Carmen Graciela Díaz's Blog

"What risks are we in philanthropy and impact investing willing to take to make lasting change? Are we willing to continue to sacrifice the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of entire communities for the comfort of our well-polished theories of change?"

A new Race to Lead report, Race to Lead Revisited: Obstacles and Opportunities in Addressing the Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap, takes a look at the racial gap in nonprofit leadership.

Freedom Maps: Activating legacies of culture, art, and organizing in the U.S. South, a new report written by Maria Cherry Rangel, director of Strategic Initiatives at the Foundation for Louisiana, and Ron Ragin, independent cultural worker, examines the state of artistic practice in the South and "the ways in which artists and culture workers are helping to build progressive infrastructure through social justice, and practitioners’ visions for the future."

We all know by now how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the educational system. Inevitably, the pandemic has greatly impacted arts education in university-level art programs as some colleges continue to change or revisit their plans for in-person learning, remote classes, a hybrid model, as an article in The Los Angeles Times reports.

The International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD) recently announced a financial and organizational assessment of the IABD dance company membership. The research, The Black Report: What You Thought You Knew About Black Dance", analyzes a sample of 30 Black-led dance companies from across the United States, details the announcement.

The National Performance Network (NPN) reached out to artists in New Orleans and nationally with a provocative question: "What do you need?" The responses were captured in videos and to keep that conversation alive, NPN asks artists to answer that question via social media with the hashtag #WhatArtistsNeed.

Responding to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and systemic racism in the US, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation announced additional grantmaking actions both on COVID-19 and on combating racism, including three new anti-racism grants.

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.

The Open Society Foundations announced it was investing $220 million "to build power in Black communities, promote bold new anti-racist policies in U.S. cities, and help first-time activists stay engaged," according to its website.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Yale Law School’s Justice Collaboratory announced recently an initiative to distribute a curated 500-book collection to 1,000 medium and maximum security prisons, including at least one juvenile detention center, across the United States over the next three and a half years, explains the press release.