Social Justice

The “Fix Team” at Grist, an independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future, brought together Anjali Nath Upadhyay, a philosopher and political scientist at Liberation Spring, and facilitator Gibrán Rivera in what Rivera described as an experiment called "Where Shift Happens: A Narrative and Cultural Power Mini-School."

Farhad Ebrahimi, founder and president of the Chorus Foundation in Boston, MA, writes for The Forge on the subject of private philanthropy's future, and the structural reforms that are needed:

Philanthropy as it’s conventionally understood is the product of racial capitalism. As a result, I see progressive — or even radical — private philanthropy as, at best, a transitional form. If we seek to support transformational work, then we ourselves must be open to transformation. I like to think of this as a “just transition” for the philanthropic sector: we must directly challenge the conditions that produced the wealth inequality that allowed for private philanthropy in the first place.

An article in Chalkbeat discusses efforts that have "attempted to ban critical race theory, the academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism."

The Communicative Arts Academy, "a vital hub for a community largely excluded from Los Angeles’s cultural institutions," is at the center of this New York Times Style Magazine article.

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United States Artists and the Rainin Foundation hosted a virtual gathering of the inaugural Rainin Fellows: Margo Hall, Rodrigo Reyes, Amara Tabor-Smith, and Saqib Keval with Jocelyn Jackson of the People’s Kitchen Collective.

Inside Philanthropy checks in with leaders in the arts funding sector to see how the space has changed in response to calls to fight systemic racism and what remains to be done.

March 2021, 121 pages. Grantmakers in the Arts, 522 Courtlandt Avenue, 1st Floor, Bronx, NY 10451.https://art.coop/.

Setting the Stage

With a population of over 2.3 million and one-in-four residents being foreign-born, Houston is the most ethnically diverse metro area in the nation. The city’s arts programs and cultural offerings are robust in number and breadth, and its vibrancy unfolds along the numerous bayous and highways. Most years see 11 to 16 million visitors traveling to the city for arts and cultural events. Houston’s nonprofit arts and culture sector, a $1.1 billion industry, employs more than 25,000 people.

Millennials live differently than previous generations of Americans. We stay single longer. More of us have student debt and are self-employed, freelancers, and members of the growing gig economy. According to Randstad’s research on the workplace, more than half of Americans will be self-employed by 2025. More than 40% of gig workers will be millennials, a figure that will likely grow given the size of the generation and its youth. Millennials are the largest demographic in American history. We are the future.