Since its inception, the Arts Council of Indianapolis has provided programs and services to the citizens of central Indiana, and to hundreds of artists and arts organizations. Vice President of Community Impact and Investment Ernest Disney-Britton’s areas of focus include grantmaking, arts education, impact research, and equity partnerships. He provides support for arts organizations and individuals who apply for grant and fellowship funding through the Annual Grant Program, Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship, Robert D. Beckmann Jr. Emerging Artist Fellowship, and Transformational Impact Fellowship. Additionally, he coordinates the Any Given Child Indy program that is creating a long-range arts education plan for students in grades K-8 in Indianapolis Public Schools.

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.

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?

About this time last year, Americans for the Arts staff put our heads together to create a “Trends in 2020” blog post. We didn’t anticipate an economy-grinding pandemic, which has devastatingly shaped everything this past year, but we did hit some of the other trends that occurred—demographic change, rising division and distrust, shifts towards equity, the fight over who would get to vote and political power, and the primacy of data. Across the arts field, most of us would agree that 2020 was a humbling, surprising, traumatic, and frustratingly unpredictable year. While trend forecasting in this moment is a tricky business, understanding what might be coming around the bend is crucial to our success as a field, particularly as we navigate such a volatile time. Who knows, honestly, what 2021 will bring—but the staff at Americans for the Arts got together (virtually, this time) and here’s what we’ve come up with—10 trends that we think will impact arts, culture, and the creative economy in 2021.

The last year brought forward a spotlight on existing disparities in communities of color—access to health care, financial stability and generational wealth, and the ever-present public health crisis that is racism. In fact, communities of color have been significantly more affected by the pandemic itself and artists who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) have been more negatively impacted by the pandemic than white artists, including higher rates of unemployment (69% vs. 60%) and the expectation of losing a larger percentage of their 2020 income (61% vs. 56%). Funders of all types, especially local and state arts agencies, must center access and equitable distribution of resources to fully support their whole community. Now is the time to consider how to restructure programs, build stronger relationships, and include communities of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and the disability community in crafting solutions.