Outline of GIA’s Work in Equity, 2008–Present

GIA’s work in race and social justice began in 2008 with the creation of the Arts and Social Justice Working Group by Claudine Brown. Initially, GIA focused generally on equity across various identities which have been historically marginalized in philanthropy including race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic status. In 2011, GIA’s focus turned specifically to racial equity with a Thought Leader Forum and subsequent actions by the board of directors. At the end of 2014, the GIA Board of Directors established a racial equity board committee, which published GIA’s Racial Equity in Arts Funding Statement of Purpose in March 2015. The statement of purpose and accompanying calls to action continue to be updated regularly.

The following outline of GIA’s work is meant to provide highlights and may not be inclusive of every activity, article, session, or communication.

2023

GIA continues to integrate equity as a means toward justice and liberation into all our work. GIA increasingly uses its Racial Equity Theory of Transformation as the lens through which we curate all our work. The goal of Grantmakers in the Arts’ racial equity work is intersectional economic and social justice through cultural change – a social and economic system in the U.S. in which all can thrive, rendering philanthropy obsolete through its being unnecessary. Replacing notions of cultural inferiority with the financing of cultural self-determination is one way toward moving into an increasingly just economic system. Why? Because racism was established to facilitate economic exploitation using cultural inferiority to dehumanize of BIPOC people and separate all oppressed peoples from each other. Replace cultural inferiority and we reduce dehumanization and separation, reducing economic exploitation. If the dehumanization of BIPOC through the assertion of their cultural inferiority facilitates economic exploitation, cultural self-determination for BIPOC is a part of economic self-determination for BIPOC and all oppressed peoples.

GIA Reader

2023 marked the first full year of digital GIA Reader content, increasing our publications by 22% from 2022 with pieces from guest editors Conrhonda E. Baker, Aaron P. Dworkin, and Dr. Durell Cooper; conference coverage from bloggers Huascar Robles and HunterDae “HD” Goodridge; President’s Blogs; Funding Snapshots; and incredible contributions from our membership and beyond.

GIA Reader Guest Editor Series

Throughout 2023, GIA continued partnering with guest editors to commission and produce content for the GIA membership and wider cultural funding ecosystem. Dr. Durell Cooper continued his guest editorship, conducting interviews with Darren Walker (Ford Foundation) and Sharnita C. Johnson (The Victoria Foundation), as well as Misty Copeland and Caryn Campbell (Misty Copeland Foundation). Additional guest editors, Aaron P. Dworkin (University of Michigan) and Conrhonda Baker (The Bese Seke) were invited to share their perspective on what they hope grantmakers need to hear, moving from listening and analyzing to action and transformation.

Black August Reader Series

GIA’s goal with Black August this year was to explore the various facets of Blackness, and how intersectionality can be incorporated into our work. The series featured a poem from guest editor Aaron Dworkin; a piece on disability and Blackness from Gail Fuller (Disability & Philanthropy Forum); a piece on inclusion of Afrodescendant artists of Caribbean, Latine, and African heritage from Darryl Chappell (Darryl Chappell Foundation); and an interview with gender nonconforming artist and community organizer Golden, on how funders can support queer Black artists.

During the pilot publishing season of the GIA Reader, GIA members and the wider cultural ecosystem audience that we reach have interacted with the digital platform at notably engaged rates. In 2023, we saw 26,000 pageviews, a 315% increase from pageviews in 2022, and 12,000 unique users, a 366% increase from visits in 2022.

GIA Workshops

GIA’s Racial Equity in Arts Funding & Pro-BIPOC Arts Funding Community of Practice workshops served nearly 100 grantmakers in 2023.

Throughout 2023, the GIA team has continued to work with True North EDI, to offer virtual GIA Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshops. This workshop includes information on the history of racialization in the United States, the history of cultural funding, real-world stories of success, examples of racial equity funding strategies, and resources you may bring with you back to your organizations. GIA continued to offer these workshops virtually – now designed as a 4-module program over a total of 12 learning hours to provide time for learning and peer discussions.

GIA and Justin Laing (Hillombo Consulting) led a redesigned Pro-BIPOC Arts Funding Community of Practice workshop that extended between 2022 and 2023. The workshop advances on the Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshop. This workshop series is intentionally designed to be more dialogic, focused on building a community of practice between participants as they design or re-design their funding to be pro-BIPOC. As part of the redesign, workshop attendees receive access to a two-part learning experience: the four-part workshop begins the engagement, with emphasis on economic democracy and narrative struggle, and a second offering of continued peer-to-peer learning in which attendees join small groups and present critical analyses of a struggle they are currently facing in either economic democracy or narrative struggle. The second learning space is intended to both sharpen each other’s ability to sustain a community of practice beyond the workshop as well as to give ample opportunity to work out real-time struggles in practice.

One exemplary outcome directly from participation in the 2022-2023 workshop series is the news shared by Caroline and Tony Grant, co-founders of Sustainable Arts Foundation, to sunset their foundation and return their assets to local Indigenous communities, from whom the original assets were grown from extractive practices on land taken by the state of California. A fuller account can be read in their article on the GIA Reader, Land Acknowledgement: Sunsetting as a Gesture of Reconciliation.

GIA National Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico

The 2023 GIA Conference Revisiting Pasts to Build the Future in San Juan, Puerto Rico sold out and had over 600 participants, a 16% increase over 2022. The conference brought participants to cultural institutions and community-based organizations and collectives in San Juan’s neighborhoods such as Brigada Puerta de Tierra, El Gandul, Corporación Piñones Se Integra (COPI), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar.

The conference featured the voices of Puerto Rican artists, organizers and scholars – such as AgitArte, Caridad De La Luz and Tanicha Lopez, Dr. Ramon Rivera Servera - as well as artists from Black Trans Fund and nonprofit leader Vu Le. The 2023 conference allowed GIA to cultivate 42 local partners in Puerto Rico, including conference planning committee co-chairs Glenisse Pagán Ortiz (Filantropía Puerto Rico) and Carlos J. Rodríguez (Fundación Flamboyán); and keynote plenaries AgitArte, Tanicha Lopez, Caridad De La Luz, and Dania “Betun” Warhol from EspicyNipples.

You can see photos on our Flickr page, videos on our YouTube Channel and blog posts on our GIA Reader. 

Webinars

In GIA’s program strategy, we articulate our goal of racial, economic, and social justice through an intersectional lens ultimately realized through cultural change. In pursuit of this, we carefully selected our panelists and discussion topics to center an understanding of our standard focus areas as well as intersections with immigration, technology, policy, individual artists, and support for indigenous communities. We continued to provide a balance of standard lecture-style webinars and workshop-style webinars in order to increase rigor and encourage deeper dialogue around issues. The slate of topics covered in the GIA online learning programs included technology and individual artists, mental health and wellness for trauma-affected communities, lobbying and advocacy, immigration and narrative change, BIPOC data collection, support for indigenous communities, intermediaries, participatory grantmaking, and racial equity and justice.

Podcasts

Within the GIA podcast, we continued with our individual artist and technology series (Artists Respond) and produced a follow-up to our 2022 Black Arts Funding Summit featuring Rasu Jilani (Brooklyn Arts Council) and Anthony Simmons (Resilia). We also produced a timely podcast on intermediary partnerships and the Landback Movement. The slate continued to include content focused on racial equity and content focused on policy.

Racial Equity in Grantmaking Coding Project

Since 2018, the Arts Program at the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF), with Callahan Consulting for the Arts (CCA) has been leading Racial Equity in Grantmaking (REG), a project to design and test a system for measuring the racial equity of its grantmaking.

The goals of REG are for funders to: 

Move from general impressions of progress to concrete data about the degree to which our grant portfolios are making progress in advancing racial equity. 
Augment our grants data with an agreed-upon set of measures of racial equity. 
Take ownership and control over our data and our story of addressing racial equity. 
Eventually, consider setting goals related to racial equity to which we can hold ourselves and our field accountable.

DDF, CCA and GIA have been working with cohorts of grantmakers to refine the coding guide by coding their own grants as By, For and/or About communities of color. In 2023, we issued a public invitation for grantmakers to apply to participate in the project. 17 funders applied to be part of the next cohort, with 9 selected.

REG Cohort Members in 2024

Calgary Arts Development, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
Howard Gilman Foundation, New York, NY 
Indy Arts Council, Indianapolis, IN
Jerome Foundation, St. Paul, MN
National Performance Network, New Orleans, LA
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, New Orleans, LA
Opportunity Fund, Pittsburgh, PA
The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Washington DC

The cohort members will work with CCA and use the coding guide to code the extent to which their grants are By, For and/or About BIPOC communities. DDF, CCA and GIA will publicly release the Racial Equity Grantmaking coding guide by the end of 2024 so that grantmakers across the nation can begin applying it to code their own grantmaking.

President’s Blog

Glorious Triumph is Our Future: In this blog post, GIA shares information on the Protecting and Advancing DEI Pro Bono Initiative, which provides free legal advice to entities concerned about their ongoing or future efforts to support equity, inclusion and diversity in response to the harassment that so many in our field are facing.
Arts Grantmakers Changes in Practice 2022: Equity and Capitalization
Arts Grantmakers Changes in Practice 2022: Artists, Flexibility and Multi-Year Support
Revisiting Our Value of Transformation by Addressing White Supremacy
Cultural & Economic Self-Determination in Memphis
Support Portable Benefits for Independent Workers: GIA has endorsed the Portable Benefits for Independent Workers Act because benefits tied to employment is a historic relic meant to prevent people of color from accessing health insurance and other benefits. This relic discourages entrepreneurship and risk-taking, and has racialized outcomes.

2022

GIA continues to integrate equity as a means toward justice and liberation into all of our work.

Reader

GIA launched our digital GIA Reader platform making content more accessible, and enabling us to share audio, video, photos, written essays, and graphic recordings. The digital GIA Reader is a community of learning dedicated to creating a more just future in the field. The GIA Reader is produced and edited by GIA alongside a team of guest editors. The guest editors for the 2022 season include: Meena Malik (Musician, Cultural Organizer, and Founder of Meena Malik Consulting); Dr. Durell Cooper (Founder, Cultural Innovation Group, LLC.); and Nayantara Sen (Director of Field & Funder Learning, Pop Culture Collaborative). The GIA ReaderSpecial Series featured: Arts + Tech, Narrative Change, Future of the Field, Black August, Liberatory Practice, The Lost Files with Durell Cooper, and The President's Blog.

Black Arts Funding Summit

The Black Arts Funding Summit was planned and led by Jessica Gaynelle Moss, artist, curator, and arts administrator. The Summit – featuring experts across fields and industries who have directly shaped institutional policy and established new practices that support Black liberatory futures –was open to the public and served explicitly as an invitation to non-Black people, working in and across grantmaking. The goal being for attendees to fund more projects by, establish more resources for, and support more programs led for and by Black people. This Summit is the first of its kind and is intended as the beginning of long-term organizing efforts to support Black artists, organizations, cultural workers, and communities.

Racial Equity Coding Project

Racial Equity Coding Project is informed by research led by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with Callahan Consulting for the Arts. The project is giving funders an opportunity to examine and refine the means by which they identify if and how their funding is becoming more or less equitable.

Racial Equity Coding Project Podcast series:
- Racial Equity Coding Project: Unpacking the “Why”
- RacialEquity Coding Project: The Necessity of Nuance
President’s blog on the Racial Equity Coding Project

Racial Equity in Arts Funding Workshops

GIA continues to offer our Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshopsfor online participation. GIA also continued its collaboration with Hillombo Consulting, co-designing an advanced GIA Pro-BIPOC Arts Funding Community of Practice workshop, grounded in critical race theory as the conceptual frame and organizing as the action. The series guided participants through the design of experiments in pro-BIPOC arts grantmaking. Both series served 174 participants through the year.

Cultural Policy Action Lab

The Cultural Policy Action Lab is a leadership and professional development community of practice program for public sector workers who seek to advance racial equity through arts and culture and public policy. It consists of an open source 8-part web learning series (public, open to all) focused on core elements of cultural policy and new approaches to advancing racial equity through policy structures. Cultural Policy Action Lab also includes a nationally selected learning cohort of public sector leaders in an intentional community of practice working to strengthen applied policy transformation.

Solidarity Economy

Since the March 2021 release of Solidarity Not Charity: Arts & Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy – a report that explores how the grantmaking community can support culture-workers and artists through an increasingly just economy.GIA has continued to support ongoing organizing and peer-learning via Art.Coop’s Study into Action series in Phase One, as well as with Move the Money, a discussion and learning series between funders, artists, and movement organizers in Phase Two.

Puerto Rico

Since 2020, GIA has been in dialogue with funders, artists and activists in Puerto Rico, including featuring their voices in our 2021 online convening, Plurality, Power & Belonging. GIA resumed learning from the island in 2022, and intends to continue into the future.

Annual Convening

The 2022 GIA Conference Converge/Transform was our first in-person conference since the pandemic began. The conference comprised of 4 preconference sessions, 5 plenaries, 6 roundtables (both virtual and in-person), 8 virtual sessions, 21 in-person sessions (on-site and off-site), and 6 affinity group gatherings. Our keynotes highlighted the voices of Indigenous artists Marca Cassity (Osage), Will Wilson (Diné), Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota), Sarah Sunshine Manning (Shoshone-Paiute), Mic Jordan (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe). GIA also featured the voices of National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar Hrag Vartanian and Kamal Sinclair in conversation, Andres Serrano, and Sing Harlem.

Webinars

Podcasts

President’s Blog

Capitalization Workshops

In response to the normalization of a poorly capitalized arts sector, GIA launched the National Capitalization Project in 2010. Since then, GIA has provided Conversations on Capitalization and Community funder workshops in over 24 cities across the US. GIA has continued to work with capitalization consultancy Rebecca Thomas Associates to produce the workshops. Additionally, GIA has worked with cultural strategist and facilitator Sage Crump to update the workshop to reflect the financial implications of the pandemic through an explicit racial equity lens. In 2022, the workshop served 45 grantmakers and 134 cultural organizations.

2021

Solidarity Economy

GIA has shared resources on the Solidarity Economy, how it advances racial equity, and how to support it. The Solidarity Economy is one that centers community ownership and democratic governance that builds political, cultural, and economic power for workers. In 2021, GIA released our commissioned report, Solidarity Not Charity: Arts & Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy, to broad national attention and influence. GIA has since partnered on Art.Coop’s Study into Action and Move the Money, a series of funder discussions in which BIPOC scholars, advocates, organizers and artists make tangible the principles laid out in the report to more directly influence change in grantmakers’ practices.

Arts Education Funders Coalition

In Spring 2021, GIA influenced the U.S. Department of Education to highlight the importance of equitable access to arts and culture to the process of reopening schools. GIA has successfully advocated to the U.S. Department of Education to include in its Volume 2 Roadmap to Reopening handbook guidance the importance of providing access to the arts, to make explicit how racialized this access was prior to the pandemic and that addressing this inequity is essential to effective reopening.

Annual Convening

GIA’s 2021 conference Plurality, Power, and Belonging, was entirely virtual in light of the pandemic’s surge. The conference content reflected a year’s planning by foregrounded the voices of artists, scholars, and activists in Puerto Rico, including reflections on the negative impacts of U.S. policy and of colorism.

2021 Conference Keynotes

2021 Conference Artists

Reader Articles

Centered. Elevated. Celebrated. Well Resourced. Welcome to Nonprofit Wakanda., David McGoy
DEI Work is Governance Work, James Canales, Barbara Hostetter
The Equity Builder Loan Program: Looking Toward Autonomy and Freedom from the Crisis Cycle, Quinton Skinner
Equity. Equity. Equity., Shaunda McDill
Arts Funders Should Build Stability and Resilience for Black Artists and Cultural Communities, Tracey Knuckles
A Question of (dis)Trust: Lessons When Your Institution Gets Taken Down, Anida Yoeu Ali, Shin Yu Pai
San Diego/Tijuana: One Region Two Countries, Jonathon Glus
Reimagining Public Funding to Reflect America’s Most Diverse City, Necole S. Irvin, Deidre Thomas

Racial Equity in Arts Funding Workshops

GIA adapted our Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshops for online participation, increasing participation by over 100% to 138 participants. GIA also furthered this work by co-designing with Hillombo Consulting, an advanced GIA Pro-BIPOC Arts Funding Community of Practice workshop, which guides participants through the design of experiments in pro-BIPOC arts grantmaking.

President’s Blog

Webinars

Podcasts

2020

GIA responded to the events of 2020 by sharing information while continuing to foreground our values.

COVID-19 Info Hub and Resource Page

In 2020 Grantmakers in the Arts doubled our programming to include the COVID-19 Info Hub and Resource Page including original webinars, podcasts and blogs featuring information and first-person reportage on how arts grantmakers are pivoting to support their cultural communities, presenting each through the lens of racial and intersectional equity.

Black Arts & Cultural Funding and Justice Series

Beginning with a collectively written statement from the GIA team on the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing terror of structural racism, GIA compiled a Black Arts & Cultural Funding and Justice Resource Hub, which aims to amplify funds and resources that explicitly center Black artists, cultural communities, and experiences. Additionally, we borrow a lens from the BIPOC project that centers Black and Indigenous folks - whose experiences shape relationships for all ALAANA/POC people’s relationships with white supremacy culture – as another dimension of resource and financial investment intended to realize justice. The hub was curated with the intention of identifying and amplifying funds and resources that support Black artists, culture, and communities.

Additionally, as part of an inaugural Black Philanthropy Month Blog Series during August, GIA featured weekly blogs from Black cultural funders responding to the question: How can cultural grantmaking interrupt institutional and structural racism while building a more just funding ecosystem that prioritizes Black communities, organizations, and artists?

Annual convening

The 2020 GIA Virtual Convening, GIA’s first online convening, offered our nation’s arts grantmaking field the chance to reflect on the challenges the cultural ecosystem faces – rooted in systemic racism and amplified by the coronavirus pandemic – and imagine new systems of power and practice for a more resilient future.  Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with survey respondents showing that 97% were satisfied to very satisfied with the overall convening.

Keynotes/Artists

GIA Summits

In January 2020, GIA partnered with NYGIA to host A Trip Down Memory Lane: Activism, Culture, and the Individual Artist, an exploration of the relationship between philanthropy and funding for individual artists. Hosted by Philanthropy New York, the summit was moderated by Eddie Torres, president and CEO, GIA, and presented by Suzy Delvalle, then president and executive director, Creative Capital; Charles Rice-Gonzalez, co-founder, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, visual artists Miguel Luciano and Dread Scott, and playwright Liza Jessie Peterson – an entirely BIPOC panel. This in-person event was also steamed live on Facebook.

Reader Articles

my father’s lesson (poem), FreeQuency
Relationship of Data and Funder Practice: Supporting Individual Artists with an Equity Lens, GIA Support for Individual Artists Committee
To a Resilient New York: Notes from Quarantine, Timothy DuWhite, Ashley August, Ramya Ramana, Nicole Wallace, Marwa Helal, Jan-Henry Gray, Tanaïs, Tarfia Faizullah, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Sonia Guiñansaca, Alan Paez, Ra Malika Imhotep, Jen Lue, Yanyi, JinJin Xu, Eli Clare, Nimo J. Ali, Shannon Finnegan, Pelenakeke Brown
Mítákuye Oyás’in: Our Approach to “Taking Back Tribalism”, Lori Pourier
Creating Racial Equity in New York City’s Most Segregated Borough, Elizabeth Bennett
Supporting Southwest-Based Latine Dancemakers: Reflections on Dance in the Desert 2019, J. Soto
Indigenous Mobilization During Pandemic Times, Gaby Strong, Sarah Manning
A Pandemic, a Movement, and an Agenda for Change, Sharnita C. Johnson, Randy Engstrom
Contending for Dream Space: Why Cultural Strategy?, Intelligent Mischief

Racial Equity in Arts Funding Workshops

GIA hosted an in-person Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshop on March 9, 2020 in Boston, MA, in partnership with Philanthropy Massachusetts. The workshop was attended by 35 funders. In response to the pandemic, GIA designed the workshop curricula as a three-part series to be offered virtually starting in 2021.

Capitalization Workshops

Because it has been the norm for the nonprofit arts sector to be poorly capitalized, GIA launched the National Capitalization Project in 2010. Since then, GIA has provided Conversations on Capitalization and Community funder workshops in over 20 cities across the US. GIA has continued to work with capitalization consultancy Rebecca Thomas Associates to produce the workshops, and in 2020, also worked with cultural strategist and facilitator Sage Crump to update the workshop to reflect the financial implications of the pandemic through an explicit racial equity lens, debuting the now online workshop for South Coast Community Foundation and continuing in 2021.

President’s Blog

Webinars

Podcasts

In 2020, GIA hosted the Grantmakers in the Arts Racial Equity Podcast Series, which included:

2019

Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado

The 2019 annual conference program highlighted many examples of art at the intersection, including the work of Motus Theatre, a company that brings law-enforcement leaders on stage to read the autobiographical monologues of undocumented young adults to dispel the false associations between criminality and immigration status. The conference also featured a mix of artists, organizations, and arts supporters, including Gregg Deal, Yo-Yo Ma, Agnes Gund, and Bryan Stevenson. Revisit the Denver Conference through plenary videos on the GIA YouTube channel.

Conference sessions can be found here
Preconferences can be found here

Keynotes/Artists

Reader Articles

Building Racial Equity in Public Art Funding: A Seattle Story, Marcia Iwasaki, Elisheba Johnson, Erika Lindsay
Place Finding: A Transdisciplinary Deep Dive, Rene Yung
The Role of Foundations in Achieving Creative Justice, Antonio Cuyler
Love in Philanthropy: Sharing Power And Building Transparency, F. Javier Torres, Leila Tamari
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, Lindsie Bear
Our Collective Homelands: She’s Your Mother Too, Lulani Arquette
Are Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statements Effective Tools for Foundations?, Morgan Williams
Contested Memory, Hilary Malson
Turning Differences into a Source of Creativity and Positive Change, Anne Focke
Allyship in Arts Grantmaking, Kim Tran
Annotated Guide to RE-Tool: Racial Equity in the Panel Process, Eleanor Savage, Tariana Navas-Nieves, Kathy Hsieh
Continuing Embrace of Equity: Bonfils-Stanton’s Journey, Eddie Torres, Gary Steuer

Racial Equity in Arts Funding Workshop
GIA hosted Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshops in Seattle, WA and New Brunswick, NJ with participants joining from the region and neighboring states.

GIA compiled an overview of its racial equity work, including some of the foundational information that informs this work.

President’s Blog

Building a Racial Equity in Arts Funding Community of Practice

Mosaic Network and Fund
GIA served as review committee members for the Mosaic Network and Fund, which grew out of the ALAANA Project. The Mosaic Network and Fund in The New York Community Trust, a collaboration between 19 foundations, recently committed $4.5 million to fund 27 arts groups that are led by, created for, and accountable to ALAANA people in New York City.

Webinars

Podcasts

2018

GIA has increasingly prioritized incorporating a racial equity lens to examine and design programming for our other core focus areas of Arts Education, Capitalization and Nonprofit Financial Health, and Support for Individual Artists. While we will continue to share highlights of our racial equity programming, we encourage readers to view all of our work with an eye toward how racial equity manifests.

In 2018, new CEO Eddie Torres began establishing GIA’s new headquarters in the South Bronx. Torres was intentional in cultivating and interviewing a diverse slate of candidates and ensured vetted job descriptions that would minimize any barriers in hiring practices, such as removing the education requirement and including a salary range. This effort to maximize reach resulted in filling five of six positions with ALAANA professionals. GIA supports the professional development and ongoing learning of its staff by providing trainings in such skills as public speaking and in the facilitation of racial justice workshops, dialogues, and discussions.

Annual Conference in Oakland, California

GIA’s annual conference was held in Oakland and had the highest rate of attendance up to that point – over 600 participants. GIA responded to a strike by the conference hotel workers by moving the conference out of the hotel and into the cultural community so that no conference participants would be required to cross a picket line compromising their values. The conference sessions were held in Oakland’s art galleries, theaters, rehearsal rooms, with the plenary sessions held in a circus tent. The GIA team made this change happen within two weeks.

GIA communicated these changes to our members in advance, receiving messages of praise for our standing by workers. By the end of the conference, our participants called it our “best conference ever.” In response to the conference survey, 99% of participants asserted that they were “satisfied” to “extremely satisfied” with the overall conference, as well as the curation of the breakout sessions. Videos from the Oakland Conference are now available at the GIA YouTube Channel.

Conference sessions can be found here
Preconferences can be found here

Keynotes/Artists

Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshop
In 2018, GIA expanded the Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshop, which was piloted at the 2017 Detroit conference, and hosted it for 30 grantmakers in Cleveland. In response to the statement, “What I learned from the workshop will be useful to my work,” we had 100% agreement. Out of all workshop participants, 57% “strongly agreed” and 43% “agreed” with the statement. None disagreed.

Webinars

GIA coupled the Racial Equity in Arts Funding workshop with GIA’s most popular webinar of the year, “Real and Not Real: The history of racialization in the United States,” presented by Race Forward and GIA president Eddie Torres in August 2018. The webinar had a record-breaking 200+ registrations and continues to be watched by grantmakers and cultural organizations, nearing 500 additional views by the end of 2018, our most watched webinar. “Real and Not Real: The history of racialization in the United States,” which, at 400 views, received four times move engagement post-recording than our next most popular webinars. This webinar featured Race Forward and GIA discussing the creation and perpetuation of the racial hierarchy, and provided guidance on institutional strategies for diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice, terms often conflated as interchangeable.

President’s Blog

Why Structural Racism Matters in Philanthropy

Reader Articles

Mapping Oakland’s Magic: A Benchmark Report on Grassroots Arts Organizations of Color, Vanessa Camarena-Arredondo, Ted Russell, Adriana Griñó
Buried in Shells, Corrina Gould, Michelle LaPena
Culture, Equity, and Cities, Vanessa Whang
What More Do We Need to Cultivate a Just Society?: Conversion and Collective Action, Lisa Yancey
Opening the Eyes of the Beholder: The Need for Cultural Responsivity in Arts Evaluation, Suzanne Callahan
Emergent Strategy: Book Review in Conversation, Leila Tamari

Arts Education

GIA prepared a written articulation of the racial equity implications of arts education

2017

Board action
The GIA board voted to add a racial equity statement to the organization’s guiding principles.

The GIA board voted to hire Edwin Torres as the organization’s new president & CEO, our first ALAANA person to hold that role. The board also committed to move GIA’s office from Seattle to the South Bronx, to draw attention to often under-resourced communities of color.

Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy workshop
Development in partnership with the Center for Social Inclusion of a day-long workshop for funders, which will be available to communities in 2018 and piloted at the 2017 GIA conference.

ALAANA Project
In partnership with Doris Duke Foundation to support creation of a pilot project with local funders and a cohort of ALAANA organizations.

Webinars

Demographic Data Collection: Understanding Who Benefits from our Funding Support

Reader Articles

I Once Was Blind: Acknowledging Race in Granting to Individuals, Caroline and Tony Grant
A New Will to Confront Homogeneity in American Orchestras, Jesse Rosen
Moving Dance Forward: Twenty Years of Grantmaking for a Changing Landscape, Cathy Edwards
Seizing Opportunity amid Uncertainty: Lessons in Funder Collaboration, Michele Kumi Baer
Learning from Detroiters: Committing to Equity, Roberta Uno
Are We Living in a Zeitgeist of Catalytic Change? Maybe...But Does It Matter?, Lisa Yancey
Just Planning: Can Cultural Planning Help Build More Equitable Cities?, Tom Borrup

2016

Audit
During the winter, GIA commissioned a research team to conduct a racial equity audit of its programs, policies, and communications. The audit findings and recommendations were delivered to and reviewed by staff and board in the spring and released publicly in September.

Board action
The racial equity board committee began developing a work plan based on audit findings and recommendations. The board subsequently released an update to its Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy Statement of Purpose, including new recommendations to support members in engaging in racial equity work.

Research
During the summer, GIA commissioned a research team to survey GIA member organizations on their current policies and programs addressing racial equity and to identify case studies of successful programs to share with the membership.

Saint Paul Conference

Sessions

Breaking Down Barriers, organized by Denise Brown and Tatiana Hernandez
Creative Placemaking in the Racialized South, organized by F. Javier Torres
The Enrich Switch: Breaking Down the Racial Equity Arts Movement, organized by Angelique Power
Innocent Giving: Building Authentic and Functional Relationships with Communities of Color, organized by Vickie Benson and Glyn Northington
Intersectional Philanthropy: Power, Privilege, and Practice, organized by Stanlyn Brevé and Sage Crump
Looking at Racial Bias in the Panel Deliberation Process, organized by Moira Brennan and Emilya Cachapero
Native America: A Fundamental Part of Who We Are, organized by Lulani Arquette
The Practice of Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy, organized by Grantmakers in the Arts
Racial Equity Policies and Practices Define the Future of Local Arts Agencies, organized by Randy Engstrom
The Role of Arts and Culture in Countering Islamophobia, organized by Sunita Iqbal
Roots of Rondo: Black Artists Rising, organized by Erik Takeshita
Three Funding Agencies Walk Into a Bar: Partnership for Equity, organized by Heather Dwyer and Irene Gómez

Preconferences

Keynotes/Artists

Podcasts

Aubrey Haberman and Sindhu Knotz, on creating the Momentum Fellowship program
Justin Laing, on the GIA board service, racial equity, and his hopes for the field
Dameun Strange, on being a fellow in the Ron McKinley Philanthropy Fellowship program

Web Conferences

Reader Articles

Advancing Racial Equity, Racial Equity Funders Collaborative in Minnesota
Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, Diane Wilson
Building a Stronger ALAANA Arts Community: Keeping an Eye on Systems, Janet Brown and Angelique Power
Expanding Cultural Family: Funders, Tools, and the Journey toward Equity, Jen Gilligan Cole
A More Equitable World Because of Theatre, Teresa Eyring
New York City Addresses Diversity in the Cultural Workforce, Edwin Torres
The Risk of Hopelessness, Carlton Turner

2015

Board action
In March, GIA board of directors approves the proposed Racial Equity in Arts Phianthropy Statement of Purpose and GIA promotes and distributes the statement to its members and the public. Racial equity committee vets all sessions proposed for the GIA annual conference for purposes of integrating a racial equity lens into topics. New GIA board members attend the 2-day anti-racism training with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond.

Los Angeles Conference

Sessions

Along the Capitalization Spectrum, organized by Katie Steger
Artists and Designers Working with Equitable Development Goals in Mind, organized by Jessica Garz
Arts and Culture in Boyle Heights: Building Healthy Communities, organized by Amy Kitchener and Maria Rosario Jackson
Chasing Equity: 50 States on the Map, 10 States in Motion, organized by Narric Rome
The Courage to Engage, organized by June Wilson
Equity and Demographic Data: A Question-Centered Approach for the Future, organized by Arin Sullivan and Beth Tuttle
Evaluation Test Kitchen: Cooking Up Frameworks to Assess Aesthetics and Social Outcomes, organized by Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon
Funder, Transform Thyself, organized by Justin Laing
People of Color and Arts Giving: A 360 Degree View, organized by Josephine Ramirez and John Kobara
Sustaining Our Communities’ Wellbeing: The Arts to the Rescue, organized by Zeyba Rahman
What’s Human Capital Got to Do, Got to Do with It?, organized by Angelique Power

Keynotes/Artists

Racial Equity Forum

Supporting ALAANA Organizations, June, Atlanta: Grantmakers in the Arts hosted a national dialogue for sixty participants on increasing funding and access to funding for African, Latino(a), Asian, Arab and Native American (ALAANA) organizations. It was held at the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. Videos and text available on the forum page.

Web Conference

Advancing Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy; August 18, 2015

Reader Articles

An Exploratory Study of Demographic Diversity in the Arts Management Workforce, Antonio C. Cuyler
What Does Culture Look Like When #BlackLivesMatter?, Justin Laing
Building Equity and Inclusion by Assessing Demographic Data: Two Case Studies, Judi Jennings and Denise M. Brown
Who We Be: The Colorization of America (book review), reviewed by Lynda Turet
Seeing Beyond, Activating Ourselves, Roberta Uno
US Cultural Engagement with Global Muslim Communities: Contours and Connections in an Emerging Field, Jennifer C. Lena and Erin F. Johnston

Blogs

Lessons Learned So Far on GIA’s Journey towards Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy, Janet Brown

2014

GIA Board Action GIA board creates the Racial Equity Board Committee, chaired by Maurine Knighton to plan, recommend and oversee racial equity in arts philanthropy programs and integration of a racial equity lens into other program areas. Proposed conference session on equity/racial equity are vetted by the Racial Equity Board Committee and recommended to the conference committee. New board members attend 2-day anti-racism training of People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Racial Equity Board Committee begins work on a statement of purpose for GIA’s work in racial equity in arts philanthropy.

Houston Conference

Sessions

Art and Tech: Bending New Technologies to Native Traditions, organized by Wendy Red Star and T. Luluni Arquette
Resources at the Roots of Culture, organized by Kim Cook
How Five Arts & Culture Funders are Smashing Silos, organized by Aaron Dorfman
Applying Racial Justice Principles to Arts Education Grantmaking, organized by Justin Laing
Transforming Culture/Creating Justice, organized by F. Javier Torres
Leading the Charge: Theatre Communications Group’s Diversity & Inclusion Institute, organized by Kevin Bitterman
Strategies to Increase Equity in Grantmaking & Empowerment, organized by Aaron Dworkin
Advancing Racial Equity in Grantmaking: A Long Table Discussion, organized by Vickie Benson, Sharon DeMark, Glyn Northington, and Eleanor Savage

Keynotes/Artists

Thought Leader Forum

Constructing Racial Equity, July, New York: Participants from the 2012 Thought Leader Forum came together to share case studies from within their own organizations and to discuss next steps to the process of sharing learning with the field. Facilitated by Lori Villarosa

Reader Articles

Paying Attention to White Culture and Privilege: A Missing Link to Advancing Racial Equity, Gita Gulati-Partee and Maggie Potapchuk
I Hate Classical Music: A Conversation on Race, Identity, and Transformative Arts Practice, Justin Laing and Alex Laing
Placemaking and Placemakers: Lessons from Detroit, Appalachia, New Orleans, and Honolulu, Mark Valdez
Inclusion in American Orchestras, Aaron P. Dworkin
Policy, Prisons, and Pranks: Artists Collide with the World, Ruby Lerner

Blogs

Racial Equity: The History and Purpose of our Work, Janet Brown

2013

GIA Board & Staff Workshop Understanding and Undoing Racism, July, Seattle: A two-day workshop led by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond

GIA Board Action November: Based on recommendations from the Racial Equity Thought Leader Forum participants, the GIA board adopts the issue of constructing racial equity in arts grantmaking as “core field work”.

Philadelphia Conference

Preconference

Race Peace

Sessions

Invisible >> Visible: New Native Voices on the Forefront of Change, organized by Reuben Roqueni
Cultural Kitchens: Nurturing Creative Practice, organized by Mary-Kim Arnold
Action Steps to Building Equity and Resisting Racism, organized by Judi Jennings and Justin Laing
The Arts Next Door: Neighborhood-Based Community Arts Training Institute, organized by Roseann Weiss
Growing to Reflect the Neighborhood: Community Engagement in an Evolving Community, organized by The Wallace Foundation
Social Justice, Participatory Arts and Immigrant Experiences, organized by Amy Kitchener and Russell Rodriguez

Keynotes/Artists

Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy Thought Leader Forum

Constructing Racial Equity, December, Chicago: Participants from the 2012 Thought Leader Forum came together to share their work on racial equity within their own organizations and to discuss next steps to the process of sharing learning and best practices with the field. Facilitated by Melinda Weekes, Race Forward.

Reader Articles

Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-belonging, Roberto Bedoya
Why Equity Matters: New Ideas and Action Steps, Judi Jennings, Angelique Power, F. Javier Torres and Holly Sidford
Indigenous Perspectives on Equity in Philanthropy, various authors
Dancing in the Streets Busts a South Bronx Move, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Arts and Social Change from an Artist’s Perspective, Byron Au Yong
Opportunities Abound: Antiracism and Arts Philanthropy, Justin Laing
Culturally Relevant Arts Education for Social Justice: A Way Out of No Way, reviewed by Mayumi Tsutakawa

Blogs

Understanding and Undoing Structural Racism, Janet Brown
Race Peace: An Opportunity for Grantmakers (White People Encouraged to Attend), Janet Brown

2012

Miami Conference

Preconference

Arts in Immigrant Communities

Sessions

Community Health and the Participatory Arts: Crucial Issues and Opportunities, organized by Maria Rosario Jackson and Amy Kitchener
The Art of Investing in Immigrant Hubs, organized by Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, F. Javier Torres and San San Wong
Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: Update and Action Steps, organized by Judi Jennings, Ron Ragin and F. Javier Torres
Are We Making a Difference? Evaluating the Impact of Arts and Social Justice Projects, organized by Judi Jennings, Maurine Knighton, and Lynn Stern
What Real Change Looks Like: Diverse Expression and Philanthropic Cultural Competency, organized by Jonathon Freeman and Ted Russell
Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts: Creating Equitable, Livable Communities through Grassroots Cultural Programs, organized by Caron Atlas, Melanie Cohn, Michael Spring and Edwin Torres
Capitalization through a Cultural Equity Lens, organized by Ron Ragin, Tere Romo and San San Wong
Immigrant Artists, Culture and Community Health, organized by Amy Kitchener and Russell Rodriguez
Advocating for Equitable Access to Arts Education for Students in Poverty, organized by Laura Zucker
“Understanding and Undoing Racism” and Its Effects on Grantmaking, organized by Grantmakers in the Arts

Keynotes/Artists

Duck Soup: A Play on Equity, KJ Sanchez and Tommer Peterson, American Record Theater Company
Robert Vijay Gupta

Thought Leader Forum

Understanding and Undoing Racism, June, Pittsburgh: A two-day workshop led by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond attended by 23 social justice funders, plus GIA staff.
Deconstructing Racism, November, New York: Those who attended the Pittsburgh workshop were invited to debrief on their experience, identify ways to improve their own grantmaking and make recommendations to the field. Facilitated by Melinda Weekes, Race Forward.

Reader Articles