"The boats kept coming. One by one, cruisers and catamarans eased toward the beach in Kahana, a small and tightknit neighborhood just north of Maui’s hardest-hit areas," said Reis Thebault for Washington Post. "Each one was laden with supplies: generators, propane tanks, trash bags full of clothing and ready-to-eat meals.
Grantmakers in the Arts
by Jaime Sharp in Philanthropic practice
From Funders' Committee for Civic Participation: The census doesn’t end when the counting stops. Planning for the 2030 Census is well underway. The census has disproportionately undercounted people of color, immigrants, young children, and low-income households, among others. Ongoing engagement from philanthropy—to convene, educate, advocate, and invest—is critical to help ensure that Census Bureau policies and operations center the insights and lived experiences of historically undercounted communities.
by Jaime Sharp in Racial Equity
"Friends, family members and activists are mourning the death of O'Shae Sibley, a Black gay man who was stabbed late last month while dancing with friends at a New York City gas station," said Rachel Treisman for NPR. "The 28-year-old professional dancer and choreographer was killed while voguing to Beyoncé's music as his friends filled up their car on the way home from the Jersey Shore on July 29."
The voguing tributes to Sibley are especially fitting, Williams says, as they "personify the LGBTQ community's historic resilience amid highly discouraging societal treatment."
by Jaime Sharp in Arts and Health
From the CDC Foundation: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on all aspects of life, including the arts and culture sector. However, artists and cultural organizations have also played a crucial role in the vaccination effort. Although vaccination is a key element in overcoming the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy and misinformation have become significant challenges to achieving high levels of vaccine uptake. In this report, we explore how arts and culture have been utilized to promote vaccine confidence, dispel myths and misinformation surrounding vaccines and support vaccination efforts in the United States.
by Jaime Sharp in Non-profit management
"Philanthropy membership associations were made for times like these. Shining bright these past eight months, they’ve heroically grabbed their members’ hands and illuminated pathways forward," said Kris Putnam-Walkerly. "They’ve helped members navigate the pandemic and prepare for recovery, offering real-time learning, sharing best practices, creating rapid-response funds, soliciting critical information through surveys, supporting collaboration across government and business, and encouraging funding for racial justice."
"Philanthropy infrastructure organizations quickly moved events and conferences online, increased the number of offerings, and broadened who can attend, often including all funders and not just members. Many also worked to shift the balance of power and make gatherings more inclusive and accessible. For their global conference, the Resource Alliance saw it as an opportunity to 'challenge the idea of one magnetic north, which tends to be the global north, and instead create a magnetic field around the world where people can be drawn to excellence anywhere.'"
by Jaime Sharp in Non-profit management
Poet and President of the Mellon Foundation, Elizabeth Alexander, was recently interviewed by Jenna Abdou for Fast Company about how her arts background informs her leadership. "Art went on to be a vessel for Alexander. As a Pulitzer Prize finalist, she delivered the poem at President Obama’s inauguration, 'Praise Song for the Day.' Through her teaching, most recently as the chair of African American Studies at Yale, literature is an invitation into our shared humanity. Today, as president of the Mellon Foundation, the largest funder of the arts and humanities, creativity is an agent for change, following her boldly shifting their mission to center on social justice."
by Jaime Sharp in Arts and Community Development
From LA County Arts: Today, the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture announces over $31 million dollars will be awarded to over 750 arts, cultural, and equity-building organizations, a historic County investment in the nonprofit creative sector.
Over twenty-six million dollars of that sum comes from Los Angeles County’s allocation of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) relief and recovery programs. To distribute these one-time funds, the Department of Arts and Culture designed and implemented Creative Recovery LA. This initiative supports the nonprofit creative sector that is facing ongoing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, and focuses on organizations located in and serving communities most impacted by COVID and inequity. With a $26.4M total, 668 grantees, and over 1,900 individual grants awarded through the program’s innovative 5-in-1 grant opportunity design, Creative Recovery LA is believed to be the largest single publicly funded arts grant program in the history of the Los Angeles region.
by Jaime Sharp in Emergency Readiness, Response, and Recovery
From The Center for Effective Philanthropy: Data from funders who solicited grantee feedback both before and after 2020 reveal a greater degree of change than what was typical prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that 2020 was a watershed year for grantmakers.
Based on analysis of data collected from 61 U.S.-based repeat users of CEP’s Grantee Perception Report (GPR), a feedback tool funders commission to gather candid, comparative feedback from grantees, two distinct patterns were evident in grantee responses. Firstly, grantees report spending less time on application and reporting processes than they were before the pandemic and, secondly, funders are providing slightly more unrestricted support than prior to 2020.