September Member Spotlight on The New York Community Trust

During the month of September, GIA's photo banner features grantees of GIA member The New York Community Trust. Founded in 1924, the Trust supports the vitality and security of New York City through grants in a wide range of program areas, including community development, health, education, and human justice. Below, in their own words, Trust staff outline their arts and culture funding program:

Artists and their institutions make New York unique—and add thousands of jobs and billions in revenue. The New York Community Trust, the City’s community foundation, is dedicated to making this sector even stronger.

Generous New Yorkers have entrusted charitable funds to us to continue their dedication to the arts into the future. Our Van Lier Fellowships have helped hundreds of talented minority and low-income artists start their careers, and many have since seen their plays on Broadway or earned the highest honors in their fields. A grant to the Bronx Museum of the Arts allowed free admission for all. And with our support, East Village arts developer Fourth Arts Block is proving that when small arts groups band together, anything is possible.

Through our grantmaking, we help new audiences discover art they’ve never experienced before while broadening the exposure of local artists. Our grants bring teaching artists into public schools, reach young people with special needs, and fight for more public funding for the arts. We fortify arts behind the scenes through grants to service organizations and by strengthening the management of arts and cultural groups, especially those in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens.

We also work with other funders outside the scope of our general grantmaking. The Hive Digital Media Learning Fund brings kids, teachers, nonprofits, scientists, and artists together to design new and exciting ways to learn, create, and participate beyond the classroom. The Arts & Culture Research Fund supports cultural research that makes use of the New York State Cultural Data Project.

Image: Trisha Brown Dance Company. Roof Piece, originally created in 1970, was performed on rooftops around the High Line forty-one years later. The New York Community Trust made a grant to the company to plan its future as its choreographer retired and to digitize video and film recordings. Photo: Kevin Vast.