Grantmakers in the Arts

"Philanthropy doesn’t stand still. Pressing issues and seismic political, economic, and technological shifts move us to regularly revisit and renew how we work."

For the month of June, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture manages the city’s public art program, cultural partnerships grant programs, the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, and The Creative Advantage initiative “in the effort to foster a city driven by creativity that provides the opportunity for everyone to engage in diverse arts and cultural experiences.” In alignment with the City of Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, the office works to eliminate institutional racism in their programs, policies and practices.

The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) launched recently its latest publication SaludArte: Building Health Equity on the Bedrock of Traditional Arts and Culture.

Recent research from Echoing Green and Bridgespan discusses "the racial disparity in today’s funding environment and argues that population-level impact cannot happen without funding more leaders of color."

"What should arts advocates say and do now? How can they reconceive their own roles to point to the deeper reasons for arts funding? How can they speak to the moment, rather than repeat tired and failed arguments?" asks Arlene Goldbard in a recent blog post.

Reflecting on: What advocacy is being done to address the needs of African, Latine, Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA) arts communities in need of greater support?

At the top of my to-do list, I keep a list of links to resources that help me navigate philanthropy. They help me wrestle with questions like: how do I/we keep moving in the direction of justice? How can I/we acknowledge that systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism have been extracting resources and labor from land and people for centuries and that I/we’ve played a role in that? How can those of us in philanthropy (in its many forms) support the artists and organizers fighting to upend those systems with a myriad of strategies daily? Before the pandemic, during, and after. I’ve shared those links at the end of this post, and my work and words here are indebted to the individuals and collectives whose words are represented there, as well as many others.

A group of philanthropic and nonprofit leaders is asking Congress to increase the mandatory payout rate for private foundations and donor-advised funds (DAFs) to 10 percent, to help address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the city of Newark had created its first arts grant program, the Creative Catalyst Fund, and an art space initiative to fill up to five city-owned properties. Three months later, the art space initiative was put on hold as city officials and the nonprofit Newark Arts retooled the grant "to respond to needs of the local arts community in light of COVID-19," as Next City recently reported.