Eleven Ways Funders Are Supporting Social Justice Within and Through the Arts

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Art both reflects societies and has the potential to transform them. And although conventional cultural organizations like museums, opera houses and the like have historically received the lion’s share of arts philanthropy, today, some notable grantmakers are supporting initiatives to create social change through the arts—and within arts organizations.

In summer of 2020, Mike Scutari asked a handful of arts funders how philanthropy could help build a more equitable arts sector. Earlier this month, Scutari spoke with Judilee Reed, the new president and CEO of United States Artists, who reflected that the intersection of calls for racial justice and the continued impact of the COVID pandemic have changed the field of arts funding, “I don’t think we’ll go back to the way we were doing our work previously,” Reed said.

Here are 11 examples we’re following of arts funding with social justice and equity in mind.

1. The MacArthur Foundation revamped its performing arts grantmaking in 2019. Compared to its prior program, MacArthur’s Culture, Equity, and the Arts initiative has more inclusive selection criteria, is more accessible to smaller-budget organizations and has a participatory grantmaking panel. The initiative was shaped with input from artists and arts organizations, and prioritizes groups whose missions are centered on BIPOC voices or other traditionally underfunded communities, including people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ communities. 

2. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, an important supporter of arts organizations in California’s Bay Area, is a few years into a new community-focused approach to arts grantmaking that aims to fund historically under-resourced organizations. It’s also backing arts organizations that serve communities affected by displacement in its increasingly unaffordable region. 

3. Art collector and patron Agnes Gund, along with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, created the Art for Justice Fund to directly support artists who are changing the narrative around mass incarceration. Grantees include advocates as well as artists across disciplines, from the MASS Design Group, which is exploring architecture and design’s role in decarceration and reentry, to literary organizations like the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and individual artists like Reginald Dwayne Betts.

4. The Ford and Andrew W. Mellon foundations together established Disability Futures fellowships in 2020 to increase the visibility of disabled artists across disciplines. Mellon and Ford also stand out as funders that prioritized historically under-resourced communities in their pandemic relief support for arts organizations. 

5. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave $10 million in emergency grants to U.S. Regional Arts organizations to be redistributed in the form of unrestricted funding to small to mid-sized arts organizations led by and serving BIPOC people as well as rural nonprofits. 

6. The Ford Foundation’s America’s Cultural Treasures initiative provided $156 million in unrestricted funding to 20 BIPOC arts organizations during the pandemic. 

7. The Disability Inclusion Fund is a new $20 million, five-year funding collaborative established to resource work that celebrates, creates and uplifts the representation of disabled people in the arts. The fund is supported by the President’s Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy, a group of 17 grantmakers convened by the Ford and Robert Wood Johnson foundations, and is housed at Borealis Philanthropy. 

8. With seed funding from the Joyce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Chicago-based grantmaker 3Arts launched the Disability Culture Leadership Initiative to support deaf and disabled artists and to encourage the arts sector to prioritize disability culture. 

9. The Wallace Foundation announced a five-year, $53 million initiative to support community-oriented arts organizations of color last year. 

10. The League of American Orchestras’ Catalyst Fund, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, makes grants to U.S. orchestras to strengthen an understanding of DEI in orchestral organizations, and to transform organizational cultures. 

11. The Speculative Literature Foundation offers direct support to writers, with dedicated awards for working-class writers, writers over 50 and writers from underrepresented backgrounds.