GIA Blog

Reflecting on: What are grantees asking for? How can funders listen and respond accordingly?

I have cried more in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life. My grief began the day Washington State Governor Jay Inslee banned large events in Seattle-area counties, effectively closing all cultural institutions, performance venues, and arts spaces. It was one of the State’s first steps in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Soon, a stay-at-home order would be issued, shuttering all non-essential businesses across Washington.

In a recent Monument Lab podcast, artist Mel Chin says the lesson from the coronavirus pandemic situation and other situations “is to exercise self-critique and empathy. How do you have to rekindle it for each situation,” he says.

Reflecting on: What strategies exist to support, regrant to, and advocate for cultural organizations (without formal audits)?

The current crisis has necessitated that we — as with many of our colleagues around the country — reassess our “normal” way of conducting philanthropic business because these are not “normal” times. The crisis we are facing is of an existential nature — the very survival of our cultural organizations and artists is at stake.

When the research started in 2017 for Freedom Maps: Activating legacies of culture, art, and organizing in the U.S. South, an upcoming report, the authors could not have imagined our current reality.

Reflecting on: What strategies exist to support, regrant to, and advocate for cultural organizations (without formal audits)?

If you asked me where I would be on April 13, 2020, I would have described a fun-filled adventure staycationing with my familia in D.C. over Spring Break. Instead, I am sitting in my “command center” — the spare room in my basement — helping the arts navigate through the worst crisis in a generation. This is not what I had planned, or what any of us had planned. Yet, this is where we are — where a lot of us are — and we must figure out how to make it all work.

Jan Newcomb and Tom Clareson

Reflecting on: How can funders plan for organizational triage and what models can be referenced?

The National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and Emergency Response (NCAPER) and Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) — two services organizations supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — work to provide education, information, and links to funding resources for organizations in the arts community after all types of emergencies and disasters. Currently, both organizations are looking at a variety of issues in response to and recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Abigail Savitch-Lew, Eli Dvorkin, and Laird Gallagher

Center for an Urban Future (CUF) is an independent, nonprofit think tank that generates innovative policies to create jobs, reduce inequality and help lower income New Yorkers climb into the middle class.

New York City’s vibrant arts and cultural sector has endured extraordinary challenges over the past several weeks. In an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, the city’s thousands of independent theatres, nightclubs, galleries, and performance venues have gone dark, and countless arts organizations have been forced to cancel nearly every event, opening, workshop, and public program on their calendars. For these organizations—and the many working artists employed by them—the economic impact of this mandatory shutdown is unlike any in recent memory.

Calandra Childers and Brian J. Carter

As you undoubtedly know, Seattle and King County were back in March the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. As of April 16, in Washington state there were 10,783 confirmed cases and 567 deaths (with 312 of those deaths in King County), according to data from Washington State Department of Health. We mourn those who have lost their lives, we pray for those fighting for their lives, and we stand in solidarity with our community as we struggle toward an uncertain future.

As arts grantmakers navigate the current stages of "a prolonged effort to stem the impact of COVID-19, many are already looking beyond the pandemic," as Mike Scutari writes at Inside Philanthropy.

A page in Medium seeks to help Native Americans find actions and answers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Michael Woestehoff, Navajo Tribal Citizen, compiled an information hub of agencies taking action as well as details on gaming facilities, Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) school closures, to tribal leader emergency declarations.