Philanthropic practice

A consortium of four foundations — the Andrew W. Mellon, Ford, and MacArthur foundations and the J. Paul Getty Trust — recently announced the acquisition of a historic African-American photographic archive, pending court approval and the closing of the sale.

The New York City Cultural Agenda Fund in The New York Community Trust brought eight foundations together to improve advocacy and equity in the arts sector.

Executive directors/CEOs of color are leaving their positions and, as Vu Le puts it in a recent blog post, this is an "urgent issue" that "will have serious implications for our sector."

"The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) has added new urgency to the question of what is the future of charitable giving by individuals in the United States," states a post by Randy I. Cohen, of Americans for the Arts, and Patrick Rooney, of Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have become major topics of conversation in arts and culture within the past decade. Studies have shown that there is a marked lack of DEI in all areas of the sector, including audiences, artistic offerings, governing boards, professional staff, and financial support. Compounding this issue is the rapidly changing demographic makeup of the United States; it is estimated that by 2042, people of color will no longer be in the minority.

The Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership (SGDCP), the sister organization to Souls Grown Deep Foundation, recently announced that it is committing $1 million to impact investments as part of Upstart 2.0, an initiative led by Upstart Co-Lab.

In The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s latest annual report, foundation President Elizabeth Alexander explains how the foundation works to support arts and humanities projects that advance a better world.

A blog post in Alliance magazine makes the case for investing in community-owned solutions and "pursue a paradigm shift to match peoples’ climate actions in the philanthropy sector."

The Zuni Youth Enrichment Project (ZYEP) is a nonprofit organization committed to providing healthy summers and futures for Zuni children in New Mexico. In a three-part series of articles, Indian Giver tells the story of ZYEP "and how it has fostered relationships and leveraged funding to grow from hosting one small camp to becoming an artistic landmark and a formal hub for the Zuni artist community."

As part of Women in Reentry, a project of the People’s Paper Co-op, for months, formerly incarcerated women have learned to make paper from their shredded criminal records, coming up with sayings that reflect their experiences behind bars, and then collaborating with artists across the country to turn their words and images into art.