“It’s no coincidence that every administrative arts worker I know is burnt out,” said author Benjamin Akio Kimitch. “We all know how hard and underpaid the work is, but we want to make our own contributions to the community that inspires us, so when we imagine making a change, our dreams are generally about the devil we know.”

Kitmitch discusses similarities in the encounters between artist and administrator, and how, “the desire for change reverberates through all of us who together create, perform, fundraise, amplify, administer, buy tickets, and donate money.”

“I hope there is still time for us to slow down. To acknowledge what we share. To care for each other.”

Read the full article here.

On May 12, Equity, “published a global scoping review of 111 academic studies related to mental health and wellbeing in students and professionals within the performing arts. This landmark study was commissioned by Equity. It’s launched alongside a new Mental Health Charter at a panel event to mark Mental Health Awareness Week.”

“The review by Dr Lucie Clements found a clear trend for increased mental health concerns across the performing arts, although findings regarding the prevalence of mental health concern vary greatly.” It identified a scope of contributing factors, including, “culture of unstable work,” and that, “lack of industry regulation of working conditions and mental health,” lead to mental health issues.

Read the full article here.

“This commitment was made in the wake of Covid and Black Lives Matter. And to date, there have been no answers to the question,” said Arts Professional UK author Kevin Osborne. “Two years on, as life moves to a post-Covid norm and memories of the killing of George Floyd fade, ACE’s commitment to increased racial equity is being severely tested.”

Arts Council England outlines their plan to, “increase funding to Black-led organisations,” which includes:

Geographic versus racial equity
Moral and ethical leadership vs self interest
Need for transparent monitoring of racial diversity
We must all take responsibility

“This change is possible and must start in the next spending round so we can achieve racially equitable funding within our lifetimes.”

Read the full article here.

“Join Submittable with philanthropy leader Storme Gray in a discussion about how emerging social impact leaders can unlock the right doors and keep them open.” “What do emerging leaders in philanthropy need to succeed? And what can current leadership learn from the up-and-coming generation?”

The 35-minute podcast episode discusses, “how to support true equity and make space for the full human experience.” Digging into:

How philanthropic organizations can recruit and retain diverse talent

The value of curiosity, inquiry, and collective care

How global interconnectedness shapes a new ethos for emerging leaders

The power of pausing your inbox

Why everyone is a leader in their own right (and continuously emerging)

Advice for new talent seeking to make a career in philanthropy

Listen to the full episode here.

“In the same city where state lawmakers passed the strictest trans healthcare ban in the nation, members of a Black, trans and queer-led organization cracked jokes, blew bubbles, played cards, found compassion and community during a recent sunny Sunday afternoon at Shakespeare Park in Montgomery, Ala,” said author Jonece Starr Dunigan for the Reckon.

“Quentin Bell, a Black trans man raised in the civil rights hotbed of Selma, Ala., founded the grassroots nonprofit commonly known as TKO in 2012 to empower and support Black trans and nonbinary people who were lacking resources in rural Alabama.”

“TKO tackles homelessness, food insecurity, non-affirming healthcare services and other issues by connecting Black LGBTQ+ people to resources such as support groups, a community garden and housing assistance. In 2017, TKO became the first Black and trans-led AIDS Service Organization and STD/STI clinic in the state. TKO clients don’t pay a dime to tap into the nonprofit’s network of gender-affirming doctors. Therapy services are also free.”

Read the full article here.

From the Wallace Foundation: “As a part of The Wallace Foundation’s five-year initiative intended to support arts organizations rooted in communities of color as they explore strategies for achieving organizational resilience (ability to adapt and thrive) while retaining their relevance (mattering to their communities), the Foundation invites arts service organizations serving and prioritizing such arts organizations to propose research projects that answer important questions related to the arts communities they serve.”

“Proposed studies should address key issues of importance to the work of the arts service organization while also providing important learnings about the field of arts organizations founded by, with, and for communities of color.” They should be submitted for “a research planning and implementation grant,” or, “a research expansion grant.”

Letters of intent are due June 9 with proposals due August 19. Read the full announcement here.

“Organized philanthropy, like most things, looks different on the inside than it does from the outside,” said author Nicholas Lemann in a recent article for the New Yorker. “’Philanthropy’ comes from the Greek for ‘love of humanity,’ and public perceptions of it have usually centered on donors and how humanity-loving they really are. The good guys are generous rich people who give to causes we all approve of, like combatting climate change; the bad guys give in order to launder their reputations (like the opioid-promoting Sackler family) or to advance unsavory goals (like the anti-environmentalist Kochs). Either way, the salient questions about philanthropy, for most people, have to do with the size and the quality of a donor’s heart and soul.”

“Saunders-Hastings, situated in the conventions of ideal theory, tends to exempt the larger society from the harsh, raking light she casts on philanthropy; her approach is like comparing your actual spouse to a fictional perfect spouse.”

“Even within philanthropy, the people who do most of the work at large foundations are grant officers, who aren’t rich and who usually aren’t as overbearing as the people who made the fortunes they are disbursing. A lot of the daily work of philanthropy takes the form of routinized exchanges between salaried bureaucrats on either side of the transaction.”

Read the full article here.

For the month of June, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by ArtsBuild.

In response to our questions for the GIA Member Spotlight, ArtsBuild shared the following:

ArtsBuild’s mission is to build a stronger community through the arts. Since our founding in Chattanooga in 1969, ArtsBuild has served as a catalyst for the arts in our community, investing more than $77 million in arts organizations, arts programs, and arts education. Throughout the past 53 years, the vision of our founders to build a stronger community through the arts has remained consistent. That vision includes creating access to the arts. We do this through grantmaking, arts education initiatives, and arts advocacy.

In the process of putting the show together, our team also helped our artists and creatives with professional, technical, and creative development – everything from new video production skills to fair contract negotiation to collaborative mash-ups with peers they didn’t know before. And of course when you assist artists with a few new simple tools in their toolbox, they take those and run in all kinds of creative directions you can never predict, which is where the real beauty and joy comes into play.

At ArtsBuild, we are excited about our Racial Equity Grants for Individual Artists. This summer we will award grants to five local Native American or Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists. The first two rounds of this grant program were awarded to Black and Latinx artists. Each artist receives a grant of $10,000 to do anything that furthers their careers and/or their practice. Funds have been used by artists to travel abroad to research storytelling, buy equipment, create large bodies of work for exhibition, and complete writing and music projects. We hope to be able to fund the next round of grants for BIPOC women artists from all disciplines.

ArtsBuild joined Grantmakers in the Arts in 2020.

You can also visit ArtsBuild’s photo gallery on GIA’s Photo Credits page.

Image: One of the paintings in the traveling exhibit “The Black Bible” by Chattanooga artist Charlie Newton. Charlie was a grant recipient in ArtsBuild’s first round of Racial Equity Grants for Individual Artists awarded to five local African American artists. The exhibit was on display at Stove Works, an ArtsBuild Mission Support grantee, whose mission is to serve the Chattanooga community by providing local, national, and international artists a venue for the production of, exhibition of and education through contemporary works of art. Courtesy of ArtsBuild.