Grantmakers in the Arts

Responding to: How can cultural grantmaking interrupt institutional and structural racism while building a more just funding ecosystem that prioritizes Black communities, organizations, and artists?
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The change I would like to see in cultural grantmaking is a values shift. As we seek to support Black artists and communities in the future, we must recognize the system operating today which heavily invests in large, white institutions, and centers around and funds organizations and programs rather than people.

"Imagine what could be accomplished if the city of Boston and any of the 26 Massachusetts Gateway Cities reinvested the millions of dollars now spent policing schools—often with questionable results—in arts instruction!" write Barbara Wallace Grossman and Jonathan C. Rappaport, in a recent post.

By Gonzalo Casals

In July, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs released a survey on the financial impact of COVID-19, capturing responses from 800 cultural nonprofits at the height of the public health crisis in New York, and the anxiety and uncertainty surrounding it.

The Howard Gilman Foundation Board of Trustees recently approved an increase from a 5% to a 7.5% payout for the Foundation’s 2020 grants budget, bringing the total of that budget to $34.5M, according to the press release.

The National Endowment for the Arts and Education Commission of the States released a group of resources as part of an initiative to help stakeholders in the arts extract, analyze, and report on data about arts education.

Black August, born out of Black liberation, resistance, and justice movements, is a month dedicated to critical learning and analysis, reflection and study of our roles in oppressive or liberatory systems, and an opportunity to grow, connect, and prepare for the challenging work ahead.

I’m writing to share some thoughts on United Philanthropy Forum’s excellent 2020 Forum Virtual Conference, which brings together Philanthropy Serving Organizations (PSOs) to share examples of how we’re working to support, strengthen, and lead the grantmaking community.

In a blog entry from Bhumi B. Patel, a member of the Dancing Around Race cohort in the San Francisco Bay Area, she makes the case for intentional rest to refocus the work that needs to be done in this moment in which there's an "opportunity to change the trajectory of a system built and fostered by structures of white supremacy."