GIA Blog

By Joseph Kunkel, MASS / Native Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab

This post is part of the series, Future of the Field: Cross-Sector Creative Placemaking Series.

Justin Laing reflects on the methodology and reflections on the experience of leading an evaluation of an arts diversity initiative in which a funder was evaluating the impact of a multi-year initiative intended to help arts organizations. "All but one of the organizations was predominantly White American led. I collaborated with the participants to define key questions, data collection, and data interpretation and applied Critical Race/Critical Pedagogy/socialist frameworks."

The newly released Monument Lab’s audit of the United States' commemorative landscape, in partnership with the Mellon Foundation, answers important questions like: "Who are the 50 individuals most frequently represented by a public monument in the US? What percentage of those 50 are white and male? How many are women? And what are the dynamics that helped shape who is—and who is not—on that list?".

For the month of October, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by The CIRI Foundation.

Trish Adobea Tchume writes in Nonprofit Wakanda about four frameworks for living liberation "everywhere I am and everywhere I go": transformative organizing, just transition, creating liberated zones, and "making myself 'Politically at home'”.

As part of The Redford Center's investments in storytelling strategies that respond to the urgency of today’s crises, the center introduced a new category of impact grants as part of their expanded grantmaking strategy.

Rooted in Vibrant Communities (RVC) will host a webinar on October 21 about equitable grantmaking and steps grantmakers can take to meaningfully address systemic injustice and turn their goals and values into actionable strategies.

As the summer wanes and the fall season marks its arrival, and with it the start of many municipal budget cycles, Grantmakers in the Arts is presenting an overview of an important change made by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that will have a significant impact on fiscal year 2020 financial reporting.

This post is part of the series, Future of the Field: Cross-Sector Creative Placemaking Series.

When I think about the current state of creative placemaking, I worry about the professionalization of the field. Because I am learning that resources are being diverted from practitioners and communities to professionals and institutions.

A blog post published by the Wallace Foundation explains "Five Things State and District Leaders Need to Know Now" about the American Rescue Plan, the federal government’s third major COVID-19 relief bill that "provides nearly $2 trillion to support the nation’s efforts to reopen and recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Included is more than $126 billion for K-12 schools and additional funding for early childhood and higher education."