With increasing urgency, the field of arts philanthropy is investigating funding inequities and seeking remedies to longstanding practices and policies that have led to them. Using anecdotal and soft evidence to address funding inequities make strategies difficult to develop and outcomes difficult to measure; we understand that to make meaningful progress towards closing funding gaps requires gathering specific data that tell us who our grantees are and who they are serving. Join Beth Tuttle from DataArts; Bronwyn Mauldin from Los Angeles County Arts Commission, a public funder; and Elizabeth Love from Houston Endowment, a private funder, as they discuss their approaches to collecting demographic data on grantees and their audiences.
Elizabeth Love serves as senior program officer for Houston Endowment, a private philanthropic institution that advances equity of opportunity for the people of greater Houston and enhances the vibrancy of the city. She oversees grantmaking for the Foundation’s health and environmental portfolios as well as a portion of the arts and culture portfolio. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2009, Love served as director of Harris County Public Health’s Office of Policy and Planning, where she led the organization’s strategic planning activities, legislative affairs, community assessment initiatives, and evaluation framework. In the late 1990’s, Love served as a fellow for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She received a bachelor’s degree from Rice University and a master’s degree from the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Bronwyn Mauldin is director of research and evaluation at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. She is also adjunct faculty teaching research methods in the arts management program at Claremont Graduate University. In her career Mauldin has evaluated farmworker programs in California’s Central Valley, studied employment conditions for truck drivers in the Pacific Northwest, analyzed apprenticeship opportunities in the healthcare industry, served as a nonpartisan policy analyst in the Washington State House of Representatives, and researched villager organizing in rural northeast Thailand. Her master’s in public administration is from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Bronwyn is also a novelist, and was an artist in residence in Mesa Verde National Park in September 2016.
Beth Tuttle is president and CEO of DataArts. She has more than 25 years of experience as an author, strategist, and management leader in the cultural, philanthropic, advocacy, and corporate sectors. Previously, Tuttle founded and served as managing director of METStrategies, LLC, a strategic consulting firm specializing in leadership development, planning, communications, and branding for social benefit organizations. She served as deputy director and chief of external relations and planning for the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and as senior vice president for communications for The Freedom Forum and Newseum. A graduate of Brown University, Beth Tuttle is co-author of Magnetic: The Art and Science of Engagement. She serves on the board of advisors for the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University and is a member of The Museum Group.
