Grantmakers in the Arts

For the month of May, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by PBS.

The arts have been a major staple of PBS for almost 50 years. The PBS Foundation provides millions of Americans hundreds of hours of arts programming annually and a front row seat to world-class drama and performances.

In response to the "philanthropic neglect of rural, small city and suburban communities in the region," The Heartland Fund, a donor collaborative housed at the Windward Fund, was launched in 2018 by the Franciscan Sisters of Mercy and the Wallace Global Fund, according to a piece in the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

“Imagine a monument for today, for your city, for your community.” That's the question “New Monuments for New Cities,” a public art project, asked local artists when encouraging them to create proposals (in the form of posters) for new monuments. Houston, Austin, Chicago, Toronto, and New York City will produce an exhibition of the resulting 25 artworks specific to their site, as ArtNews reports.

The first annual impact report on the NYC Inclusive Creative Economy Fund, released by LISC NYC, looks at the creative economy as a driver of comprehensive community development.

A column in The New York Times is devoted to those who are combating social isolation, at a local level: community builders, weaving the social fabric.

After a full day of leading workshops on how to talk about race thoughtfully and deliberately that showed an overrepresentation of employees of color and an underrepresentation of white employees, Ijeoma Oluo shares her thoughts on how "so often the white attendees have decided for themselves what will be discussed, what they will hear, what they will learn."

Showcasing the story of Julie Phelps, executive director of CounterPulse, a community-based art and culture space in San Francisco, Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, discusses the importance of nonprofit executives running small, community-based organizations.

In a letter, the board of directors of Grantmakers in the Arts requested that Congress support appropriations of $167.50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities respectively, as well as $262 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and $480 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.