Carmen Graciela Díaz's Blog

“The board meeting is not going well. (...) To the consternation of some board members, the executive director suggests that increasing staff diversity is a top priority.” One exasperated member says to the executive director, “You want to spend your time on that? We have so many more-pressing problems!”

In light of challenging times, Grant Oliphant, president of The Heinz Endowments, examines the role of the courageous leader and the power to make change happen within the philanthropic field and our own culture.

Stories can make us connect in unsuspected ways. A piece by the Stanford Social Innovation Review makes the case for the power of stories to make, prop up, and bring down systems.

The Mellon Public Scholars Program at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), which introduces graduate students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences to the intellectual and practical aspects of identifying, addressing, and collaborating with the public through their scholarship, received support for the next three years from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

As the term creative placemaking is increasingly known in arts and culture, community development, and urban planning, a new white paper released by Kresge Foundation explores the value of the field and what it needs to flourish.

In light of demographic changes and disparity of staff in museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) recently launched a pilot internship program to engage undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds and make the staff of these institutions more diverse.

The nation’s oldest women’s foundation, Ms. Foundation for Women, announced recently its new strategic plan, which centers its grantmaking and advocacy structure to invest intentionally in women and girls of color as a means to create social, cultural, and economic equity for all genders.

SMU announced the merger of its National Center for Arts Research (NCAR), a provider of evidence-based insights on the nonprofit arts and cultural industry, with DataArts, the Philadelphia-based resource for data about U.S. nonprofit arts, culture, and humanities organizations.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) addressed recently the question, "What does it mean for funders to build power?," as more grantmakers deepen journeys to embed values of equity, diversity, and inclusion into their work.

Actor comedian Cheech Marin's Chicano art museum is one step closer to reality after Jerry Brown, California’s governor, signed a bill that makes it closer to its fundraising goal thanks to a $9.7 million grant.