From BlackPittsburgh: “Justin Laing, the Principal at the anti-racist leadership and strategy firm Hillombo, is not your average Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant. Prior to founding Hillombo in 2017, Laing was a senior program officer at the Pittsburgh-based The Heinz Endowments, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the U.S. focused on community building in southwestern Pennsylvania. Laing spent 11 years there. His professional trajectory in the nonprofit world presents a powerful story of dedication to the Black Pittsburgh community.”

“Cutting his teeth in the community programming space challenged Laing to think more and more about the resources available to organizations committed to advancing Black arts and culture in Black communities. He wrote his first grant to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to gain support for the work that The Village’s community work. The Council didn’t consider his community engagement, even with some culinary arts programming, as ‘art’ proper—so they awarded the group a consultant, but no funding.”

“These days, Laing is as thoughtful as ever and maybe more radical than he was in his leather medallion-wearing days. As the lead at Hillombo, which he founded as a catalyst for ending the business-as-usual approach in the nonprofit sector, Laing applies Black radical, Black feminist, and socialist approaches to “disrupt our participation in the nonprofit industrial complex’s systemic oppression.”

“To date, Hillombo’s vision has directly impacted philanthropic approaches across the United States, including through organizations he’s consulted in Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Jersey, Illinois, and Minnesota.”

“Laing advises his clients (especially predominately white nonprofits and foundations) to center alternatives to systemic racism. These anti-racist approaches, he believes, result in more sustainable relationships between philanthropy the communities that they serve.”

“From outsiders looking in at his time at Heinz, this may seem like an abrupt departure from a successful career as a program officer. But for those who know Laing’s roots and his deliberate rootedness in Black radical traditions, his work at Hillombo is a return to form.”

Beginning November 1, Laing joins GIA for the Pro-BIPOC Arts Funding Community of Practice Workshop.

Read the full article here.

“For the last several years, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) has been re-examining its approaches to engaging the public in discourse around issues of representation, equity, and diversity during the process of commissioning permanent artwork, monuments, and memorials in the public realm. Traditional methods of engagement such as public meetings, surveys, and questionnaires remain important tools. But in order to develop a deeper and more nuanced assessment of community values and priorities, we need to commit to varied forms of engagement that connect with broader, more representative audiences and foster more thoughtful dialogue.”

“DCLA’s Public Art as Community Engagement (PACE) is a pilot program building on a model that relies on artist-led temporary art, convenings, and interventions as tools for careful and deliberate interaction to build real partnerships with relevant communities and stakeholders around specific public art projects. These public interventions are designed to address questions unique to each project and to help guide its development in a way that aligns with and responds to an active and involved community. The communities, themes, values, and context for every public art project varies widely; for projects that demand more robust dialogue and interaction, the PACE approach is employed to accommodate the vast range of variables and create opportunities for engagement that are reflective of and responsive to the unique conditions of the projects.”

Read the full article here.

From Dance/USA: “In Spring 2020, COVID-19 set off a wave of performance and residency cancellations. The termination of contracts through the invocation of Force Majeure was devastating to artists, managers, presenters and in some cases, to their relationships. By June 2020, Dance/USA members from the Agents, Managers, Producers and Promoters (AMPP) Council and the Presenters Council formed a Joint Working Group to address the question: ‘Can we identify some practical ways to support more equitable partnerships and financial balance within our already fragile dance touring ecosystem.'”

“Over the course of 7 months, members of the Joint Working Group discussed, tested and put into practice various remedies and hypotheses, culminating in the creation of Equitable Contracting, a shareable, living document meant to specifically address imbalances in contracting and the Force Majeure process.”

“The group outlined three principles:
I. Fair and Equitable Contracting: ‘Engagement’ vs. ‘Performance’
II. Fair and Equitable Payment Structures: ‘Payments & Deliverables’ vs. ‘Deposit’
III. Fair and Equitable Force Majeure/Cancellations: ‘Just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it’s good business.’ Force Majeure does not have to mean immediate termination”

“To gain access to the document, please complete the form here – it is available to all in the field. While the document does not provide specific contract language, the hope is that it may offer some practical ideas and suggestions for contracts that support more equitable business practices and field wide sustainability.”

“A massive 40,000-word report on cryptocurrency that appeared on Bloomberg stirred some controversies.”

“According to the article written by journalist Matt Levine, ‘every web3 project is simultaneously a Ponzi scheme,’ as most tokens are purchased with the purpose of selling them for a higher price, and not because the buyers want the product. According to Levine, the NFT is technologically weak, there’s a general negative sentiment about the tokens, and legal grounds of ownership are concerning, considering that buying an NFT buys you a notation on the blockchain, giving you the ownership of a web server and not the token itself.”

“With few notable exceptions, including nonfungible tokens made on the Art Blocks platform, the majority of NFTs are not on the blockchain directly but are on the server that is on the blockchain. Kevin McCoy, an early inventor of the NFTs, on the other hand claims that despite abuses, the NFTs do have collector’s value as pieces of digital art.”

“The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced the promotion of Maurine Knighton to chief program officer. In this role, Knighton will oversee DDCF’s five national grantmaking programs: Arts, Environment, Medical Research, Child Well-Being and Building Bridges.” Maurine Knighton is also a board alum of Grantmakers in the Arts.

“‘Maurine is a visionary, driven and skilled leader,’ said Sam Gill, CEO and president of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. ‘In a moment that calls for creativity and dexterity, Maurine’s wisdom and experience will help advance DDCF’s diverse and vital grantmaking programs.'”

“Since joining DDCF in 2016, Knighton has led development and oversight of grantmaking programs to support artists and organizations in the contemporary dance, theater, jazz and presenting fields. During her tenure, she has overseen many of DDCF’s signature programs, including the Doris Duke Artist Awards alongside a wide array of novel and innovative efforts to make the performing arts more equitable, inclusive and innovative.”

“‘I am grateful to have the opportunity to be more deeply involved in the outstanding work of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation,’ said Knighton. ‘Our accomplished program directors have developed a diverse portfolio of grants that has enabled the foundation to make powerful strides toward improving the quality of peoples’ lives. I very much look forward to collaborating with the team. I am excited to help advance our collective vision to extending the foundation’s impact.'”

“Prior to joining the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Knighton was a senior vice president for grantmaking at the Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF), where she oversaw shareholder engagement and NCF’s grants spanning the program areas of Constituency Building, Disruptive Ideas, Religious Traditions and Contemplative Practice, Arts and Culture, as well as the Nathan Cummings Fellowship Program. An experienced nonprofit executive and administrator, she also served as senior vice president for program and nonprofit investment at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and as managing director of the award-winning Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis.”

From The Giving Done Right Podcast: “Author and activist Heather McGhee joins hosts Phil Buchanan and Grace Nicolette for the fifth episode of season three of the Giving Done Right podcast. Heather provides keen insight into ‘drained pool’ politics, a core metaphor in her book, ‘The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,’ that reveals how the racial zero sum mindset hurts everyone. She presents a compelling picture of how racial inequality cuts across any number of issues that donors may care about, and therefore needs to be deeply considered and addressed in order to be effective in giving. She also describes ‘the solidarity dividend,’ the significant benefits that result when people come together across differences, and she shares her reasons for feeling optimistic about the future.”

Listen to the full episode here.

“At the age of seven, I was involved in a car accident that nearly amputated my left hand. Since the accident, I have journeyed from denying my disability to embracing it,” said Molly Joyce for AFTA. “With this progression, I have frequently rethought concepts that are considered critical to what disability is and can mean, such as being weak, helpless, and incurable.”

“This thinking progressed in a dialogue with legendary activist Judith Heumann, known for contributions to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and foreign service with disability rights. During a conversation in 2019, Heumann asked why I refer to my left hand as ‘weak.’ This question struck me personally and politically, as I usually called my left hand “weak” to provide a quick response for what my disability may be, thus categorizing it within narrowly defined social definitions of what weakness can and should be.”

“In response to Heumann’s inquiry, I wondered if rethinking this terminology could foster a broader understanding and interpretation of ‘weakness’ and related terms—terms explicitly central to disability culture yet relatable to all, disabled or nondisabled. I aimed to explore this by asking what these terms meant to disabled individuals across disabilities, highlighting the plurality of the disability community, and reframing collective perceptions about disability overall.”

Read the full article here.