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From the Alliance for California Traditional Arts: "Every cultural community in the United States is rooted in a sense of belonging, shared by members, and anchored by collective wisdom and aesthetics. These roots of cultural heritage are maintained, strengthened, and expanded through the practice of folk and traditional arts. The realities of slavery, displacement, structural racism, systemic poverty, and cultural appropriation have tested the strength of these cultural roots. The stresses are even more apparent, viewed against our present-day national reckoning with these harms amidst a global pandemic. In this context, traditional arts practices are potent political acts of social belonging, power, and justice. From this field have emerged works and artists of beauty, technical prowess, and meaning."

"Bloomberg Philanthropies today announced the launch of the 2022 Public Art Challenge, which invites mayors of U.S. cities with 30,000 residents or more to apply for up to $1 million in funding to create temporary public art projects that address important civic issues. Submissions for dynamic works of art across all disciplines will be considered, and proposed projects will be evaluated on their ability to generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity and urban identity, and strengthen local economies. The Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge encourages mayors to partner with artists, elevating the value of including the creative sector when developing solutions to significant urban problems."

"PEAK Grantmaking has always been dedicated to creating communities for grants professionals to embrace our Learn, Share, Evolve Principle. As PEAK looks to its next chapter, we want to leverage our existing peer network structures in new ways to better foster a learning community that embraces and advances adaptive learning processes, and we also want to inspire our members to utilize this approach inside their own organizations. PEAK sees the concepts and practices of emergent learning as a natural fit to advance our work around our Principles for Peak Grantmaking in powerful new ways. Now is the time to define the concepts, qualities, and practices of emergent learning, and how we envision operationalizing it throughout our community and in the sector at large."

The Henry Luce Foundation announced recently the commitment of $14 Million in new grants intended to amplify diverse experiences and fund community-engaged projects.

Adults age sixty-five and above are currently the fastest-growing segment of the US population. In 2016, there were 47.8 million individuals age sixty-five and over in the United States (US Census Bureau 2017), and this number is expected to more than double by 2060. By 2040, nearly half of older adults are expected to come from diverse racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds (Vincent and Velkoff 2010; Johnson, Rodriquez-Salazar, et al. 2018). San Francisco’s population of older adults is higher than the national norm.

In Building Stronger Communities Through Media: Innovations in local journalism, public media, and storytelling, Wyncote Foundation's new report, innovative local and regional media projects are highlighted for making a difference in local communities with local support, as one of the report's authors, Sarah Lutman, writes in Medium.

When tasked with presenting the dynamic and multiscalar ecosystem of arts and culture in the Bay Area, the Grantmakers in the Arts team knew that we needed to call upon those engaging deeply with the forces effecting change. Given the evolving nature of space availability, access, and affordability in cities, any system of disruption will, by design, engage a diversity of stakeholders and intervene at multiple levels. From the strongly held position that the arts drive strong, vibrant, diverse communities, Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) exemplifies one such model.

   Culture, Equity, and Cities (1.5Mb)

Have you ever begun to just notice something and then suddenly you see it everywhere. Then you wonder, have I been out of it, or did this just become a thing?”

Today, Regina’s Door in Oakland serves as a healing artistic space for survivors of sex trafficking, as well as a launching pad for theatrical productions featuring the stories and performances of survivors. Its start came in 2014, when Regina Evans decided she needed to do something to help her community. “We have young girls being brutalized every day. In Oakland trafficking is very hidden, but if you go down International Boulevard, you also see very young girls — twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, and you know they’re being raped,” she said.

As arts funders, we know that extensive research has shown that the presence of arts and culture activities at the neighborhood level can improve health and safety and promote a sense of well-being among residents. But how do we identify what activities already exist in a community and, as important, where there are gaps so we can be proactive in advancing a community’s livability?