Philanthropic practice

I am honored to have this opportunity to interview Gary Steuer, president and CEO of the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. Gary is a respected colleague, a member of Grantmakers in the Arts’ board of directors, and co-chair of the GIA Denver Conference Planning Committee for the upcoming annual conference. I am pleased to note that Bonfils-Stanton has been embracing equity in their support of Denver’s nonprofit community, including its arts organizations.

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For the past decade, landmark research has begun proving what many creatives have long known: the arts have an equity problem. And it is widespread. Despite cultural phenomena like the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, asymmetries are ubiquitous in the production and consumption of the arts.

As grantmakers, we often ask our applicants to amplify their impact through collaboration, but what happens when we turn this mandate on ourselves and join forces with other funders to magnify our giving?

Two foundations, Kresge and the Oregon Community Foundation, that are testing equitable evaluation shared some of their experiences in a recent webinar on advancing equitable evaluation offered by the Associations Advancing Equitable Evaluation Practices.

Philanthropy has a crucial role in supporting arts and culture organizations to address inequities at the community level, write Kerry McCarthy, vice president for philanthropic initiatives for The New York Community Trust, and Maurine Knighton, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in Stanford Social Innovation Review.

In his review of Edgar Villanueva's Decolonizing Wealth, Michael Seltzer, distinguished lecturer at the Marxe School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, discusses that the book places a spotlight on "how colonialism has been perpetuated and the importance of eliminating its persistence in today’s wealth and philanthropic circles in particular."

"Cultural institutions should be at the forefront of socially responsible investing, and this is where their boards can help. So far, it is small arts organisations that are leading the way," wrote Laura Callanan, founding partner of Upstart Co-Lab, in a recent article.

"The way the charitable tax deduction is set up, lower-income Americans can’t really take advantage of it. Unless you earn a lot of money, it makes no financial sense to do your taxes in a way that lets you claim the charitable deduction," states an article in Vox.

An article in Forbes offers ideas on approaches a resource-constrained endowment or foundation could take to develop a sustainable investing program.