GIA Blog

In a recent email, Borealis Philanthropy reflects on the first three years of the Racial Equity in Philanthropy (REP) Fund, 2020 learnings, and how their commitment to "racial equity values and practice shows up beyond the job."

Antwaun Sargent, who for about a decade, has written about and curated exhibitions devoted to Black artists, as ArtNews reported, has been named Gagosian's new director and curator. His first show, according to The New York Times, will examine what he calls “notions of Black space.”

Arts Activation Fund: Corona Memorials, a public-private partnership between the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and Community Partners, seeks to commission approximately 70 creative-tributes by 70 lead artists “to reflect the lifetime of a person who has died from COVID-19 by engaging the family or dearest friends of the deceased."

An article in The Washington Post discusses a movement of arts workers that "asserts that the arts are as foundational as farming or manufacturing" with "an aim reinforced daily by the financial devastation the coronavirus pandemic has spread throughout the nation’s creative economy."

Miguel Cardona, President Joe Biden’s pick to become the next U.S. education secretary, "considered majoring in art education — influenced by an excellent art teacher he had," as The Hechinger Report stated recently.

The inaugural issue of the Nonprofit Wakanda Quarterly, a quarterly publication that seeks to "provide space for Black nonprofit leaders to flex their intellectual muscles in a way that will truly move the sector forward," according to George Suttles, one of the drivers of this publication, is out.

In an open letter, the BIPOC Executive Directors Coalition of Washington State urge funders to "double the amount of funding you release to nonprofits and ensure the additional funds are going to organizations led by and serving Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color."

The Guggenheim Museum has named Naomi Beckwith deputy director and chief curator, after Nancy Spector stepped down from that position amid charges of racism, The New York Times reported. Beckwith starts her new position in June, becoming the museum's first Black deputy director and chief curator.

Cooperative funding may be integral to sustaining a career in the arts, as an article in Next City explores.

Inside Philanthropy reminds readers that in July, a coalition of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) theater-makers published an open letter titled “We See You, White American Theatre,” calling for change across the field in areas like hiring, work conditions and programming. This article asks: Five months later, are funders rising to the challenge?