Grantmakers in the Arts

Supporting a Creative America

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What We're Reading: Why levelling up shouldn’t mean levelling down on diversity

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on June 3, 2022

"This commitment was made in the wake of Covid and Black Lives Matter. And to date, there have been no answers to the question," said Arts Professional UK author Kevin Osborne. "Two years on, as life moves to a post-Covid norm and memories of the killing of George Floyd fade, ACE’s commitment to increased racial equity is being severely tested."

Arts Council England outlines their plan to, "increase funding to Black-led organisations," which includes:

Geographic versus racial equity

Moral and ethical leadership vs self interest

Need for transparent monitoring of racial diversity

We must all take responsibility

"This change is possible and must start in the next spending round so we can achieve racially equitable funding within our lifetimes."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on June 03, 2022 at 07:05AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Reading: Commensurate with Experience

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on June 2, 2022

"It’s no coincidence that every administrative arts worker I know is burnt out," said author Benjamin Akio Kimitch. "We all know how hard and underpaid the work is, but we want to make our own contributions to the community that inspires us, so when we imagine making a change, our dreams are generally about the devil we know."

Kitmitch discusses similarities in the encounters between artist and administrator, and how, "the desire for change reverberates through all of us who together create, perform, fundraise, amplify, administer, buy tickets, and donate money."

"I hope there is still time for us to slow down. To acknowledge what we share. To care for each other."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on June 02, 2022 at 09:24AM. Read the full post.

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ICYMI: Equity global study finds those working in the performing arts are more likely to experience poor mental health

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on June 2, 2022

On May 12, Equity, "published a global scoping review of 111 academic studies related to mental health and wellbeing in students and professionals within the performing arts. This landmark study was commissioned by Equity. It’s launched alongside a new Mental Health Charter at a panel event to mark Mental Health Awareness Week."

"The review by Dr Lucie Clements found a clear trend for increased mental health concerns across the performing arts, although findings regarding the prevalence of mental health concern vary greatly." It identified a scope of contributing factors, including, "culture of unstable work," and that, "lack of industry regulation of working conditions and mental health," lead to mental health issues.

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on June 02, 2022 at 09:21AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Watching: Leaders Never Stop Emerging: Embracing the Next Generation of Philanthropic Changemakers

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on June 1, 2022

"Join Submittable with philanthropy leader Storme Gray in a discussion about how emerging social impact leaders can unlock the right doors and keep them open." "What do emerging leaders in philanthropy need to succeed? And what can current leadership learn from the up-and-coming generation?"

The 35-minute podcast episode discusses, "how to support true equity and make space for the full human experience." Digging into:

How philanthropic organizations can recruit and retain diverse talent

The value of curiosity, inquiry, and collective care

How global interconnectedness shapes a new ethos for emerging leaders

The power of pausing your inbox

Why everyone is a leader in their own right (and continuously emerging)

Advice for new talent seeking to make a career in philanthropy

Listen to the full episode here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on June 01, 2022 at 08:45AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Reading: Justice and joy: Black, trans-led nonprofit uses joy to fight hate in Alabama

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 31, 2022

"In the same city where state lawmakers passed the strictest trans healthcare ban in the nation, members of a Black, trans and queer-led organization cracked jokes, blew bubbles, played cards, found compassion and community during a recent sunny Sunday afternoon at Shakespeare Park in Montgomery, Ala," said author Jonece Starr Dunigan for the Reckon.

"Quentin Bell, a Black trans man raised in the civil rights hotbed of Selma, Ala., founded the grassroots nonprofit commonly known as TKO in 2012 to empower and support Black trans and nonbinary people who were lacking resources in rural Alabama."

"TKO tackles homelessness, food insecurity, non-affirming healthcare services and other issues by connecting Black LGBTQ+ people to resources such as support groups, a community garden and housing assistance. In 2017, TKO became the first Black and trans-led AIDS Service Organization and STD/STI clinic in the state. TKO clients don’t pay a dime to tap into the nonprofit’s network of gender-affirming doctors. Therapy services are also free."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 31, 2022 at 07:24AM. Read the full post.

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New Fund: Announcement of Grant Opportunity: Field Studies by Arts Service Organizations Rooted in Communities of Color

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 26, 2022

From the Wallace Foundation: "As a part of The Wallace Foundation’s five-year initiative intended to support arts organizations rooted in communities of color as they explore strategies for achieving organizational resilience (ability to adapt and thrive) while retaining their relevance (mattering to their communities), the Foundation invites arts service organizations serving and prioritizing such arts organizations to propose research projects that answer important questions related to the arts communities they serve."

"Proposed studies should address key issues of importance to the work of the arts service organization while also providing important learnings about the field of arts organizations founded by, with, and for communities of color." They should be submitted for "a research planning and implementation grant," or, "a research expansion grant."

Letters of intent are due June 9 with proposals due August 19. Read the full announcement here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 26, 2022 at 10:06AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Reading: Would the World Be Better Off Without Philanthropists?

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 25, 2022

"Organized philanthropy, like most things, looks different on the inside than it does from the outside," said author Nicholas Lemann in a recent article for the New Yorker. “'Philanthropy' comes from the Greek for 'love of humanity,' and public perceptions of it have usually centered on donors and how humanity-loving they really are. The good guys are generous rich people who give to causes we all approve of, like combatting climate change; the bad guys give in order to launder their reputations (like the opioid-promoting Sackler family) or to advance unsavory goals (like the anti-environmentalist Kochs). Either way, the salient questions about philanthropy, for most people, have to do with the size and the quality of a donor’s heart and soul."

"Saunders-Hastings, situated in the conventions of ideal theory, tends to exempt the larger society from the harsh, raking light she casts on philanthropy; her approach is like comparing your actual spouse to a fictional perfect spouse."

"Even within philanthropy, the people who do most of the work at large foundations are grant officers, who aren’t rich and who usually aren’t as overbearing as the people who made the fortunes they are disbursing. A lot of the daily work of philanthropy takes the form of routinized exchanges between salaried bureaucrats on either side of the transaction."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 25, 2022 at 06:50AM. Read the full post.

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June Member Spotlight: ArtsBuild

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on June 1, 2022

For the month of June, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by ArtsBuild.

In response to our questions for the GIA Member Spotlight, ArtsBuild shared the following:

ArtsBuild’s mission is to build a stronger community through the arts. Since our founding in Chattanooga in 1969, ArtsBuild has served as a catalyst for the arts in our community, investing more than $77 million in arts organizations, arts programs, and arts education. Throughout the past 53 years, the vision of our founders to build a stronger community through the arts has remained consistent. That vision includes creating access to the arts. We do this through grantmaking, arts education initiatives, and arts advocacy.

In the process of putting the show together, our team also helped our artists and creatives with professional, technical, and creative development - everything from new video production skills to fair contract negotiation to collaborative mash-ups with peers they didn’t know before. And of course when you assist artists with a few new simple tools in their toolbox, they take those and run in all kinds of creative directions you can never predict, which is where the real beauty and joy comes into play.

At ArtsBuild, we are excited about our Racial Equity Grants for Individual Artists. This summer we will award grants to five local Native American or Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists. The first two rounds of this grant program were awarded to Black and Latinx artists. Each artist receives a grant of $10,000 to do anything that furthers their careers and/or their practice. Funds have been used by artists to travel abroad to research storytelling, buy equipment, create large bodies of work for exhibition, and complete writing and music projects. We hope to be able to fund the next round of grants for BIPOC women artists from all disciplines.

ArtsBuild joined Grantmakers in the Arts in 2020.

You can also visit ArtsBuild’s photo gallery on GIA’s Photo Credits page.

Image: One of the paintings in the traveling exhibit “The Black Bible” by Chattanooga artist Charlie Newton. Charlie was a grant recipient in ArtsBuild’s first round of Racial Equity Grants for Individual Artists awarded to five local African American artists. The exhibit was on display at Stove Works, an ArtsBuild Mission Support grantee, whose mission is to serve the Chattanooga community by providing local, national, and international artists a venue for the production of, exhibition of and education through contemporary works of art. Courtesy of ArtsBuild.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on June 01, 2022 at 06:01AM. Read the full post.

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ICYMI: The Liberatory World We Want to Create: Loving Accountability and the Limitations of Cancel Culture

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 24, 2022

Authors Aja Couchois Duncan and Kad Smith explore how, "in our nonprofit sector, we are often confronted with making sense of the widespread translatability of cultural moments and forces. We don’t have to look far to see how cancel culture informs the way in which we experience everyday interactions on the Internet and in real life." How can we separate ourselves from toxicity, and bring healing instead?

Examples of, "[drawing] on inner work and healing practices to both replenish ourselves and cultivate our individual and collective resilience," include tapping into awareness, honoring the sacred, cultivating compassion, re-yoking our bodies, and nourishing our human forms. "Our mutuality flourishes when our love ethic is strong. And our love ethic is nourished by the practice of loving accountability. Loving accountability means we are learning together, and that we are risking vulnerability in service of creating authentic connection and a better future."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 24, 2022 at 09:54AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Watching: Equity Action Plan Listening Session

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 24, 2022

"Please join Chair Maria Rosario Jackson and NEA partners for an overview of the NEA’s Equity Action Plan," on Wednesday, June 1 from 2-3pm ET via zoom. The session is free, but registration is required. Questions for the panel will be accepted until May 27.

Read NEA's Equity Action plan here.

Register for the webinar here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 24, 2022 at 08:50AM. Read the full post.

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ICYMI: The Bridging Fellows Program

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 23, 2022

Congratulations to GIA's Support for Individual Artists co-chair Celeste Smith, who was selected for the Bridging Fellows Program. "The Bridging Fellows program provides changemakers in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Dallas the opportunity to strengthen their individual and collective leadership capacity and grow networks to support building healthy and equitable communities."

From the Independent Sector: "A Bridging Fellow actively engages individuals, communities, and/or organizations for the purpose of building bridges across varying differences, including ideological, racial, socioeconomic, and geographical. Bridging Fellows-formally and/or informally-build relationships, trust, and opportunities for open and honest communication towards sustainable change and impact – including but not limited to- activists, community residents, organization leaders, community liaisons, youth development coordinators, program officers, case managers, community organizers, educators, human resource professionals, etc."

"Through participation in the fellowship, Fellows will receive capacity and skill-building activities and instructions around bridging frameworks, share their bridging expertise with the cohort and broader social sector, and commit to deploy these practices in their organizations and communities. As a cohort, they will share their learnings and deepen their connections with each other across sectors, institutions, and geographies."

Read the full announcement, and meet the 2022 fellows here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 23, 2022 at 06:51AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Reading: The Whitney’s Union and Supporters Protested Outside the Museum’s Annual Gala Following a ‘Lowballed’ Wage Offer

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 23, 2022

"Events at the Whitney Museum of American Art this year have featured a consistent new guest: the museum’s union. Last night, at the museum’s annual gala and Studio Party, about 50 people turned out, standing on the curb with signs bearing such slogans as 'LIVING ARTISTS LIVING WAGES,' 'HONK FOR A FAIR CONTRACT,' and 'WHITNEY WORKERS WANT FAIR WAGES' and banging on drums as guests filed into the museum’s lobby for a luxe dinner," said artnet news. "Compared to the demonstration that followed the opening of the Whitney Biennial, it was a clear increase in participation, plausibly stemming from a wage offer on April 19 that fell far below the union’s proposal."

"According to a release that the union sent out, the Whitney’s director, Adam Weinberg, brings in a yearly salary of just above $1.1 million, and 'the combined compensation for the fourteen highest-paid museum executives for the prior year totaled $4.5 million.' Signs on the street revealed that many employees, in contrast, earn $17 per hour, and claimed that they are unfairly kept as temporary employees, barring them from certain benefits—including union membership."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 23, 2022 at 06:48AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Watching: Heal Buffalo: Virtual Funders Meeting

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 20, 2022

Join the virtual Funder Briefing Friday, May 20 at 9am PST/12pm EST hosted by Live Free USA, Joyce Foundation, Ford Foundation, Arnold Ventures, and VOICE Buffalo. Registration is required to join.

"This past Saturday, a senseless, horrific, and pre-meditated shooting by a white supremacist left 10 Black people dead and a community ravaged in Buffalo, NY."

"Once again a city is left to grapple with the trauma of violence and racism while the nation searches for answers and its black citizens try to navigate the fear and frustration that grows from a legacy of white supremacy, bigotry, xenophobia, and intolerance that seems to have no end."

"Our loved ones will need short-term and long-term support to begin the recovery. They have a plan informed by their local needs. It is beyond time for comprehensive solutions and action!"

Register for the event here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 20, 2022 at 07:39AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Reading: Giving in America: A look at philanthropy’s history and a unique Candid connection

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 19, 2022

Candid interviewed Amanda Moniz, Ph.D., the David M. Rubenstein Curator of Philanthropy at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, who is responsible for, "[building] a collection of objects telling stories about Americans’ giving throughout our history." The museum's new exhibition, Giving in America, "includes one of the first copies of [the] Foundation Directory."

"Part of the exhibit is organized around the questions of who gives, why do we give, how do we give, and what do we give, while another thematic section changes annually," said Moniz. "The current thematic section, “Who Pays for Education?,” examines Americans’ debates over public and philanthropic funding for education."

"The book featured in the exhibition is a first edition of the Foundation Directory, published by the Foundation Center Library in 1960, and generously donated to the national Philanthropy collection by the Foundation Center. It is a terrific object because it helps illuminate the creation of the Foundation Center to bring greater transparency to foundations’ work in response to mid-twentieth century congressional scrutiny of foundations’ power. The book is also important because it reminds us of the ways people accessed information on foundations before the advent of the internet."

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 19, 2022 at 07:43AM. Read the full post.

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ICYMI: A New Deal for Artists in the 21st Century

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 19, 2022

From the Mellon Foundation: "Rachel Chanoff, founding director of Artists At Work, speaks to the Mellon Foundation about forging a new model for artist-driven community collaborations and why we need artists as problem solvers."

Chanoff speaks to the uniqueness of this model, "We put the artists on our payroll at a living wage with benefits for up to a year. They’re paid for two things: to make beautiful art and to be embedded in a social impact initiative. Not only are artists the messengers who help us make meaning of the world, they have the most extraordinary ability to bring creative thinking to a problem and help solve that problem."

Read the full article here.

The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) serves as an example of this model with their current community-centric projects.

Current GIA board member, Carlton Turner, serves as lead artist/director. "Sipp Culture is able to provide rehearsal space, housing, planning support and can participate as a partner and consultant in the realization of bringing new southern rural stories to the field," according to the MCCP website. "Through this program Sipp Culture offers artists support which is tailor-made to fit their developmental needs."

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 19, 2022 at 07:28AM. Read the full post.

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New Fund: Seattle Launches New Deal-Style Jobs Program for Artists

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 18, 2022

From Hyperallergic: "In response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the arts and culture sectors, the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture (ARTS) will distribute $2 million to create jobs for unemployed and underemployed artists and cultural workers."

“'These programs will employ creative workers, demonstrate how they are embedded in the social-economic fabric, and reinforce the fact that Seattle is flourishing and meshing its creatives into its workforce, thereby into its social structures,' royal alley-barnes, acting director of ARTS, told Hyperallergic in a statement."

Read the full announcement here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 18, 2022 at 06:25AM. Read the full post.

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What We're Reading: Nonprofit and philanthropy: Stop with the BS and get serious about fighting white supremacy

Submitted by Jaime Sharp on May 17, 2022

"Last week, we were reeling from the Supreme Court’s leaked decision to overturn Roe vs Wade. People will die, especially Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asians and NH/PI, and low-income people, because safe abortions will still remain accessible to higher-income mostly white people," said author Vu. "This week, a white man drove 200 miles to Buffalo and murdered 10 people, most of whom were Black, citing the 'Great replacement theory' espoused by many right-wing white supremacists. It is horrifying, and my heart breaks for the families of those who were murdered by this racist terrorist."

How can funders and philanthropists combat white supremacy within the operations of our sector?

The proposed solutions include:

1. Increase your payout rates 2. Fund organizing work, especially work led by marginalized communities 3. Get political 4. Support movement leaders 5. Knock it off with all the grant application bullshit

Read the full article here.

Posted by Jaime Sharp on May 17, 2022 at 06:36AM. Read the full post.