Last November, Memphis Music Initiative (MMI)’s Director of Grantmaking and Partnerships, Dr. Rychetta Watkins, attended the 2021 annual Grantmakers in the Arts Conference, which took place in the virtual world for a second year due to the ongoing pandemic. Dr. Watkins, along with MMI Executive Director Amber Hamilton, developed and hosted a panel on the topic of intermediary funders in the grantmaking space, centering the unique perspective of intermediary funders. Dr. Watkins shares a reflection following their conference session including the context in which intermediary funders operate, the benefits of this model, and the lessons traditional funders can learn from intermediaries.

Also featured on the panel were leaders from two Mid-South nonprofits, including Janine Christiano, Strategic Funding and Initiatives Manager at Metro Arts Nashville, and GIA board member Carlton Turner, founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture).

Read here.

“I’ve witnessed how public art can draw attention to issues of community safety, awaken empathy, mobilize a community, and even generate dialogue between people holding differing opinions,” writes Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, guest editor for Issue 3 of FORWARD, focused on community safety.

“And yet I have also witnessed where such values and outcomes were not allowed, the rooms artists were not let into, the conversations that continued to happen behind closed doors no matter how potent the artwork or revered the artist. I desired to see artworks more candidly tackle the systems directly impacting community safety, from housing policy to environmental racism. ” In this issue, contributing authors share arts-led approaches to addressing and reimagining public safety from policing and the carceral system to abolition and freedom from harm.

“How Artists Reimagine Public Safety as Community Safety by Prioritizing Healing, Expression, and Community Control,” by Andrea Jenkins and “The arts can be a powerful means of calling attention to injustice and to the need for inclusion and safety” by André de Quadros are two of the featured essays exploring what’s possible when artists and culture bearers reimagine public safety systems with communities. Nezam reminds us, “artists are leading the charge to retool community safety to center justice and healing, through processes that are no longer top-down or White-centered.”

Read the full issue here.

Cameron Shaw, new executive director at the California African American Museum (CAAM) shares her perspective and strategy as the museum’s new leader, “she is committed to creating ‘a workplace that is safe and supportive where I show up with integrity, empathy, generosity, and clarity. And I’m a person in progress working toward those things.’”

The New York Times published a story on CAAM and Shaw’s bold vision for its future recently, noting the strong culture of ambition and experimentation amongst the growing team. “CAAM, with a broad purview in both Black art and African American history, was created in 1977 by the state of California and remains primarily state-funded and free to the public.” Taylor Renee Aldridge and Susan D. Anderson, CAAM’s visual arts curator and history curator, respectively, are both hires that Shaw made to rebuild the curatorial team as she takes the helm of the museum, according to the New York Times. “She also named Isabelle Lutterodt as deputy director, Essence Harden as a visual arts curator, and Alexsandra M. Mitchell as manager of education and programs, making for an all-Black, all-female leadership team.”

“Historically White-centered museums are asking themselves what it means to center Black artists, BIPOC artists,” Shaw told the Times. “CAAM has been doing that work for more than 40 years.”

Read the full story here.

“As the nation recognizes Black History Month, it is an opportunity to lift up the power of the arts while celebrating the contributions of Black artists to the collective tapestry of our nation,” writes National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dr. María Rosario Jackson in a statement this month following her confirmation. Jackson is the first African American and Mexican American woman to serve as chair of the NEA.

“During Black History Month and throughout the year, the NEA will highlight the accomplishments of Black artists as well as arts organizations, performances, and works that provide hope and well-being in our communities,” Jackson continues. “From NEA grantmaking that supports diverse communities to the students inspired by Poetry Out Loud to the honorees of the NEA Jazz Masters and National Heritage Fellowships, these efforts demonstrate that culture and creativity are core to us reaching our nation’s full potential.”

Read the full statement here.

A new program spearheaded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will provide guaranteed income and jobs for up to 2,700 artists living throughout New York State reports Hyperallergic. “The $125 million initiative, Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY), will issue monthly, no-strings-attached payments to up to 2,400 artists with financial need over the next three years.”

“New York’s arts sector was one of the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a report by the state comptroller last February. Two-thirds of arts, entertainment, and recreation jobs in the city were suddenly lost in 2020, and across the state, about half were lost.

In another artist-focused report from Center for an Urban Future, for immigrant communities a deep crisis has manifested with significant diminished livelihood sources with little to no aid from local authorities. “Simply put, we must move beyond valuing the artistic product and begin to value the humanity of the artist,” CRNY’s website says. “Artists need and deserve to be paid predictable and regular incomes.”

Read more here.

“Federal arts funding in the United States is something of a sore subject: in comparison to other places around the world, creatives in this country function in near-perpetual states of uncertainty, striving endlessly to be afforded the security of a grant or gallery representation,” writes Helen Hlmes in the Observer.

As institutions implement their federal grants, it’s essential that they continue to keep workers in mind. “The ongoing difficulties of the pandemic have laid bare the struggles of American museums to do many things at once,” Holmes continues, “display robust rotating exhibitions, draw consistent audiences, and maintain healthy relationships with their full- and part-time employees.”

Read here.

“Racism is structural; it is upheld and perpetuated by institutions, like foundations, in the ways that they operate,” writes Celia Bottger, program assistant & grants manager, NorthLight Foundation in a blog for Philanthropy New York. “In addition to taking concrete steps to institutionalize racial equity in our policies and practices, we at NorthLight came to recognize that we must engage in a process of decolonization.”

Bottger specifically centers colonization at the root of structural racism and racial injustice, linked to “both the physical invasion of Indigenous peoples and land, as well as the belief that White European culture is superior to Indigenous cultures.” Therefore, in order to dismantle White supremacy in philanthropy, “we must actively decolonize our philanthropic institutions and practices.” Bottger outlines how the NorthLight Foundation approached its own decolonization strategies, beginning with “accept that we do not know and will never fully know the answers to the question: how do we decolonize as a foundation?” and continuing anyway.

“This is what decolonization should look like: a fundamental shift in how we, as a foundation, engage with the concept of ‘philanthropy’ in a way that transcends the flow of money from foundation to grantee,” writes Bottger. “Instead, philanthropy can be used as a tool to shift power to communities that have systematically been disempowered in order to heal generations of trauma and facilitate a liberated future.”

Read the full piece here.

“Using learnings from the Giving Circles,” LUNAR Co-Founders/Directors Yichen Feng and Sabrina Wu write in their recent announcement, “we are building a $20M+ integrated capital fund. Rooted in solidarity, racial justice, and trust, we will deploy patient, flexible, integrated capital to Black and Indigenous-led organizations, businesses, and community developments.”

LUNAR, a vehicle for Asian American solidarity and participation, announced the start of Phase II – Lunar Fund, a solidarity fund for collective liberation between Asian American and Black and Indigenous communities. LUNAR is building infrastructure to launch a $20M, Feng and Wu share, “that will move integrated capital according to the principles of LUNAR’s Giving Circle at scale-community decision-making, reparations framework, and cross-racial solidarity funding.”

Watch the LUNAR update video here and learn more about the inaugural LUNAR Giving Circle here.

The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) in New York has announced that Kay Takeda is appointed to be their Executive Director, effective March 28.

Takeda has worked in the field for more than 25 years, most recently as the Deputy Director of Artist Programs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and has demonstrated her commitment to strengthening support structures that make it possible for artists to continue creating, innovating, and sharing their work.

“The challenges of the past two years have reminded us that individuals and organizations working in solidarity can make a difference. The Foundation for Contemporary Arts understands this deeply, as a unique resource created by artists nearly 60 years ago to recognize and assist fellow artists,” said Takeda. “I am inspired by how the organization keeps sight of artists doing generative work to interpret and influence culture and how each artist makes a larger contribution, beyond any single project. It’s an honor to work with the staff and Board to further this vibrant mission and the creative community that it celebrates and fosters.”

Read more about this appointment.