Redistributing Power: Intentional Spend Downs for Lasting Impact

As arts funders increasingly consider how to maximize their impact to democratize power within grantmaking, more foundations are exploring the idea of sunsetting—spending down their endowments to ensure greater support for current and urgent needs. Join Malila Becton-Consuegra (Stupski), Farhad Ebrahimi (Solidaire Network), Tony and Caroline Grant (Sustainable Arts Foundation), and Jocelyn Wong (Kataly Foundation) on Thursday, November 14 at 2pm EST/11am PST for an in-depth discussion on how foundations can effectively navigate the complexities of sunsetting and deploying endowments with intentionality. Drawing from real-world examples, this panel will explore strategies for arts funders to maximize their long-term impact by supporting the needs of today’s cultural ecosystem.

This 60-minute panel discussion will include a Q&A. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

Live captioning will be available in English throughout the webinar. For additional accommodation requests, please contact GIA Program Manager Jaime Sharp, jaime@giarts.org, at least three (3) business days before the event.

Presenters

Malila Becton-Consuegra, Program Officer, Stupski Foundation

Malila Becton-Consuegra (she/her) is the Bay Area postsecondary success program officer at Stupski Foundation. Since joining the Foundation in 2020, Malila has led the implementation of Stupski’s holistic student support, work-based learning, student voice, and policy strategies for postsecondary success in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Malila brings over 20 years of experience working with communities of color via nonprofits and educational institutions focusing on student equity. She worked for over 10 years at the Alameda County Office of Education. During her tenure, she helped school district leaders identify gaps in achievement among students, often focusing on priority groups such as English language learners, students experiencing homelessness, students in foster care, Black and Latinx students, and students from low-income households. Her breadth and depth of experience weave together to inform her understanding of the multiple factors that go into supporting students and breaking down barriers to access.

Malila began her career in food justice and youth development. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and a Master of Arts in Counseling with dual specializations in college student services and career counseling.

Farhad Ebrahimi, Philanthropic Transformation Strategist, Solidaire Network

Farhad Ebrahimi (he/him) is a Philanthropic Transformation Strategist with the Solidaire Network, bringing well over a decade of experience as an organizer, trainer, and strategist in the philanthropic sector. Prior to joining the Solidaire staff, Farhad’s primary role was as the Founder and President of the Chorus Foundation, which worked for a just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States, and which spent down its entire endowment in 2023. He is also a co-founder and former board member of Solidaire, a member of the Center for Story-based Strategy’s trainer network; and a current board member of the Center for Economic Democracy, the National Committee For Responsive Philanthropy, and The Forge.

As the child of Iranian and Cuban refugees, Farhad was raised to intuitively value the concept of community self-determination. In one way or another, all of his professional work aims to build or shift power toward that end. As an abolitionist in the philanthropic sector, he is most interested in the question of how private philanthropy can support a Just Transition to a world in which financial resources are no longer extracted and consolidated into private hands in the first place. In short: How can private philanthropy put itself out of business?

Farhad is a musician, a lover of film and literature, and an occasional bicycle snob. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics with Computer Science, and he lives in a housing cooperative with thirteen adults and five children on Tongva land in Los Angeles.

Caroline Grant, Co-Director, Sustainable Arts Foundation

Caroline Grant is co-director of the Sustainable Arts Foundation. She served on the editorial board of Literary Mama for ten years, including five as editor-in-chief. She has published essays in The New York Times, Washington Post, Salon, Ozy, and a number of other outlets, and has also co-edited two anthologies: Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008) and The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learn to Eat (Roost Books, 2013). She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.

Tony Grant, Co-Director, Sustainable Arts Foundation

Tony co-founded the Sustainable Arts Foundation after a long career in the software industry. His passion for the arts comes from his father, who was a painter and sculptor, and growing up the son of an artist informed his thoughts about the balance of art and family.

Jocelyn Wong, Director of Capacity Building, Kataly Foundation

As the Director of Capacity Building, Jocelyn crafts Kataly’s strategy to strengthen the capacity of our grantee partners and the infrastructure of our movement ecosystems. This includes building relationships with capacity building practitioners, identifying and connecting grantee partners to resources, funding movement infrastructure projects, and supporting the development of new programming. Previously, Jocelyn also served as an Analyst with Kataly’s Restorative Economies Fund.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Jocelyn nearly 20 years of organizing, fundraising, and management experience to their work with Kataly. Informed by prior experience in community organizing and direct service, Jocelyn believes that transforming how we mobilize resources within social movements can facilitate a just transition of our economy away from extraction and exploitation and towards cooperation and regeneration.

Prior to joining Kataly, Jocelyn had their own consulting practice, supporting and coaching resource mobilizers to step into their full capacity and power and partnering with social justice groups to design and execute values-aligned approaches to resource independence and sustainability.

Prior to consulting, Jocelyn led a capital campaign to support the success of Restore Oakland, a community advocacy and training center in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. Jocelyn’s other prior experience includes serving as the Director of Development at Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, as the Director of Foundation Support at the ACLU of Northern California, as well as developing partnerships and securing resources for organizations serving youth, families, and LGBTQ communities.