Following a series of smaller updates this summer and fall, Ford Foundation's president Darren Walker officially announced over the weekend the details of FordForward, the foundation's new strategy for grantmaking. FordForward's significant changes include cutting and consolidating program areas, investing $200 million into strengthening institutions and networks, and increasing overhead support to align more closely with grantee realities. According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, this announcement is part of a movement of foundations devoting more of their work to addressing inequality. The foundation's size and influence of $21.1 billion in assets makes their grantmaking shift a significant one with both the challenges and potential impacts that come with these changes.
Grantmakers in the Arts
GrantCraft, a service of Foundation Center, announced today the release of Funding Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Support, a guide exploring how funders collaborate with and bring support to indigenous communities. The guide was developed in partnership with International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) and provides examples from a diverse range of foundations on how donors see indigenous populations as important partners in a variety of areas, including on environmental and climate-related issues.
From Julie Halperin at The Art Newspaper:
In an article from the latest issue of GIA Reader, Justin Laing of the Heinz Endowments explores the question: What Does Culture Look Like When #BlackLivesMatter?
Ohio voters in Cuyahoga County said “yes” to Issue 8, the penny-and-a-half tax and sole revenue source for Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC), the County’s public funder for arts and culture. The renewed tax, which was set to expire in January of 2017, will provide CAC ten additional years to invest millions in the local arts and culture sector and support thousands of events in Cuyahoga County communities each year.
For the months of November and December, GIA's photo banner features art supported by the Windgate Charitable Foundation. The Windgate Charitable Foundation is a private family foundation established in 1993. The Foundation’s giving is primarily focused on supporting the visual arts, studio artists, and public schools through projects in art education, visual arts, and a model K-12 arts-based core education program. Windgate funds programs that provide opportunities in the arts with grants for program support, scholarships, visual arts exhibitions, and capital funds.
On Thursday, November 19, 2015, a public forum will take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to release the findings of a study conducted by the Urban Institute and funded by The Heinz Endowments.