GIA Blog

SMU announced the merger of its National Center for Arts Research (NCAR), a provider of evidence-based insights on the nonprofit arts and cultural industry, with DataArts, the Philadelphia-based resource for data about U.S. nonprofit arts, culture, and humanities organizations.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) addressed recently the question, "What does it mean for funders to build power?," as more grantmakers deepen journeys to embed values of equity, diversity, and inclusion into their work.

Actor comedian Cheech Marin's Chicano art museum is one step closer to reality after Jerry Brown, California’s governor, signed a bill that makes it closer to its fundraising goal thanks to a $9.7 million grant.

Borealis Philanthropy launched the Racial Equity in Philanthropy (REP) Fund, a funding effort of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The inaugural round of grants totaling $14 million over three years will support 19 philanthropy-serving organizations committed to advancing racial equity within the sector through research, learning opportunities, and the dissemination of best practices, according to Philanthropy News Digest.

After the state of Florida dropped its funding to only $2.65 million for all arts organizations statewide (a dramatic decrease from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs’ recommendation of more than $41.6 million), a Tampa foundation seeks to sustain local arts organizations as they're facing catastrophic effects from the cuts in funding.

Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) and the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions recently launched a leadership fellowship for CEOs of progressive philanthropic institutions. The fellowship is best suited for philanthropic institutions that already support racial equity and powerbuilding and want to go deeper by building a strong peer group and aligning more towards equity and impact.

Native American organizations and causes have a crucial role in Indigenous communities but are chronically underfunded, according to a recent report of the First Nations Development Institute in partnership with Frontline Solutions.

Arts and cultural organizations in the United States are well-distributed across the country, serving communities both poor and affluent, rural and urban, not just on the coasts and not just in major metropolitan markets, states the National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) introducing its 2018 most vibrant arts communities in America index.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a $3.5 million grant to Northwestern University's Center for the Scientific Studies in the Arts, a collaborative partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago to investigate and conserve art. The center has worked to uncover hidden details in paintings by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and László Moholy-Nagy.

"Racial equity isn't something we do because it's a nice thing to do. It's the core issue out of which everything else we do flows." La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of W.K. Kellogg Foundation, shared that idea in an interview, in which she emphasized how racial equity is a crucial part of the transformation needed to improve the United States.