Emergency Readiness, Response, and Recovery
While artists and arts organizations often play an active role in the healing process after disasters, the frequency of 21st century emergencies has also demonstrated that the arts and culture sector itself is highly vulnerable. Time and time again, creative careers and creative economies have suffered great loss and devastation, which has often included severe damage of unique cultural artifacts and venues. Cultural workers and arts organizations are generally underprepared for emergencies, and underserved when disasters strike.
National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and Emergency Response
The Coalition is a cross-disciplinary, voluntary task force involving over 20 arts organizations (artist/art-focused organizations, arts agencies and arts funders) and individual artists, co-chaired by CERF+ (Craft Emergency Relief Fund + Artists’ Emergency Resources) and South Arts. Coalition participants are committed to a combined strategy of resource development, educational empowerment, and public policy advocacy designed to ensure that there is an organized, nationwide safety net for artists and the arts organizations that serve them before, during and after disasters. Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) members active with the Coalition have been meeting at GIA’s annual conference to guide and educate foundations, arts agencies, art service organizations and corporate grantmakers interested in becoming more emergency ready and effective in their emergency relief efforts and grantmaking. Click here for the executive summary of the Coalition’s 2014-2020 plan.
Recommended Resources & Publications
If you are currently working in an area affected by an emergency, the Coalition’s Essential Guidelines for Arts Responders is your first step.
A recent report from Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy looks at the philanthropic dollars that were distributed for COVID-19 in the first half of 2020.
Read More...Filantropía Puerto Rico (FiPR) convened a group of the organizations that have been actively working on managing the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in the island. They discussed the state of things on Puerto Rico, and "on the actions needed to change direction towards a just recovery that guarantees dignified living conditions and safe and healthy environments for the population," as the report states.
Read More...After months of closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) announced recently $1.5 million in grants to help New York City’s cultural institutions build back a more equitable culture and experience.
Read More...The Ford Foundation announced last week "an unprecedented $160 million-and-growing initiative called America’s Cultural Treasures, with substantial grants going to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) organizations across the country," as The Washington Post reported.
Read More...ArtsReady and the Performing Arts Readiness project have released the Pocket Response Resource (“PRR”).
Read More...A new report from Exponent Philanthropy and PEAK Grantmaking addresses changes in funding since the coronavirus pandemic.
Read More...The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced recently the award of 15 emergency grants totaling $1.5 million for providers of higher education in prison.
Read More...By Gonzalo Casals
In July, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs released a survey on the financial impact of COVID-19, capturing responses from 800 cultural nonprofits at the height of the public health crisis in New York, and the anxiety and uncertainty surrounding it.
Read More...The Academy of American Poets, Community of Literary Magazine and Presses (CLMP), and the National Book Foundation announced they established The Literary Arts Emergency Fund, which will provide $3.5 million to the literary arts, a field that, as the press release states, has been disastrously impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Read More...A new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), based on a nationally representative survey of nonprofit leaders in May 2020, addresses what is most needed from funders "and what differences in experience are emerging based on characteristics such as organization type and gender of nonprofit leaders."
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