Carmen Graciela Díaz's Blog

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced recently a new relief program to provide financial assistance to the city’s creative scene and cultural organizations impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, The Chicago Sun Times reported.

In Denver, a fund at the city’s public funding agency - IMAGINE 2020 Artist Assistance Fund – was modified for a state-wide partnership to offer relief for artists across the state of Colorado, and, in the process, nearly tripled in amount available to individual artists, according to a press release.

The "literally overnight evaporation of gigs, commissions and sales": that is what the coronavirus crisis, as Next City puts it, has meant for many of America’s nearly 5 million cultural workers.

For the month of April, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by Center for Cultural Innovation.

The Personal Emergency Relief Fund, a program of Springboard for the Arts, an economic and community development organization for artists and by artists based in Fergus Falls and Saint Paul, Minnesota, has added language to specifically address COVID19-related cancellations.

Congress gave final approval on Friday, March 27, to a $2 trillion measure that will deliver "direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states, and a huge bailout fund for businesses" battered by coronavirus crisis, as The New York Times reported.

Arts philanthropy, while not leaving legacy gifts behind, is shifting toward "impact and engagement and making a difference,” says Anders Petterson, founder of ArtTactic and author of the report TEFAF Art Market Report: Art Patronage in the 21st Century, Barron's reports.

London N. Breed, San Francisco mayor, announced an Arts Relief Program to invest in working artists and arts and cultural organizations financially impacted by COVID-19.

Lisa Pilar Cowan, vice president of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, shared recently how the foundation has started to take action in light of the ongoing impact of the coronavirus "to reflect where we are – off a cliff."

"As a woman of color leading a nonprofit, I am no stranger to mansplaining," shares Sarah Iddrissu, executive director of E4E-Boston, in an article in Educators for Excellence that stresses that nonprofits need women of color in leadership and the need to disrupt the structural barriers to their advancement.