An Inside Look Into a Music Funder’s Democratized Grantmaking Process
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the Lewis Prize’s latest Accelerator Award winners. in clockwise order starting in the upper left: Hyde Square Task Force, Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective, Beyond the Bars, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit
The philanthropic sector is facing growing demands to level the power imbalance between funders and the communities they aim to serve, with more attention being paid to participatory grantmaking and other practices that seek to democratize funding decisions.
That’s been a slow-going process, according to a 2020 IP survey of professionals in the arts sector, with only 10% saying there is truly a growing trend, and 40% saying it will happen “very slowly over time.”
Still, there are some forward-thinking examples in the arts field, like the Mosaic Network and Fund, the MacArthur Foundation’s Culture, Equity, and the Arts initiative, and the Lewis Prize for Music. We’ve covered the Lewis Prize before, and when its leadership invited IP to sit in on its grantmaking process, which involves panels of outside evaluators, we were eager to take a look behind the scenes.
Founded in 2018 by Miami philanthropist Daniel Lewis, the Lewis Prize recognizes and funds leaders at creative youth development (CYD) programs that provide young people with opportunities to create music while serving their food, transportation, mental health and academic needs.
Last January, the prize’s board awarded a total of $1.75 million to nine winners, with three winners receiving $500,000 apiece. In July, the prize announced a $1.25 million in COVID-19 crisis response for 32 CYD organizations, two-thirds of which were led by people of color.
The prize announced its 2021 awards earlier today. The Accelerator Award winners are Beyond the Bars (Philadelphia), Hyde Square Task Force (Boston), Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, and St. Louis Story Stitchers. Each organization will receive $500,000 in multi-year support. Like last year, leadership initially planned on awarding three Accelerator prizes, but ultimately decided to award a fourth prize.
“The commentary and scoring from our 2021 Review Panel made it clear that all four Accelerator awardees are compelling choices who each fulfill the goals and criteria of the Lewis Prize,” Lewis told me. “They each have leaders you want at the table to discuss substantive issues, whose presence on podcasts, conference panels, and as essay authors will be compelling to others, even as they continue to listen and learn.”
The board also announced three $50,000 Infusion Awards for leaders creating new musical platforms, and a $25,000 Catalyst Award, which supports leaders and programs with impressive impact and reach. Add it up, and the funder awarded $2,175,000—a 24% increase over 2020. The prize’s site lists its panelists and includes links to application questions and assessment rubrics.
In early December, I virtually observed the prize’s panelists as they discussed how the eight finalists’ work addressed issues like racial justice and youth development. I was also able to check in with some of the prize’s outside panelists for their thoughts on how grantmakers can best advance equity and inclusion. The invitation to observe speaks to the prize’s highly transparent process at a time when performing arts leaders have expressed frustration with funders’ opaque grantmaking and glacial democratization efforts.
A democratized process
From July 24 through August 21, the Lewis Prize accepted 2021 Accelerator Award applications from leaders who have a “systems change” initiative underway and are “beginning to see progress toward a tipping point or are sustaining the transition to a new system.” The finalists and awardees were chosen through a comprehensive process that incorporated input from diverse music leaders, young people involved in CYD programs, and a review panel of experts.
“The Lewis Prize for Music has benefited from the input of nearly 200 diverse artists, administrators, researchers, funders, and social-change activists since before its launch,” CEO Dalouge Smith told me. “In this way, we have strived to be responsive to our community and be a collaborative funder. We invite these advisors to participate in our application review process because we believe their diversity of perspective that has shaped development of the Lewis Prize is equally essential to identifying our awardees.”
Round one of the vetting process consisted of eight teams of external panelists, each with one young adult (ages 20-25) and two adults (ages 26+). The teams reviewed a combined 194 applications, 47 of which advanced to the next round.
In round two, the prize’s staff, minus the CEO, reviewed the applications and scored them. On October 8, each staff member recommended two organizations and up to two runners-up, a total of 21 organizations, to the semi-finalist round.
Two days later, a semi-finalist panel met to discuss and recommend finalists. The nine panelists, each of whom reviewed applications in round one, were spread across three reading groups, with two young adults and one adult per group. The Lewis Prize’s board then approved the panel’s eight recommended finalists on October 12.
From October 27 to November 10, Daniel Lewis and team members conducted virtual site visits. They then provided site visit reports and all application materials to a final panel, who reviewed the materials from November 17 to December 4. The final five panelists were:
David Higareda, a Lewis prize alumnus and the David’s Harp Foundation mentor artist.
Natasha Rosario, a prize alumnus and development associate at Community MusicWorks.
Graham Boyd, founding executive director of New Approach, which specializes in political efforts to reform drug laws and reduce mass incarceration.
Terri Lyne Carrington, a Grammy Award-winning drummer, producer, and founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.
Aisha Fukushima, member of the Lewis Prize board, justice strategist, singer, speaker, educator and “RAPtivist” (rap activist).
All of which brings us to December 4, when these five panelists convened to make their selections.
The final scoring rubric
The five-person panel used a unique rubric that took into account a wealth of information about the eight finalists, including financial analysis and two key metrics that aim to contextualize each organization’s work.
The first metric, the Index of Deep Disadvantage (IDD), represents a holistic, relative look at disadvantage using health indicators (life expectancy, low infant birth weight), poverty metrics (rates of poverty and deep poverty), and social mobility data. The rubric lists the IDD for each organization’s home city and county. For example, two organizations operate in the “most disadvantaged” city of Detroit, which has an IDD of -5.89. One hailed from the “neutral” city of Boston (-.56), and another from the “most advantaged” San Francisco (1.77).
Using 2017 data from Freedom Maps, the rubric also compares how much each organization’s region received in arts and culture funding from private philanthropy compared to the national average of $8.60 per person. For example, two finalists hailed from the South, which received -50% versus the national average. Two organizations were based in the Northeast, which received +100 over the national average.
Panelists entered their thoughts about each organization in the rubric under areas like “Organizational Leadership: History & Depth of Shared Leadership,” and labeled each organization as green (yes), yellow (maybe), and red (no).
Articulating the “X-factor”
In a three-hour video conference, I watched the five panelists thoughtfully assess each finalist. Using the rubric as a springboard, discussion included subjects like how applicants’ leaders tied programming to students’ employment prospects and the extent to which additional funding would advance their work.
I reached out to some of the panelists after the call to get a better idea of how they approached the process. In addition to the detailed rubric, I wondered, were they drawn to some unique “X-factor” at certain organizations? What unique perspectives were the panelists bringing to this decision-making process?
“The ‘X-factor’ that drew me to an organization was their organic feel,” said Higareda. “Anyone with money or political ambition can rent a space, start a 501(c)(3) and write a fancy application. The part you can’t fake is the organic passion and joy that comes from serving your community. I kept my eyes and ears open for that, and that’s how I came to my conclusion.”
Rosario zeroed in on the “emphasis [organizations] placed on supporting their students in developing their personal artistic voice and on cultivating their independent relationship with music.” She found this attribute particularly resonant, since “a personal relationship with music can travel with you after you graduate from your organization—and might even propel you into different communities. A personal relationship with music animates your educational and artistic agency, matures with you, and somehow inspires introspection wherever you go in life—be it performing music or not.”
Boyd told me he was particularly interested in an organization’s plan to achieve systemic change through engaging the systems they wish to change. “Beyond high-quality teaching and creation of great music, I wanted to see organizations that inspired and participated in activism, for instance, communicating to people with power about the change they wish to see, protesting against an injustice, or doing work directly within systems like the prisons or probation departments,” he said.
Lastly, Carrington wasn’t guided by any specific X-factor as much as “a personal view of how the organizations serve their communities and the potential that they have for major impact.” Genre diversity also impacted her thinking. “Being a professor at Berklee College of Music gives me a wide understanding of the interests of our youth, but also an understanding of what’s possibly missing in their early training,” she said.
The moment of truth
After panelists discussed each organization, prize staff summarized judges’ thoughts and final vote in a one-page document that was quickly sent out to the panel for a real-time review.
Then the panel conducted its final deliberation and voting. A prize staffer populated a spreadsheet with the panel’s votes—yes, maybe and no. Each panelist was permitted to make three yes votes. One organization received four yes votes and was instantly confirmed for an award recommendation to the board. The panel discussed the mix of yes, maybe and no votes among the remaining organizations and reached a ranking consensus. The panelists then presented their recommendations and reasoning to the board, which finalized the awards on December 8.
Panelists’ advice for grantmakers
The Lewis Prize’s announcement comes against the backdrop of a performing arts grantmaking field—and a larger philanthropic sector—now facing demands for greater responsiveness and struggling with whether and how to reform itself. As IP’s recent survey of performing arts professionals suggests, the field has considerable work to do. Only 10% of respondents said there is “truly a growing trend toward more democratization of philanthropy with more and more examples that can be documented.”
As you can see from the Lewis Prize’s extensive decision-making process, democratizing grantmaking can be a resource-intensive undertaking. However, there’s no one right way to do it. This is just one funder’s procedure. According to a 2019 GrantCraft guide on participatory grantmaking, there’s no single definition, and the practice can involve several core elements. And just as with any grantmaking process, the execution is always the tricky part.
I asked the prize’s external panelists to offer their advice or share their perspectives with other performing arts grantmakers. Here’s what they had to say:
Validate experiences over statistics. “Fancy applications don’t mean anything; it’s easier for me to spot a good program when I see it because I was a part of one,” Higareda told me. “Find people who have been a part of these programs and listen to what they have to say. Good numbers are not equivalent to changed lives. But changed lives can help you change more.”
Have change happen at multiple levels. “One student at a time and programs that can be the fulcrum for changing the very systems that place young people in jeopardy or at disadvantage,” Boyd said.
Focus on the participants. Rosario encouraged grantmakers to identify “the lasting impact of the organization on each participant's life.” Moreover, “speaking with alumni from an organization (when possible) is as valuable to you as a primary source to a historian; alumni are an incredible asset in the process of grantmaking.”
Continue to self-reflect. Carrington hopes grantmaking leaders “with the ability to make a major impact—or even a small impact—on communities that suffer the most from systemic oppression will continue to investigate the areas where their own privilege has created blind spots and challenge themselves by asking how they, too, have benefited from a racist and sexist society. When everyone can address this honestly with a willingness to make adjustments, then we will have a glimpse of the true potential of our society.”
I also asked Lewis Prize CEO Dalouge Smith for his thoughts on how arts funders can best effect change moving forward. “Philanthropy focused on equitable systems change in order to holistically eliminate discrimination, especially for BIPOC youth and communities, is the imperative,” he said. “Creative youth development is clearly the musical area with the most potential to achieve this in the short and long term. Its merging of self-expression, social supports and intergenerational mentorship makes it perfect for collaboration across the education, artistic and social service sectors.”
Funding that moves away from discrete categories “toward the interconnectedness of all solutions, and recognizes young creatives as the pivot around which those solutions can most robustly grow,” Smith said, “is our greatest opportunity for transforming society.”
