GIA Blog

The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Board of Trustees recently approved more than $2.8 million in grants toward an equitable and just New Jersey. The grants include more than $350,000 in new Imagine a New Way grants, "representing Dodge’s latest step towards our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization and centering racial equity and justice in our work," according to the announcement.

In "Buffering Against Uncertainty: Working capital and the resiliency of BIPOC-serving organizations," Rebecca Thomas principal at Rebecca Thomas & Associates, and Zannie Voss, director of SMU DataArts, delve in working capital levels of arts and cultural organizations, emphasizing on BIPOC-serving organizations.

"A bailout for live music and other event venues passed in the last relief bill. But one month after applications were scheduled to launch, they have not, and many venues are barely hanging on," reported recently NPR on the desperation of venue workers.

"In order to resolve generational wealth extraction from BIPOC and working-class communities, there needs to be more accountability for investors and funders, and more agency for these communities," write Shante Little and Curt Lyon in Alliance Magazine.

Data from 2019 analyzed by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows growth in the arts and cultural sector before the coronavirus pandemic.

We at Grantmakers in the Arts are delighted to present Solidarity Not Charity: Arts & Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy – a report by Natalia Linares and Caroline Woolard, commissioned by GIA with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and the Barr Foundation.

"Amidst both a catastrophic pandemic and calls for reformed funding practices (especially in support of BIPOC communities), philanthropic giving to arts and culture provides a unique opportunity for funders to reevaluate their funding, evaluation, and decision-making processes," writes Michael Sy Uy at the Center for Effective Philanthropy's blog.

NOCD-NY and Arts & Democracy recently convened a peer learning exchange about how stories, narrative, and cultural power can help create a just and liberatory vision for the future at the "Narrative Power, Cultural Strategies and New Civic Vision" event.

GIA recently sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to urge the Department of Education to include in its Volume 2 Roadmap to Reopening handbook guidance further clarifying the importance of providing access to the arts for low-income children and children of color with the same quality and rigor as their more advantaged peers.

In "Building Trust Through Grantee Feedback," Charlotte Brugman of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) explores the importance of trust between funders and grantees in a conversation with leaders of India's Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.