Grantmakers in the Arts

The stories we tell ourselves matter. Starving artist. Dying in poverty or hitting the jackpot of stardom. Impractical artist, not able to pay rent or bills, much less know anything about credit associations or portable benefits. Only the winners have worth and take all.

I was drawn to the preconference session We Do This to Free Us: Artists and the Solidarity Economy on artists and the solidarity economy having lived with an artist for 15 years, and having flirted with my creative writing dreams for longer than that. Ultimately, the government job with its healthcare and pension won out for me, and attempts at fitting writing into the margins happen less and less these days with the demands of motherhood and working for an employer. He, on the other hand, continues as a gig worker, musician and creative—a path that can be by turns liberating, terrifying and inspiring.

The Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) announced recently that it received $3 million from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for APAP ArtsForward, a new program to support the performing arts field’s safe, vibrant, and equitable reopening and recovery.

For the month of November, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by Flamboyan Foundation.

Filantropía Puerto Rico has launched a survey to identify opportunities to increase equity and learn about how grantmakers doing work in Puerto Rico listen to and incorporate the voices and perspective of those they look to serve.

Frances Phillips reviews research about an arts education program the Walter & Elise Haas Foundation participated in over the past year responding to the idea of Emily Garvie from the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation "of organizing arts nonprofits to lead subsidized pods for students who lacked access to consistent arts learning and schoolwork support."

National Performance Network (NPN) recently announced inaugural awardees of the Take Notice Fund, a pilot program awarding $5,000 grants to artists and culture bearers of color living and working throughout Louisiana whose bodies of work represent excellence, dedication to their practices, and contributions to this country’s discourse about racial equity and cultural preservation.

Instead of fundraising for its own budget, this year's Laundromat Project’s annual “People-Powered Challenge” campaign "will 'pay it forward,' distributing $50,000 to support the work of other orgs led by people of color," states a recent article in Hyperallergic.

3Arts, the Chicago-based nonprofit grantmaking organization, recently expanded funding in response to increasingly stringent times for women artists, artists of color, and Deaf and disabled artists.