How Can Grantmakers Support Artists of Color?

This moment in United States arts philanthropy is defined in part by long-overdue investments in Black, Latinx, Arab, Asian, and Native artists and organizations. The Mellon Foundation, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, and others have evolved their grantmaking to invest more deeply in creative communities of color, and MacKenzie Scott has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into smaller arts organizations from culturally rich regions that donors have often overlooked. 

At Ford Foundation, which is mission-focused on dismantling inequality in all its forms, we co-manage America’s Cultural Treasures, a national and regional initiative to fund arts organizations led by and serving communities of color that have made a significant impact on the cultural fabric of the United States. Launched in 2020, this effort was made possible by Ford’s one-time social bond and collaborative investments by 57 donors, now totaling more than $281 million. 

Historical ideas of what constitutes arts and culture and the roots of racial injustice are being re-examined, and these investments mark a step in the direction of expanding public understanding of artistic excellence and what it means to be an American. We see the impact of funding in our grant portfolio: For now, many of our grantees, from the Dance Theatre of Harlem to the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, are financially more stable than they have ever been. 

The momentum to fund artists and arts groups of color is multi-pronged. Funders stand at a historic crossroads — a social, environmental, and economic reckoning hastened by COVID-19 and a global movement for racial equity — and are stepping up to make change. There is an abundance of research on disparities in arts funding. The network organization Grantmakers in the Arts provides training and information to address historic and structural inequity. Philanthropic leadership is diversifying. Artists and arts organizations of color are self-organizing and speaking up about their needs and contributions. We, among many others, are listening. 

We hope, and we worry. The nonprofit arts and culture sector as a whole is facing extreme pressures on its business models. Funding released for pandemic relief that benefited artists and groups of color, including Ford’s social bond, has been spent. Legislative threats to affirmative action and free expression, including state bans on critical race theory, are stoking fear and censorship.

This is not the time for arts philanthropy to step back. This is the time for us to instead redouble our efforts to fund artists and arts organizations of color and continue sharpening our grantmaking practices to advance racial justice. 

Here’s what we’re learning arts funders of all sizes and shapes can do: 

1. Be guided by artists and arts organizations of color.

Create opportunities for co-creation and co-design. Be curious and adapt. We’ve been guided by our national grantees, who self-organized convenings focused on topics ranging from advocacy to communications. Many of our funding partners, who drove fundraising and design for individually tailored regional grantmaking initiatives, meaningfully engaged their creative communities in funding decisions. The BIPOC Arts Network and Fund of Greater Houston is one standout example. 

2. Collaborate with colleague funders, nationally and regionally.

To spark regional funding, Ford provided matching grants totaling $43 million in nine areas across the country. Fifty partners, from the Barr Foundation in Massachusetts to the McKnight Foundation in Minnesota and the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles, have now contributed $116 million to the regional initiatives and funded 255 cultural organizations thus far. Together with local funders, we can share ideas and hold each other accountable. 

3. Identify funding gaps by geography and fill them.

In the American South, Indian Country and Alaska, rural communities, and localities impacted by the slave trade, philanthropic organizations are overlooking opportunities to fund artists of color. Mobilizing resources to serve these geographies should be a focus of both national funders and regional leaders. Invest directly, and resource intermediaries such as First Nations Development Institute, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, National Performance Network, and South Arts. 

4. Fund institutional strengthening.

In addition to their grant funds, each America’s Cultural Treasures grantee received $100,000 to strengthen their operations — particularly in key areas such as digital strategies and financial planning. Be willing to connect grantees to resources, consultants, and partners, but let them decide how to use funds on their own terms. 

5. Provide non-monetary support. 

Leverage your voices, spaces, relationships, and convening power to amplify the work of your grantees and encourage shared learning. Consider investing in archiving and communications to capture, preserve, and disseminate grantees’ stories. We’re working to preserve and share the histories of unique arts organizations like the Alaska Native Heritage Center and Project Row Houses.

6. Fund intersectional work.

Organizations led by artists of color are not impervious to challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Examine board, staffing, and audience demographics and organizational practices. Fund intersectional approaches. Dedicate resources to advance gender, disability, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion and justice. 

7. Make transformative grants.

Reach deep into your budgets and exercise creativity in your financing to make large, flexible, multi-year, general support grants to arts groups of color to give them breathing room to dream, plan, and build. The America’s Cultural Treasures national cohort of 20 grantees received grants ranging from $1 million to $6 million, representing a significant portion of each institution’s operating budget. We’ve seen the grantees use these resources to take incredible leaps. Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, is evolving into its next iteration: a performing arts campus and center for racial healing. Other grantees have used the funds to create modest endowments, previously nonexistent for these organizations. 

8. Make recurring grants.

While one-time grants are meaningful, they are insufficient to both correct for historical disparities in funding and to sustain organizations over time. They need to be balanced with recurring, flexible general support grants, which are currently few and far between. When it’s not possible to make recurring grants, manage expectations carefully and provide transition support. Make every effort to simplify application and reporting processes to reduce grantees’ labor. The success of the America’s Cultural Treasures grants will be measured not only by the amount our funding partners committed to the singular effort, but also by their future investments. 

9. Measure impact over time and share your learning. 

Assess how your grantees are progressing over time in order to refine your approaches and make the case for future support. Ford commissioned SMU DataArts to prepare a limited impact study on the Treasures’ national grantees (here’s an interim report), but there’s a need for standardized data collection across the regional grantees, as well as other funds that support artists and arts groups of color. In addition, commit to assessing how you are doing as funders. Set and track clear goals for investment. Take feedback. Share your hurdles and learning with grantees and funder colleagues.

As we advocate support for artists and arts organizations of color, we recognize the debt the country owes for their contributions to creative life. We also recognize that these investments are crucial to advance a future in which all artists can flourish.

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