Grantmakers in the Arts

From Upstart Co-Lab: Upstart is launching a $100 million portfolio of funds and companies comprising the first impact investment strategy for the U.S. creative economy which will focus on fashion, film & TV, video games, food, the creator economy, the visual art market, immersive experiences, health & beauty and other creative industries.

Upstart’s approach will prioritize BIPOC and women entrepreneurs, and deliver people-focused impact: quality jobs, vibrant communities, and sustainable creative lives. To learn more about the impact that investing in the creative economy can create, please read Upstart’s Impact Report.

From Research Centre for Arts and Wellbeing: In this event we will make the case that the arts can support the wellbeing of all. We will present exciting research of how this can be enabled opening new horizons and creating new possibilities. 

We will launch our manifesto of the Research Centre for Arts and Wellbeing and our strategy of how to scale up place-based arts initiatives that can support mental health and wellbeing, and will benefit a wide range of people including individuals and communities that are disadvantaged or marginalised. 

We will showcase the work we have done in areas with high levels of health, social and economic inequalities offering opportunities for people to connect no matter where they are based.

We will highlight the contribution the arts can make in supporting the care of carers including our work with communities and organisations locally, nationally and internationally.

From Justice Funders: In 2020, philanthropic institutions in the U.S contributed over 13 times the amount of money to extractive global stock markets as they did to all of their grantmaking focus areas (Source: Climate Justice Alliance).

In response to this horrific imbalance of capital allocation in philanthropy, movement and philanthropic leaders came together to develop a Just Transition Investment Framework that offers a strategy for how philanthropies can shift capital and power to frontline BIPOC communities who are building local regenerative economies.

From the Field Foundation: In partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, the Field Foundation has launched a new grantmaking program. This program—which we’re calling A Road Together (ART)—is designed specifically for small and mid-sized arts and culture organizations with annual operating budgets up to $1 million and with a strong commitment to equity that are reflective and inclusive of Chicago’s diverse and historically underserved communities.

From Seattle Opera: Inspired by a true story, eleventh grade honor roll student Diane Tran is the child of two Vietnamese immigrants who are now divorced. With her father rarely around and her mother gone, Diane feels bound to help provide financially for her family, be both sister and parent to her siblings, and also keep up her honor roll studies. Despite her heroic efforts, a judge sends her to jail for truancy.

From Capital Collaborative by Camelback Ventures: In this episode of “It’s Not Your Money,” Capital Collaborative Funder In Residence, Jessamyn Shams-Lau, talks with abdiel j. lópez from Justice Funders, to share what a ‘Just Transition’ for philanthropy looks like, how some funders are already moving their power to communities, and how anyone can take steps towards healing and community-centered practices. 
 

Watch the webinar recording here.

"Until 2020 — the year when George Floyd was murdered, setting off a summer of protests demanding racial justice — civil-rights lawyer Ryan Haygood, CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, had never raised a dime from two of the state’s biggest grant makers, the Geraldine R. Dodge and Robert Wood Johnson foundations." said Alex Daniels, Marc Gunther, and Sono Motoyama for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. "Nor had the Rev. Charles Boyer, who leads Salvation and Social Justice, a faith-based nonprofit in Trenton, N.J., that organizes Black churches to advocate on issues of criminal justice, health care, and the wealth and income disparities Black Americans face."

From Philanthropy News: The Barr, Kresge, and William Penn foundations have announced $13 million in funding to support arts and culture programs that help address systemic and intersectional societal challenges.

The commitments will support the Culture and Community Power Fund (CCPF), a funding collaborative formed in 2022 by Barr, Kresge, and Penn to serve as “a lab for investing in, connecting, and amplifying efforts to help build community power through art and culture.”