Carmen Graciela Díaz's Blog

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, submitted last week a 2019-20 budget proposal to the Legislature that includes an ongoing $10 million increased general fund allocation for the California Arts Council, California's state arts agency.

Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, greeted the new year with a letter in which he reflects on the foundation’s hopes for its grantees, the communities it impacts, and the world. We know that the communities most proximate to the problems possess unique insight into the solutions. That is why, in everything we do, … Continue reading A Vision of Hope for Philanthropy in 2019 →

Calling out equity explicitly, the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) became the first city department to officially adopt a racial equity statement and plan following a unanimous vote this week by its board, reported KQED.

A white paper released by Kresge Foundation explores creative placemaking initiatives and the assessment of community development strategies. The latest white paper on creative placemaking, penned by Maria Rosario Jackson, makes the case on how the field could benefit from a more nuanced understanding of the roots of urban inequality, and improved ways of tracking change in communities.

More community college students in the Northeast Ohio region will have a path to complete a bachelor's degree at Case Western Reserve University or an associate’s degree at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), thanks to a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, reported Crain's Cleveland.

Mimi Levitt, a respected patron of the arts and historic conservation, died on January 6 of natural causes at her home in New York. Levitt believed in the arts as a source for positive social change and left a lasting legacy of generosity and service to the causes she supported, informed the Levitt Foundation. She was 97.

"We’re creative, we’re affordable, and you can help us stay that way." That is Des Moines' pitch to artists as Iowa's capital grows, according to an article in City Lab.

A new report by the Education Commission of the States delves into education policy areas where arts in education leaders and stakeholders can expand opportunities to engage the arts in policy solutions.

As we welcome 2019, ideas around a more just and fair philanthropic field are inevitable. Dana Kawaoka-Chen, executive director for Justice Funders, says "we need a just transition in philanthropy that redistributes wealth, democratizes power, and shifts economic control to communities. In other words, we must transform our relationship to capital and to our communities."

More foundations are choosing to operate within a limited lifespan. For The Atlantic Philanthropies, "the commitment in 2002 to close its doors by 2020 reflected founder Chuck Feeney’s Giving While Living approach to philanthropy and his desire for the foundation’s funds to achieve maximum impact within that time frame and beyond."