“Inequality in the arts is holistic. It exists at individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Grantmakers who are committed to seeing the arts thrive as an inclusive multiracial- and gender-expansive enterprise must pursue allyship at each of these levels. An ally is someone who takes on a struggle for equity that is not their own or that of their community. Allies use their privilege and their power to center the people most impacted by inequity. Allyship is a lifelong process, one that involves both personal reflection and systemic action. In the context of the arts, allyship encompasses a spectrum of strategies.” – Grantmakers in the Arts Reader
Harmonic Convergence
“A new orchestra of musicians from multiple South Asian countries aims to promote understanding through music. Co-founder Nirupama Rao discusses the role orchestras can play in building bridges across geopolitical divides.” – Symphony Magazine
Head of the Class
“In previous decades, musicians may have learned [such] skills [as grant writing, marketing, and audience development] on the fly, but more and more educational institutions are beginning to make this training part of their curricula. … Moreover, pressing contemporary issues — such as diversity, inclusion, and social equity — that might once have seemed distant from the focus of the academy are increasingly being elevated to central concerns. … Representatives from several organizations that have started offering this kind of training for undergraduate and graduate students share their thoughts on navigating this shifting new landscape.” – Symphony Magazine
Leveraging Libraries for Cultural Engagement: A Model from New York
David Giles: “As one of the designers of Culture Pass, I could not be more pleased with the results so far. After launching in summer 2018 with twenty-nine participating organizations and seven thousand passes per month, we have grown to fifty organizations and eight thousand monthly passes. … In what follows, I will talk more about how Culture Pass functions and how we have partnered with participating institutions to target underserved neighborhoods. I will also explain more about how the museum programs work in the library setting and how they complement the libraries’ own pedagogical emphasis on play, curiosity, and discovery.” – Grantmakers in the Arts
Why I Love “Bad” Movies
“We bad-movie watchers have our own anticriteria, the sorts of badness we prefer. Some of us use the term “bad movies” to mean, simply, films that emerge from a supposedly lowbrow genre, or films that are stylized in the manner we tend to label “camp.” (Road House from 1989 is this kind of bad movie, and is very good at being one.) Some of us prefer movies that are exploitative and tacky but, in a Nietzschean way, supposedly more alive than respectable ones.” – Hedgehog Review
Continuing Embrace of Equity: Bonfils-Stanton’s Journey
Eddy Torres: “I am honored to have this opportunity to interview Gary Steuer, president and CEO of the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. Gary is a respected colleague, a member of Grantmakers in the Arts’ board of directors, and co-chair of the GIA Denver Conference Planning Committee for the upcoming annual conference. I am pleased to note that Bonfils-Stanton has been embracing equity in their support of Denver’s nonprofit community, including its arts organizations.” – Grantmakers in the Arts
Arts in Society: A Case Study in Collaborative Cross-Sector Grantmaking
“As grantmakers, we often ask our applicants to amplify their impact through collaboration, but what happens when we turn this mandate on ourselves and join forces with other funders to magnify our giving? This was exactly the question that the Bonfils-Stanton and Hemera Foundations set out to test when they joined forces in 2016 to pilot the Arts in Society grant program. … The program has demonstrated that collaborative grantmaking, like collaborative programming, can lead to increased efficiency and impact. [Here are] some of the benefits that have come from this collaboration.” – Grantmakers in the Arts