Grantmakers in the Arts

During National Arts in Education Week, Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) introduced legislation to increase access to the arts for students.

Bonamici’s Arts Education for All Act – introduced with Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) – will help close gaps in access to arts education by supporting and encouraging arts education and programming for young children, K-12 students, and youth and adults involved in the justice system.

From Pew Research Center: The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (the Center) announced today that it has awarded 40 grants and fellowships totaling $9 million in support of Philadelphia-area cultural organizations and artists. The grants will fund public events and programs that celebrate the diverse and creative contributions of local artists and tell personal stories of prominent Philadelphians. Several projects highlight the role of the arts in grappling with illness, healing, and caretaking—especially since the pandemic—while others focus on contemporary expressions of cultural identity.

From PEAK Grantmaking: In early 2022, PEAK Grantmaking signed the Disability & Philanthropy Forum’s Disability Inclusion Pledge, a call to the entire philanthropic sector “to recognize that ableism—the systemic stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities—is a core barrier to equity and inclusion,” asking organizations to “commit to a continuing learning and implementation process that will advance systemic change … and serve as models for disability inclusion in the philanthropic sector.”

"A while ago, a colleague mentioned a funder who required a whole-ass grant proposal from their current grantees to renew their grant every year. Requiring a full proposal for renewal is very annoying, but common enough, like the philanthropic equivalent of pinkeye," said Vu Le for Nonprofit AF. 

"This one funder, however, specified that grantees could not copy and paste information from previous year’s proposals. This forced grantees every year to spend time rewriting their mission statements, community needs, program descriptions, evaluation methodologies, budget narratives etc. using different words and phrases, even though most of that information remains the same."

Today U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) joined Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to announce the first bipartisan, bicameral push in decades to reform the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which has not been updated in nearly 40 years and currently punishes older and disabled Americans for saving for emergencies and their futures.

From Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona: The Pima County Health Department and the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona are partnering on a series of five free art and wellness events this September and October to promote community healing through art.

These family-friendly “Celebrate SaludArte” events will bring together public art and public health and feature community-inspired artwork, live performances, food trucks, raffles for prizes, and health resources. Artists also will unveil their temporary art installations at each celebration, which will be held in each of Pima County’s five supervisory districts.

SaludArte is a collaborative project between the Health Department and the Arts Foundation to find ways in which community engagement, health, and art can intersect to amplify the voices and experiences of the community, while also helping to increase health equity, access, literacy and COVID-19 mitigation across the region.

With the end of year 2023 soon approaching, we at Humanidades Puerto Rico (HPR) find ourselves looking back at a period of intense activity. As we do so, we're excited to share news of recent work that represents what we are passionate about and that show the ways in which our humanities-based programs support work that truly makes a difference. 

This briefing on [Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 2pm EDT] is co-sponsored by the ABFE, a Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities, and Grantmakers in the Arts. Join Funders for LGBTQ Issues for a powerful conversation with Black TGNC artists about cultural organizing in the midst of hate, misinformation, and anti-LGBTQ backlash. Webinar link shared with approved registrants.

Learn more and register here.