The arts and culture sector continues to have conversations on multiple levels about how to advance the causes of equity, inclusion, and diversity. The discussion is not new, but the momentum toward implementing clear action steps is building. A new level of understanding of the ways in which racial and social inequities are the result of complex systemic issues has given rise to a realization that the path to truly effective solutions will require deep, and deeply challenging, institutional change.
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The GIA Library is an information hub that includes articles, research reports, and other materials covering a wide variety of topics relevant to the arts and arts funding. These resources are made available free to members and non-members of GIA. Users can search by keyword or browse by category for materials to use in research and self-directed learning. Current arts philanthropy news items are available separately in our news feed - News from the Field.
Social movements need the arts. Should we ask tougher questions to optimize their influence?
Creative voices, widely and rightfully credited as moving “hearts and mind,” are increasingly understood as playing a core role in speaking to, supporting, or even triggering broader social change. Talented storytellers are disrupting the status quo, fostering new connections, challenging dominant narratives, sharing bold visions for equitable and joyful futures, and creating vehicles for action.
For several years my brother, Alex Laing, principal clarinetist for the Phoenix Symphony, and I, senior program officer at the Heinz Endowments, have been having often intense conversations, where my brother probed the thinking behind Heinz Endowments’ grantmaking that placed an emphasis on African and African diasporic culture, distressed neighborhoods, and teaching artists. Heinz Endowments, having taken the advice of Anasa Troutman of the consulting firm Lion and Butterfly, has begun to call this work transformative arts education.