukett/Shinnecock) is the program director for Theater at New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) where she leads the National Theater Project, supporting the creation and touring of devised, ensemble-based theater. She holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Theatre from Knox College and SUNY Stony Brook, respectively, as well as a Juris Doctorate from Wayne State University Law School. Before law school, she worked as a Stage Manager at ETA in Chicago and was the first stage manager for ETA’s production of Checkmates by Ron Milner, directed by Woodie King, Jr. She later worked at Great Lakes Performing Artist Associates, a not-for-profit artist management office, creating contracts, and managing booking and performing fees for musicians in the Great Lakes area. After law school, she practiced environmental justice law for 10 years in Detroit and Boston. She is a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program and an alumna of the artEquity Facilitator Training. She is also a former Associated Grant Makers Diversity Fellow, the mission of which was to identify, recruit, and cultivate emerging practitioners of color who represent the next generation of philanthropic leaders and offer them training, support and strong community. She continues to work to support equity and inclusion at all levels of theater and grant making. She is a frequent speaker on supporting Indigenous Artists and Land Acknowledgement. Prior to joining NEFA as a staff member, Sullivan was an advisor for NEFA’s Native Arts Program. Outside of work, she continues to develop her own artistic talents as a beadwork artist. Sullivan is Of Counsel to and an enrolled member of the Montaukett tribe.
Photo by Jeffrey Lyons Filiault.
Marissa Tirona
Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
Marissa Tirona (she/her/hers) joined Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) in November 2020, bringing more than 15 years of senior leadership experience at social justice and philanthropic institutions. As President of GCIR, Marissa leads the organization’s efforts to galvanize philanthropy to build a society in which everyone thrives, no matter where they were born.
Previously, she was a program officer at the Ford Foundation, where she managed a $225 million portfolio as part of the Building Institutions and Networks (BUILD) initiative, Ford’s flagship program designed to strengthen organizations and networks core to the global social justice infrastructure. Before joining Ford in 2017, Marissa led the Blue Shield of California Foundation’s programmatic, policy, and grantmaking efforts to address, prevent, and ultimately end domestic violence and promote health equity throughout the state. Prior to that, she was senior project director at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, where she designed and led comprehensive, multiyear leadership initiatives that developed network capacity, facilitated movement-level work, and centered communities of color. Earlier in her career, Marissa served as program director of the National Employment Lawyers Association and, before that, as an employment attorney at two national law firms.
Marissa has deep experience in organizational and movement capacity building. She frequently speaks on and writes about issues related to transformative philanthropic practice, social justice movement leadership development, and organizational and network strengthening in the United States and around the world. As a certified coach, she has a keen understanding of what is needed to lead and manage thriving, adaptive, and impactful teams, organizations, and networks.
Marissa currently serves on the boards of Change Elemental and Sadie Nash Leadership Project and previously served on the boards of numerous other organizations, including Oakland Kids First, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, Social Policy Research Associates, and the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area. She holds a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law, is a member of the California State Bar, and has a B.A. in English literature with a concentration in women’s studies from Swarthmore College. More information can be found at https://www.marissatirona.com/about
Carlton Turner
First Peoples Fund
Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, researcher, and co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture).
Turner serves on the board of First Peoples Fund, Imagining America, Project South, and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance. A member of the We Shall Overcome Fund Advisory Committee at the Highlander Center for Research and Education and is the former Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS, he is also a founding partner of the Intercultural Leadership Institute.
Turner is an Interdisciplinary Research Fellow with the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and was named to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts YBCA100. He is a former Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow and former Cultural Policy Fellow at the Creative Placemaking Institute at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design in the Arts.
Turner is also co-founder and co-artistic director, with his brother Maurice Turner, of the group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction), a Mississippi-based performing arts group that blends of jazz, hip-hop, spoken word poetry and soul music together with non-traditional storytelling.
Sixto Wagan
Greater Houston BIPOC Arts Network and Fund
Sixto Wagan is the Project Director for the Greater Houston BIPOC Arts Network and Fund (BANF). Using the collective impact approach to social change as a model, BANF is structured as a community-led collaborative fund and a resource network guided by arts leaders, arts practitioners, and funders. Acknowledging historical underinvestment in Houston BIPOC cultures and art communities, the initiative will cede decision-making power about grants to the very communities impacted by funding decisions.
Previously, he founded and developed the Center for Art and Social Engagement (CASE) in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston. At CASE, Wagan developed pilot programs, community partnerships, and research initiatives that centered creativity and community in impact conversations for 21st century cities. He also led DiverseWorks, serving as Artistic Director, Co-Executive Director and Performing Arts Curator. During his tenure, he nurtured artists, communities and emerging arts organizations through commissions and place-based initiatives.
Wagan continues to expand his work as a strategic visioning and cultural equity facilitator.
He has been a speaker and moderator at national convenings around topics of equity, leadership development, transition planning, and community stewardship
