Introducing New GIA Staff

We are pleased to introduce you to our new director of operations and finance.

Champ Knecht has been working in nonprofit finance for two decades, most recently as deputy director for administration at the Drawing Center. Prior to that, he was at MoMA PS1 and in Pittsburgh, PA at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Early in his career, Champ worked at New York Foundation for the Arts in the artist sponsorship program, and it was there that he realized arts management was to be his chosen career path. At the Drawing Center, he guided the institution through a major renovation and capital campaign. While he was deputy director, the Drawing Center became one of the first nonprofits to successfully close out a major grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Champ is active on the Human Rights Campaign’s national Board of Governors and is the Greater NY steering committee co-chair.

We know you will enjoy working with him. You may find all of the staff members’ bios on our website.

Call for Sessions: 2018 GIA Conference

Grantmakers in the Arts is currently seeking session proposals for the 2018 GIA Conference, to be held Sunday, October 21 through Wednesday, October 24 in Oakland, CA. The GIA Conference is the largest annual convening of arts funders and the most comprehensive opportunity for our colleagues in the field to learn from each other. We greatly value the experience, ideas, and programs that members share with each other and the field at large. GIA members are invited to propose conference sessions on our website. Proposals are due no later than Tuesday, March 20 at 5:00 pm EST.

A Reminder from the Support for Individual Artists Committee

GIA’s Support for Individual Artists Committee seeks individuals to serve on the Committee. The Committee is comprised of up to twenty GIA members in good standing, representing a spectrum of grantmakers who personally believe in the importance of supporting individual artists. To express interest in joining the committee or to suggest a colleague, please complete the nomination form by Thursday, February 15, 2018.

New GIA Members

GIA is pleased to introduce our newest member, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. Welcome!

From the GIA Reader

Grantmakers in the Arts is a participant and presenter at the 2018 Affinity Equity Summit in Oakland, February 12th and 13th, 2018. This is a cross-sector gathering of philanthropy-serving affinity organizations during which we will discuss how we can collaborate toward the end of greater social equity across all our work. With that mind, we recall Alexis Frasz’s Funding at the Intersection of Art and the Environment from the 2015 Fall Reader. Frasz explains how funders have been increasingly supporting art-making that addresses and advances environmental issues in response to growing evidence that art and artists play a unique role in social change by bringing awareness to issues in emotionally compelling ways, over time shifting our underlying values and social norms. Frasz cites several examples of grantmakers who support this kind of work, patterns in their practices, and recommendations for the arts grantmaking community to take up, continue and advance the role that arts can play in environmental issues. This is just one example of the role that the arts play in social change.

At a time where there is a critical need for unity and the energy of collaboration, affinity groups and funders from across the US will convene on February 12th and 13th for the 2018 Affinity Equity Summit and Solidarity, Defense and Action Funder Briefing, at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland, California…

Kramer penned a letter in which he reflects on philanthropy after, what he calls, “a year as tumultuous and unsettling as 2017.” Kramer points out the spirit of a funder’s work, the responsibility to steward tactfully a foundation’s resources, and the adaptations and responses required to navigate changes in the political landscape in the US and abroad…

The Nonprofit Finance Fund announced its State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey, a comprehensive survey of US nonprofits’ programmatic, management, and financial health…

Janet Brown, recently retired president & CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts, discusses her work leading GIA for nearly a decade and the need for more racial equity in arts philanthropy in an interview with Barry Hessenius, author of the nonprofit arts Barry’s Blog…