Arts Funders Respond

Launched in 2015, Common Field - a national network of independent visual arts organizations and organizers that connects, supports, and advocates for the artist-centered field - announced that, “after a comprehensive auditing and strategic visioning process in 2021, Common Field has made the decision to begin an intentional sunsetting process and will close as an organization in December 2022.”

Memphis Music Initiative (MMI) recently announced the launch of "Call & Response: The Sound of Black Arts Revolution," a campaign and "a call to funders in the creative youth development nonprofit space to do better by the Black and brown leaders who give so much of themselves to their communities, and the young people they serve. Black Pay Matters. Black Legacy Matters. Black Rest Matters," according to the announcement in late March.

“We offer our story as one example (amongst many) of what it can look like to answer the call to fund racial justice. Five years ago, we at the Pink House Foundation (PHF)—a small family foundation based in Washington, D.C.—set out to explore what it could look like to redefine philanthropy with justice at the center,” report Hanna Mahon and Luke Newton Newton in Inside Philanthropy.

"Chicago’s creative vitality is worth celebrating, but we must acknowledge that support for the arts and culture sector has not been distributed equitably across the city’s geographies or populations. With this in mind, in 2019 MacArthur announced a new approach called Culture, Equity, and the Arts (CEA), through which we directly support organizations with annual budgets of $2 million and above," Geoffrey Banks, senior program officer, Chicago Commitment, shares a new, more equity-centered approach for our funding to small and medium sized arts and culture organizations.

"As the nation recognizes Black History Month, it is an opportunity to lift up the power of the arts while celebrating the contributions of Black artists to the collective tapestry of our nation," writes National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dr. María Rosario Jackson in a statement this month following her confirmation. Jackson is the first African American and Mexican American woman to serve as chair of the NEA.

"[Elizabeth] Alexander came to the organization with a specific mandate, she said, of 'sharpening the focus—doing all the work, every penny, through a social justice lens.' That meant asking what she called sharper questions," writes Maximilíano Durón in ArtNews' profile of Alexander's leadership at the helm of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2018. “What are the stories that we haven’t heard about? What are the cultural points of view that have not been centered? What are the units that have not been resourced or uplifted?”

The Mosaic Network and Fund Funder Learning Intensive 2021-2022, a one-year online learning intensive aimed at supporting a cohort of up to 100 New York City-based arts funders in their efforts to normalize racial justice concepts and implement racial equity practices at their organizations, is seeking participants.

A group of philanthropic organizations signed a joint letter condemning the violence that unfolded January 6 as a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol.

"When it comes to racial bias, you either participate in it actively or through silence, or you use your power and privilege to dismantle it. Each day you make this choice – when you serve as a juror, when you call the police or see someone else call and when and for whom you vote. If oppression happens, then we are allowing it to happen and we are all in the position to stop it."

"This time, our sector must make a long-term commitment to fund grassroots organizations working to end anti-Black racism and state-sanctioned violence," details a recent statement from Borealis Philanthropy responding to the urgent conversations around anti-Black racism and police brutality.