The Culture & Community Power Fund seeks to invest in, connect, and amplify efforts to help build community power through arts and culture.

The Fund is a lab to broaden and deepen the understanding of how art and culture can contribute to community power building. We experiment with ways to support organizations, individuals, and networks doing this work. We’re committed to sharing our learning with practitioners, investors, public officials, researchers, and others to help advance art and culture as a critical tool to support community power building.

We support communities most impacted by structural oppression. In 2022, we awarded unrestricted, multi-year grants to organizations that are deeply rooted in their communities, utilize creative practice and cultural strategies, and work to address systemic and intersectional societal challenges.

Learn more about the fund here.

From the Dodge Foundation: At the Dodge Foundation, we are committed to engaging with and learning about racial justice-focused organizations working across the state of New Jersey. We have been supporting these types of organizations through our Imagine a New Way initiative over the last several years, connecting with organizations through intentional outreach and relationship building, and through a community-engaged grantmaking process in our Momentum Fund. Today, we are excited to announce that we are creating a new pathway for connection with racial justice-focused organizations that have not previously had access to the Dodge Foundation through our first-ever “Open Call.”

We know that supporting organizations through an open call process is in alignment with our vision. We have been working and building towards this moment for years because we believe that this process is critical to achieving a just and equitable New Jersey. We expect to distribute $500,000 with grants ranging from approximately $15,000 to $75,000 to 10 to 20 organizations depending on the organizations and the number of applications we receive.

Our own transformation to become a racial justice funder has been steeped in an approach to “learn by doing, and do while learning.” The only way to effectively live into this principle is to acknowledge a simple truth: we don’t know what we don’t know. The strong relationships that we’ve built over the past two years with our Imagine a New Way and Momentum Fund organizations, practitioners, and leaders have provided us with invaluable feedback, insights, and learnings to move our work ever closer to justice. But, we still have work to do in learning about organizations tackling structural racism across the State.

In this spirit, through this first-ever Open Call process, we will adjust and adapt.  We know that an application process is not perfect – that asking organizations to complete an application for funding takes time away from their mission. It’s our goal to make the process as streamlined as possible and to only ask questions that are essential to our understanding of the work.

And while today we are announcing the Open Call approach, this is not the only way we connect with communities, leaders, and organizations. Our team will continue to connect with communities, to show up, to ask questions, to listen deeply, and to identify how current systems—and in some cases, our own practices—continue to perpetuate injustices.

So now we turn to you – our community. Help us connect with and support organizations that are addressing the root causes and repair of structural racism across our State. Apply for funding yourself if your work aligns with our vision for a just and equitable New Jersey. And share the Open Call far and wide.

Learn more here.

“It is understandable that Puerto Rico might be experiencing a strong case of déjà vu. Hurricane Fiona raging across the island in September 2022 was bound to bring back bad memories of the two-punch devastation of Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, from which they were still recovering. Among the local governmental organizations to first start recovery efforts back then was the island’s arts agency, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), or Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. “We were the first state agency issuing checks in Puerto Rico” after the 2017 hurricanes, stated Freddy E. Vélez, deputy director at ICP,” said Brian Lusher in an interview with the National Endowment for the Arts.

While Puerto Rico suffered from a complete loss of electricity, much as it has with the 2022 storm, and blocked roadways, ICP managed to work with federal agencies and local organizations to facilitate access to the arts through the program Cultura Rodante (Culture on Wheels). The idea was to provide communities with comfort and help them find some normality by bringing artists and arts organizations to different places throughout the island to work with local constituents. Even Poetry Out Loud, the NEA’s national poetry recitation contest for high school students, continued with ICP’s assistance despite the power outages.

In addition to being Puerto Rico’s arts agency, ICP also oversees the General Archives of Puerto Rico, which contains important historical public documents; the National Library; and the Collections Unit, which stores artworks and historical objects that are often loaned to other institutions, all of which required damage assessments and recovery recommendations.

The NEA, working with ICP and partnering with local organizations and other federal agencies, such as the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), has conducted numerous workshops on funding opportunities for cultural nonprofit organizations. In addition, the NEA worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Interior, National Archives and Records Administration, and the National Park Service, along with ICP, to conduct important historical preservation workshops on topics such as cemetery repair work at historic sites and climate considerations for the management of historic properties, especially those vulnerable to flooding and projected sea level rise.

Read the full interview here.

“How do we ensure that global philanthropy is not causing more harm?” said Kendra Nicolai, Director of Operations at Shadhika, for Community Centric Fundraising. “As a white woman in the US, working for gender justice in India, the key was discovering how my own power and privilege were getting in the way of our path to decolonization.”

“A year into my role at Shadhika, we hired a new Executive Director, My Lo Cook, who redefined the vision of Shadhika’s work, centering around a feminist and decolonizing core.”

“As our team spent time reflecting on the foundation of our work and how to move the needle for gender justice in India, we had tough conversations with our partners, staff, and board about the power we hold as a funder and how we can deconstruct this.” 

“’Decolonizing development’ is a phrase that has been buzzing around the development sector. Notably, for Shadhika, it meant shifting the power from donors’ hands to the communities we work in. It meant working with local organizations more than just as a funder, but as a partner, learning from one another, building trust, bringing more voices to the table, and leaving decisions about funding and programmatic priorities in the hands of the experts in the field.”

“We know we must trust grassroots wisdom — which includes acknowledging and adjusting those harmful practices — and that this journey towards decolonizing our work is a continuous learning commitment we must undertake. I am thankful for My’s leadership and for bringing a decolonizing framework which helped me see where I needed to adjust and step out of the way to allow the work at Shadhika to grow and have the impact we intend.”

Read the full piece here.

From SMU DataArts: Support for Local Arts Agencies (LAAs) gets called into question on an all-too-frequent basis. Just recently, the Charlotte, NC city council voted to make the Arts and Sciences Council (ASC) of Charlotte ineligible to receive operating dollars to support the personnel, technology and other resources necessary to do its work for the broader cultural sector. Last year in Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney proposed a $1 million cut to funding for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, though funding levels were restored in the final budget after significant advocacy from local arts communities and their supporters. Do funding cuts have consequences for a community’s arts vibrancy?

Those who work for local arts agencies witness the community impact of their work. Organizations and artists who are direct beneficiaries of local arts agency support leverage the funding to fuel their creative activity. Yet politicians and citizens who live in arts-vibrant communities may not connect the dots between their local arts agency and the direct value it adds. We decided to turn to data to empirically explore the question: Do local arts agencies contribute to their communities’ arts vibrancy?  

As part of a project with Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, we undertook an effort to examine the effects of LAA funding on overall Arts Vibrancy and the individual, underlying components of Arts Vibrancy. Our colleagues at Americans for the Arts generously shared with us LAA data they collected through a survey so that we could explore the topic. 

Our research pointed to multiple ways that LAAs are catalysts for art vibrancy in their communities. The more grant dollars they have to invest in artists and arts organizations, and the more programs and services they provide, the more their communities pulse with arts-driven creative and economic life, vigor, and activity.

Read the full report here.

“A major shift is happening in which BIPOC leaders are reclaiming rest, and a newly established philanthropic fund seeks to support it,” said Nineequa Blanding for Nonprofit Quarterly. “In Washington state, the BIPOC-ED Coalition—a multicultural, cross-sector collective of nonprofit leaders working to promote community wellness and restoration—has committed $1.37M to fund sabbaticals for BIPOC leaders. Recognizing that rest is essential for healing and social justice, the coalition established a fund, resourced by philanthropic partners, to launch the Sabbatical Leadership Program. This effort enables nonprofit leaders of color to take a break from work and create room for self-care—on their own terms.”

“The need for rest isn’t limited to Washington state—it’s a nationwide issue that needs to be addressed. Given this, the BIPOC-ED Coalition’s work raises the question: What if every state established a coalition that organizes to create avenues for rest, particularly in communities most harmed by systemic oppression? What if these coalitions were fully funded and backed the collective vision of BIPOC leaders who are drawing from lived experience and are attuned to the reality that communities need to build solutions that inspire healing?”

“The BIPOC-ED Coalition certainly offers a model for how executive directors can organize to create opportunities for rest and how philanthropy can work in solidarity to fund these efforts.”

“Having to earn self-care is a common narrative in our western culture. Yet, when we prioritize taking care of ourselves—through rest, therapy, and movement, we can serve others better. An empty well doesn’t provide water for anyone.”

“The well-being of executive directors is reason enough to support sabbaticals. Physically and emotionally rested executive directors are able to show up as their best selves for their staff, their community, and their families. And, just like an individual person, an organization will be better able to support its community when the people within it are healthy and strong.”

Read the full piece here.

From Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting: Since the earliest days of print journalism, illustration has been used to elucidate and add perspective to stories. Even with the advent of photography in the 19th century, hand-drawn illustrations continued to have their place, both as a synthesis of the artist’s vision and the writer’s meaning. The illustrator’s art still speaks to something not just intimately connected to the news, but intrinsically human about story itself.

With the advent of generative-image AI technology, that unique interpretive and narrative confluence of art and text, of human writer and human illustrator, is at risk of extinction.

Based on text prompts, these generative tools can churn out polished, detailed simulacra of what previously would have been illustrations drawn by the human hand. They do so for a few pennies or for free, and they are faster than any human can ever be. Because no human illustrator can work quickly enough or cheaply enough to compete with these robot replacements, we know that if this technology is left unchecked, it will radically reshape the field of journalism. The result will be that only a tiny elite of artists can remain in business, their work selling as a kind of luxury status symbol. 

AI-art generators are trained on enormous datasets, containing millions upon millions of copyrighted images, harvested without their creator’s knowledge, let alone compensation or consent. This is effectively the greatest art heist in history. Perpetrated by respectable-seeming corporate entities backed by Silicon Valley venture capital. It’s daylight robbery.

Learn more and add your signature here.

From the Dodge Foundation: At the Dodge Foundation, we are committed to engaging with and learning about racial justice-focused organizations working across the state of New Jersey. We have been supporting these types of organizations through our Imagine a New Way initiative over the last several years, connecting with organizations through intentional outreach and relationship building, and through a community-engaged grantmaking process in our Momentum Fund. Today, we are excited to announce that we are creating a new pathway for connection with racial justice-focused organizations that have not previously had access to the Dodge Foundation through our first-ever “Open Call.”

We know that supporting organizations through an open call process is in alignment with our vision. We have been working and building towards this moment for years because we believe that this process is critical to achieving a just and equitable New Jersey. We expect to distribute $500,000 with grants ranging from approximately $15,000 to $75,000 to 10 to 20 organizations depending on the organizations and the number of applications we receive. Organizations are eligible to apply with the following criteria:

Have never previously received funding from the Dodge Foundation
Ensure that its racial justice work is based in and benefits communities in the state of New Jersey
Address the root cause and repair of structural racism and inequity in New Jersey
Have an annual operating budget of up to $3M
Have 501(c)(3) status or operate under a fiscal sponsor

We are interested in supporting organizations working across all issue areas, particularly those addressing how inequities overlap and intersect. You can find more details about our process on our dedicated Open Call page on our website. 

From Alliance Events: Stories connect us, and who tells them matters – this is especially true when it comes to the story of our heating planet. That’s why philanthropy’s support of climate research and journalism is such an important tool for climate action.

We want to know who these funders are, and who they’re supporting.

In a global conversation bringing together expert journalists covering climate change, as well as the funders who make supporting climate research and media a core part of their strategy, we’re focusing on how to get the story out.

Join speakers Sven Egenter (Clean Energy Wire), Mikaela Weisse (WRI), and Aarti Khosla (Climate Trends) on Tuesday, May 16 at 9am CT. Learn more and register here.

From Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors: Philanthropy has the power to create meaningful and lasting change in the world. However, to do so, we must center people and communities in our work. Join us for the first session of our webinar series where we will explore the importance of centering the voices of impacted communities in philanthropy as we work towards a just world. 

In this session, as we delve into the critical role of philanthropy in addressing social and environmental issues, we will focus on the need to listen to and learn from communities who are impacted by these issues, and how to prioritize their voices in our decision-making processes. We will explore ways to center these voices, including community engagement, partnership-building, and empowering community-led solutions, among other tactics. 

We will also examine the importance of intersectionality in our philanthropic work. We will explore how issues of race, gender, class, and other forms of oppression intersect to create systemic barriers to change. We will discuss ways to address these barriers, including investing in organizations and movements led by impacted communities. 

By the end of this session, you will gain a deeper understanding of the importance of centering people and communities in philanthropy. You will learn practical steps you can take to center these voices in your work and create meaningful and lasting change in the world. Join us for this inspiring and thought provoking session and be part of a community of like-minded philanthropists committed to creating a more just world.

Register for the webinar here.