Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, South Arts is a nonprofit regional arts organization empowering artists, organizations, and communities, and increasing access to arts and culture. In partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the State Arts Agencies of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee — with additional funding from other public and private donors such as the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — South Arts supports artists and organizations through a rich and responsive portfolio of grants, fellowships, and programs.

South Arts believes in the power of the arts crossing borders. Their region birthed jazz, cultivated the traditional arts of Appalachia, and is home to some of today’s most innovative, boundary-pushing artists. Past, present, and future, the arts of their region drive the country forward. South Arts supports and celebrates the artistry of their region with grants and fellowships for artists, communities, and organizations. From the most rural and isolated towns to our largest urban cities, communities thrive with access to art. They support organizations that present and engage touring Southern artists for performances, readings, exhibits, and residencies. South Arts values partnerships between artists and organizations that cross sectors, impacting areas of life including healthcare, aging, and education.

On July 6, 2022, South Arts announced 17 organizations selected as Southern Cultural Treasures, a $6,000,000, multi-year initiative supporting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) -led and -serving arts and cultural organizations throughout the Southeast. With lead support from the Ford Foundation and modeled after their “America’s Cultural Treasures”, this program aims to acknowledge and honor the diversity of artistic expression and excellence in America and provide critical funding to organizations that have made a significant impact on their communities’ cultural landscapes. Under the leadership of South Arts’ Vice President of Programs, Joy Young, PhD, the program runs through March 2025 and provides each organization with up to $300,000 of general operating grants, an additional project grant of up to $7,500, customized consultant services, networking, cohort building, and knowledge sharing. Southern Cultural Treasures is designed to be a measure of sustainable support. By providing BIPOC-led and -serving organizations with tools and frameworks to establish their own agency and institutional narratives, the initiative encourages growth throughout the South—not only in the context of the arts, but also in the impact of surrounding communities as well. The 17 Southern Cultural Treasures are: Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame (Birmingham, AL), Art2Action (Tampa, FL), Ashé Cultural Arts Center (New Orleans, LA), Asia Institute – Crane House (Louisville, KY), B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center (Indianola, MS), Ballethnic Dance Company (East Point, GA), Catawba Nation Cultural Division (Rock Hill, SC), Collage Dance Collective (Memphis, TN), Colour of Music Festival (Charleston, SC), Deep Center (Savannah, GA), Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (Miami, FL), JazzArts Charlotte (Charlotte, NC), Junebug Productions (New Orleans, LA), Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Utica, MS), Otis Redding Foundation (Macon, GA), Teatro Avante (Miami, FL), and True Colors Theatre Company (Atlanta, GA).

You can also visit the South Arts photo gallery on GIA’s Photo Credits page.

Photo by Mariana Sheppard / Junebug Productions.

“Here we go again. It’s a year later and we’re back where we started,” said author and Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts Kaisha Johnson. “It’s so disheartening, although not surprising, to see historically and predominantly white arts organizations and cultural institutions pulling out all the stops (and red flags) to acknowledge Juneteenth this year. After all the hollow statements of solidarity — which I expressed as extremely problematic in a Medium article last year, I find myself in the same space — giving a metaphorical and literal side eye to our sector.”

“In the course of a year, we’ve seemed to have normalized silence. We’ve seemed to have normalized empty promises, empty rhetoric, and the lack of accountability. So it’s not freedom when Black cultural workers have to walk into white spaces and deal with the ongoing shenanigans that stem from these institutions dedicating valuable time and resources — without full investment in the work — knowing that their institutions will ultimately make no real commitments, once again pushing Black and brown folks to shoulder the burden. This is also a form of racial violence.”

Read the full article here.

“The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice released new funds to develop, enhance or expand art programs for justice-involved youth. The purpose of Arts Programs for Justice-Involved Youth is to support collaborations between arts-based organizations and juvenile justice systems that focus on current and previous justice-involved youth, including Tribal and Indigenous youth, to reduce juvenile delinquency, recidivism, and/or other problem and high-risk behaviors.”

“Applications may include working with youth at any point in the juvenile justice system, alternatives to incarceration and diversion, secure detention and confinement, and strategies to support youth’s successful reentry into communities.”

Applications are due July 18, 2022.
All arts fields are eligible.
Open to Native American tribal governments, Native Tribal organizations, city and county governments and nonprofit organizations.
Awards are up to $66,500 with an 18-month program period.
There is no match requirement.

Read the full opportunity here.

“It has now been more than two years since George Floyd’s murder sparked the historic 2020 summer uprisings for racial justice. Since then, the debate about race in the US has remained center stage. Racial justice movement leaders and organizers continue to demand a reckoning with the nation’s history of racial exclusion and oppression. At the same time, a white nationalist, anti-democratic, and increasingly violent faction has gained prominence,” said Nonprofit Quarterly author Kyle Strickland. “A central question is how to advance racial and economic justice while US democracy continues to backslide. Significant challenges remain: public opinion on issues of race continues to waver amid weaponized racist backlash; Republican-led state legislatures are passing sweeping voter suppression measures; and a reactionary Supreme Court is rolling back civil rights and freedoms. Meanwhile, Democrats are divided over strategy, vision, and goals.”

“Today, a new generation of activists and organizers are part of a multiracial, intersectional movement. They are making the connections between intersecting challenges—economic and racial inequality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and rising authoritarianism—and coalescing around an emergent worldview for racial justice—one that goes beyond symbolic representation and moves toward a redistribution of power and resources. They are demanding transformative change at every level—federal, state, and local—and are focused on policy, institutions, and grassroots power,” said Strickland. “Incremental policy approaches will not be enough to build genuine multiracial solidarity and dismantle systems of racial and economic oppression. The post-neoliberal vision of freedom and liberation requires more: repair and redress, and material equity.”

Read the full article here.

From Culture Track: “Untapped Opportunity: Older Americans & the Arts aims to shed light on older generations’ distinct preferences and behaviors to provide relevant insights for cultural engagement. Our findings are focused on the U.S. population aged 55 and over, who were surveyed as part of our Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation national survey, fielded from April 5 to April 30, 2021.”

“In an effort to celebrate Black experiences that have long been undervalued by our society, LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett embarked on a qualitative investigation of the role of creativity, joy, belonging, and connection in the lives of Black and African American adults around the nation. By placing Black experiences at the center of this examination, we aim to learn from Black communities, highlight their lived experiences, and illuminate the way forward with their perspectives.”

“The study drove the creation of two reports, the first of which was Slover Linett’s A Place to be Heard, A Space to Feel Held: Black Perspectives on Creativity, Trustworthiness, Welcome, and Well-Being, which provided an in-depth exploration of the research findings. In this second report, LaPlaca Cohen draws on and interprets key points from the first publication to outline ways that cultural practitioners can activate the findings in their work.”

Read the full report here.

From author Vu for Nonprofit AF: “Justice has been dealt a significant blow. Many of us are distraught, wondering how we can continue when an unceasing barrage of death and violence continues raining down on our communities day after day. However, many of us are more pissed off than anything. We’re going to keep fighting.”

“However, we need the resources, support, and trust to do our work. And those things have always been in short supply for progressive organizations and movements. We have been running on fumes, on shoestring budgets, on hope and prayer and duct tape, because so many funders continue to be completely oblivious to how destructive their practices are. There are some great funders, but they are rare. The majority just constantly make our work harder, and we need to have a serious discussion.”

“The way right-wing foundations fund has been devastating effective. We need progressive funders to do the same. We lost this battle, but the war against injustice is far from over. If funders who claim to be aligned with equity and justice want to be helpful, here, again, are some things we need you to do:

Fund abortion orgs
Fund organizing and mobilizing
Fund voting rights
Rethink your strategic plans
Get political
Create legal defense funds for progressive activists
Give multi-year, general operating funds
Fund outside your geographic area also
Collaborate with trusted intermediaries so you can get funds out faster
Increase your payout now”

Read the full article here.

“The anemic California polling numbers for this past primary election (12 percent of the population voted) don’t bode well for the fall, but there is a long-sought arts initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot,” said author Michael Zwiebach for Classical Voice. “The California Art and Music K-12 Education Funding Initiative has qualified for the general election; as the name states, it’s meant to bolster school arts programs.”

“The initiative would require the state to find a source of revenue to fund K-12 arts education equal, at a minimum, to one percent of the total state and local revenues that local education agencies receive from Proposition 98 funding.” Led by the Californians for Arts and Music Education in Public Schools, it is a direct response to, “the insecurity of arts programs, which are often among the first things to be cut or curtailed when a school district experiences budget difficulties or shortfalls.”

Read the full article here.

“Google’s first-ever Image Equity Fellowship is a 6-month, application-based Fellowship awarded to 20 early-career image-based creators of color in the US. Selected Fellows will receive $20,000 in unrestricted funds to create an image-based project that explores and uplifts community(ies) of color with care and nuance.”

Google describes this program as, “a natural extension of [their] mission, aiming to empower the next generation of image makers of color to tell urgent stories of their communities, in the US.” Fellows must, “self-identify as a person of color,” and “be at least 18 years old (at the time of application submission).”

Read the full announcement here.