President’s Blog

This week we publish the first in a series of blog posts that GIA President & CEO Eddie Torres will be writing on the field of arts philanthropy and principles like racial equity that drive GIA’s mission. Click here to read his thoughts on expanding equity through collective impact after returning from the recent Affinity Equity Summit and Solidarity Defense & Action Funder Briefing.

From the GIA Reader

The report “Arts Funding at Twenty-Five: What data and analysis continue to tell funders about the field” by Steven Lawrence, examines changing sources of support for arts and culture from the 1980s forward and the factors propelling those trends. Through its retrospective analysis, the report reviews arts funding history while highlighting what the recent trends may suggest about priorities for the field.

This Year’s First GIA Webinar: Arts Funding at Twenty-Five

A presentation of Steven Lawrence’s findings in the report “Arts Funding at Twenty-Five: What data and analysis continue to tell funders about the field,” will mark the beginning of GIA’s 2018 webinar series. This webinar will be facilitated by GIA President & CEO Eddie Torres.

Arts Funding at Twenty-Five will be held on Tuesday, March 27, at 2 pm EDT / 11 am PDT. Details and registration available here.

GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture

Published in the Winter 2018 edition of GIA Reader, the latest edition of GIA’s annual Arts Funding Snapshot will include “Foundation Grants to Arts and Culture, 2015,” based on the most recent completed year of Foundation Center data, and “Public Funding for the Arts, 2017,” prepared by the National Assembly of State Art Agencies (NASAA). Join Reina Mukai, research manager for the Foundation Center, and Ryan Stubbs, research director for NASAA, for a summary of key findings, as well as insight into what these findings reveal about the current arts grantmaking environment.

Session 2 of the 2018 webinar series will take place on Tuesday, April 10, at 2 pm EDT / 11 am PDT. Details and registration available here.

Call for Sessions: 2018 GIA Conference

Grantmakers in the Arts seeks session proposals for the 2018 GIA Conference, to be held Sunday, October 21 through Wednesday, October 24 in Oakland, California. 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 EDT.

Much has been discussed of board diversity, but little is known about how increased the diversity on nonprofit boards affects their impact. A new report aims to understand what correlations exist and potential outcomes for leadership development and organizational growth by evaluating board member engagement, fundraising engagement, and advocacy engagement…

"For us, racial equity is about creating a society in which opportunities and outcomes for people are not defined on the basis of racial categories. But we go a little bit further than equity, in that we talk about dismantling anti-black racism, aka white supremacy, as an important step toward building a truly just and inclusive society"…

A new report from the First Nations Development Institute (FNDI) has found that community foundations often fall short when it comes to philanthropic giving to Native American organizations and causes…

Julie Fry, president and CEO of California Humanities, has made the organization’s mission to find ways to amplify the state’s diversity of voices. In response, the organization is seeking ways to reflect upon this principle and realize racial equity through its programming, grantmaking, and outreach, as discussed in an interview in Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts' publication…