Racial Equity in Arts Funding Workshop: April/May 2021

Nadia Elokdah

Vice President & Director of Programs, Grantmakers in the Arts

Nadia Elokdah is an urbanist, designer, and cultural producer. She currently serves as deputy director and director of programs for Grantmakers in the Arts. Most recently she served as special projects manager with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and she coordinated and co-authored the City’s Monuments Commission and CreateNYC, the first-ever comprehensive cultural plan for NYC in 2017. In this role, she coordinated and led hundreds of engagements with a broad cross-section of the peoples, communities, and stakeholders city-wide. Elokdah is a trained architect and design strategist, researcher, professor, and published author. She holds a Master of Arts in Theories of Urban Practice from Parsons The New School for Design and a Bachelors of Architecture from Temple University.

Cardozie Jones

Founding Principal, True North EDI

Cardozie Jones is the founding principal of True North EDI. Jones brings more than 15 years of experience as an educator, artist and critical race analyst to bear in each True North EDI engagement. At True North EDI, Jones facilitates workshops, coaches leadership teams, and supports organizations in creating deeper, more meaningful, and lasting change. Jones’s lived experience led him to undergraduate work in Media Studies where he focused on representations of race and gender in the media. This was followed by a Master’s Degree in Applied Theater where he honed the tools and techniques necessary to create impactful community interactions. Jones taught for 8 years before becoming an assistant principal in a high school in Brooklyn, NY, and was the manager of Youth Programming for Live Out Loud, a nonprofit organization committed to connecting LGBTQ youth to positive queer role models. At True North EDI, Jones’s work spans educational, non-profit, philanthropic and corporate spheres. From crafting a year-long organizational change engagement to delivering racial equity workshops, Jones believes that the heaviness of the work must not be experienced as insurmountable. He approaches each engagement as an opportunity for professional communities to engage in deep reflection and action to create the change that is both necessary and possible.

Sherylynn Sealy

Program Manager, Grantmakers in the Arts

Sherylynn Sealy is a strategist, artist, yoga instructor, and educator with a varied background. Prior to her role with Grantmakers in the Arts, Sealy was a philanthropy fellow with the New York Community Trust where she engaged with arts and culture funders and organizations across New York City. She previously served as a consultant for the New Haven Mayor’s Office and Superintendent’s Office on their implementation of the city-wide Youth Stat Initiative. Managing over 200 student-cases, she served as the point of contact for schools and local partners. She served on the Dance/NYC Junior Committee and is the producing artistic director at Greater Glory Nazarene Ministries in Brooklyn, NY. She continues to explore her passion for performing arts, traveling, and spreading a message of hope. She holds a Masters of Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy from New York University, Bachelors of Science in Education and Psychology from Northeastern University, and is a Teach for America alumna.

Edwin Torres

President & CEO, Grantmakers in the Arts

Edwin Torres joined Grantmakers in the Arts as president & CEO in October 2017. Torres served on the GIA board of directors from 2011 through 2016. He most recently served as deputy commissioner of cultural affairs for New York City, where he worked on elements of the city’s long-term sustainability plan, a study of and efforts to support the diversity of the city’s cultural organizations and the city’s first cultural plan. Prior to joining the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, he was a program officer with The Rockefeller Foundation, where he worked on the foundation’s support for arts and culture, jobs access, and resilience. He has also served in the dean’s office at Parsons the New School for Design, on the arts and culture team at The Ford Foundation as well as on the staff of the Bronx Council on the Arts. He holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Hunter College and a Master of Science in Management from The New School.

Denise Brown

Leeway Foundation

Denise M. Brown is executive director of the Leeway Foundation in Philadelphia, which supports women and trans artists and cultural producers creating art for social change. Prior to that she was associate director of the Bread and Roses Community Fund and a consultant with Leeway and other cultural and social justice organizations in the Philadelphia area. She is currently a member of a number of boards including Bread and Roses Community Fund, Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia (formerly Delaware Valley Grantmakers), Scribe Video Center, and PhillyCAM (Philadelphia Community Access Media).

Randy Engstrom

LANGSTON

Randy Engstrom has been a passionate advocate and organizer of cultural and community development for over 15 years. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty at the Seattle University Arts Leadership Program and an independent consultant focused on cultural policy, organizational development and racial equity. Most recently he served as Director of the Office of Arts and Culture for the City of Seattle where he expanded their investments in granting programs and Public Art, while establishing new programs and policies in arts education, cultural space affordability, and racial equity. He served as Chair of the Seattle Arts Commission in 2011 after serving two years as Vice-Chair, and was Chair of the Facilities and Economic Development Committee from 2006 to 2010. Previously he served as the Founding Director of the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, a multimedia/multidisciplinary community space that offers youth and community member’s access to arts, technology, and cultural resources.

Gabrielle Strong

NDN Collective

Gaby Strong is an enrolled citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate. She brings over 35 years of experience in the tribal, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors. Her professional work includes serving as a program officer for the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies in the Arts & Cultures domain, serving as technical assistance specialist with the Education Development Center, advising tribes, schools, and communities with federal funding streams, serving as tribal administrator for Lower Sioux Indian Community, and as program officer with the Grotto Foundation, where she administered key initiatives, including the Native Language Revitalization Initiative and American Indian Family Empowerment Program. Her community and professional experience has centered on Indian education, Indian child welfare, Native history, language and lifeways, leadership, and community development. She is committed to perpetuating and sharing Native cultural knowledge, particularly Native songs, dance, and horse traditions.

Marcus Walton

President & CEO, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Marcus F. Walton joins GEO with over a decade of practice in both nonprofit management and the ontological learning model. He specializes in operationalizing conceptual frameworks; racial equity facilitation and training; leadership and management strategy; stakeholder engagement; program development and navigating philanthropy. In his previous role as Director of Racial Equity Initiatives for Borealis Philanthropy, Marcus lead the Racial Equity Initiatives team and worked in partnership with 18 nationally-networked, philanthropy-serving grantee organizations to move past the “transactional” nature of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to a unified movement which prioritizes strategies that close gaps in access to opportunity, resources and well-being (across all categories of gender, identity, sexual orientation, class and ability). Before that, Marcus served as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE), where he oversaw its operations, HR and staff development functions, including the overall strategy, conceptualization and administration of racial equity programming. Prior to ABFE, he combined his organizing experience and passion for public service in the role of Program Officer of Community Responsive Grantmaking with the Cleveland Foundation and Sr. Program Officer with Neighborhood Progress, Inc. Marcus is a Newfield Network-trained ontological coach, with additional training in the Action Learning systems coaching model.