Americans for the Arts

Following the strong, public statements of solidarity with Black Lives Matter that cultural institutions across the country made in Summer 2020, museums, artist-endowed foundations, and other arts organizations began to look inward, identifying all the ways their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access can be lived in their day-to-day activities. This has prompted endowed cultural organizations to seriously evaluate whether their investment decisions reflect their values, and to begin the journey to align their money with mission and purpose. Such a reflection is a natural outgrowth of recent debates over accepting donations earned through the sale of opioids, fossil fuels, weapons, and the operation of private prisons. It also recognizes that Next Generation art donors and foundations that fund the arts—many of whom are impact investors themselves—are beginning to evaluate an arts organization’s investments alongside its programs and policies when deciding where to give. America’s museums, libraries, art schools, performing art centers, and other cultural institutions steward more than $58 billion in financial assets through their endowments. This means investment policies and practices offer a meaningful way for cultural institutions to signal their values of diversity, equity, inclusion and access.

Since 2016, Jeremy Johnson has been executive director of Newark Arts, one of the city’s leading nonprofits. The organization makes grants to neighborhood arts programs, produces the award-winning Newark Arts Festival, and advocates for policies to uplift Newark as a city of the arts. During his tenure, Newark Arts has strengthened the city's cultural profile, including the 2020 ranking of Newark among America's Top 10 Arts-Vibrant Communities by the National Center for Arts Research. Johnson led the creation of Newark’s first community cultural plan, Newark Creates, which resulted in the city-sponsored Creative Catalyst Fund to support area artists impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Civic leaders are recognizing more and more that the impact of the arts goes beyond cultural and aesthetic enhancements. The hope is that civic engagement—artists working on location in studios, museums, galleries, music, and dance performances—will attract people, and their economic infusion will foster the development of neglected downtown areas. Public art is now trending as reparations for African Americans and women. In this watershed moment—spurred by the massive uprisings and protests in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and too many others—we understand that bridging the deep racial and ideological chasms for environmental justice will require creative solutions and funding. I want to be counted as a catalyst to meet this moment as I continue to advocate for my public art practice by creating awareness to deepen the knowledge of the people of color’s struggle for equity. “How do we get more women and people of color into the public-art arena?” Time magazine asked me, last year. I retorted, “It’s not going to be easy!” It’s not. Of the 5,000-some-odd representational-figurative public artworks in the United States, less than five percent have been created by women; and fewer than that have been created by Black people. 

The Arts & Science Council (ASC), the local arts agency for Charlotte-Mecklenburg in North Carolina, for nearly 60 years engaged in practices that led to inequitable funding to organizations and creative individuals. In June 2019, ASC’s Board of Directors approved a Cultural Equity statement. It creates a framework to set organizational policies and practices and offers external visibility for the organization’s commitment to cultural equity. It also guides ASC’s decision to cap operating support grants for large institutions to fund small and mid-sized organizations so they can build their capacity and thrive. The board agreed that if it is committed to doing this work, ASC must report to the community on its progress. The report was not done in a vacuum. Experts in the history, equity, cultural transformation, philanthropy, and public relations space served as external readers. Their feedback was valuable. When the report was published on February 24, 2021, it felt liberating. While I knew the facts in the report were startling, I never thought I would experience so intimately the uncomfortableness, the defensiveness, and the scaredness of white people reacting to the unvarnished truth.

Philanthropists around the country are trying to make an outsize difference during the COVID-19 crisis with an initiative called #HalfMyDAF. The group, founded by Jennifer and David Risher, has banded together to offer matching challenge grants when others join them in committing to distribute at least half of the money in their Donor Advised Fund accounts to charities. The initiative spurred the distribution of $8.6 million in DAF distributions that were matched by $1.8 million in matching grants in 2020. So far $3.1 million is available in matching grants for 2021, but those funds will support the arts only if arts philanthropists step up to participate. Below is the story of one arts organization that benefitted from the initiative in 2020, Ashland New Plays Festival, which received a matching grant that provided a significant additional financial boost in a difficult year. Could this growing movement do even more for the arts in 2021?

Why do the arts matter? If you ask 100 people this question, you will most likely get 100 different answers, but each of these answers will be authentic and personal to that responder. This is what makes the arts so powerful and diverse. There are over 5 million people employed in the creative economy in America. The arts, along with tourism and restaurants, are some of the hardest hit industries as a result of the pandemic. Even after incredible federal, state, and county assistance, 27% of musicians are still unemployed, along with 52% of actors and 55% of dancers. Every county in America, large or small, urban or rural, has the arts as part of its collective experience. Artists live everywhere and their work seeks to engage their fellow humans to ask questions, to look at a topic in a new way, to foster dialogue, or to bring people together. As an arts advocates, it is up to us to recognize and educate others about the value that the arts bring to any county, to encourage it, to highlight it, and even to help support it. The arts will always be there to be part of our nation’s narrative—we just need to listen and to act.