Grantmakers in the Arts

A report from the United States Department of Arts and Culture tackles how "as natural disasters and social emergencies multiply, the need has grown for ethical, creative, and effective artistic response—arts-based work responding to disaster or other community-wide emergency, much of it created in collaboration with community members directly affected."

In "Cultural institutions start to put their assets to work for mission," published in ImpactAlpha, Dennis Price discusses Upstart Co-Lab's new research on "what cultural institutions need to know about investing for values and mission is the first primer on impact investing specifically for leaders of museums and other cultural institutions."

The City of Boulder, Colorado commissioned more than 60 artists who recently lost work due to the COVID-19 pandemic to create new works of art in support of their neighbors.

Marcus Walton, CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), tackles leading while Black, as part of Nonprofit Quarterly's series lifting up Black male voices "to highlight the challenges Black male leaders in the nonprofit sector face, as well as the sector as a whole—amid ongoing anti-Black violence and the disparate racial impact of COVID-19."

For the months of December and January, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by Longhouse at The Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington.

It’s been hard for me to come up with a summary of this session, and after some time, I’ve realized it’s because the things that struck me most are not really able to be captured in any linear fashion. In fact, for me, what this session was about was the awesomeness of black women’s leadership and just generally #BlackGirlMagic.

I learned so much from this session and realize how much work I personally, as well as the institutions and organizations I’m part of, have to do so that disability justice becomes “the norm and not the niche,” as panelist Patrice Strahan put it. Especially coming from the public health sector, disabled people are all too often seen in the category of “vulnerable communities” and recipients or clients of health and social services, not as leaders at the cutting edge of critiquing and transforming our society’s current dehumanizing system.

As someone who has spent nearly a decade in public health and health equity, I’m excited and somewhat chagrined to come across the work covered in this session. Why hadn’t I heard of this, or even thought of this, before?! It’s a testament to the persistent power of status quo and silos unless they are actively dismantled. I appreciate even more the importance and need for the research, frameworks, projects and ideas discussed in this session that lay the groundwork for emerging cross-sector collaboration and partnership between the arts and public health.