Arts Grantmakers Changes in Practice 2022 Part 1: Equity and Capitalization
From the President’s Blog
Eddie Torres
Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) works to mobilize our members to embrace equity toward justice and liberation and to fund equitably, responsively, and sustainably. GIA facilitates peer-to-peer learning because you are one another’s best teachers. In 2020 and 2021, we shared findings on how Grantmakers in the Arts’ members have changed their grantmaking practices. We are excited to share how our survey respondents have changed their practices in 2022.
The good news is that GIA’s members have increased their giving, increased multi-year support, and increased equity in their giving.
In 2022, 57% of GIA’s members reported increasing their giving, more than in 2021 and the same percentage that did so in 2020. This increase has been higher than anticipated. In 20202, 26% of GIA’s members had anticipated increasing their giving in the future. GIA’s members’ increasing their giving is in keeping with national trends. Altogether, charitable giving grew 7.4% from 2019 to 2021, according to “Giving USA,” produced by the University of Indiana’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Philanthropic giving (including from individuals) to cultural organizations had initially dropped during the first year of the pandemic and then climbed almost 22% in 2021, the largest increase in 35 years. These increases are only appropriate when you consider that, according to the Urban Institute’s Nonprofit Trends and Impacts 2021, 40% of organizations reported losses in total revenue in 2020, including 54% of arts organizations.
In 2022, 55% of GIA’s members increased their general operating support. While this increase is higher than had anticipated doing so (35%), it is still lower than did so in 2021 (65%). This is odd in that increasing giving costs the foundation more money. Shifting project or programming support to general operating support doesn’t cost the foundation more. SMU Data Arts’ research found that cultural organizations have been surviving the pandemic thanks to a 3% increase in general operating support and 11% decrease in total expenses. This granting of general operating support has had the greatest impact on small organizations, many of which are BIPOC-led and serving, which have proven more nimble during the pandemic because they are less reliant on earned revenue streams and have lower overhead. As GIA shares in our updated Capitalization workshops, this is a mixed blessing. While the pandemic has revealed that investments in small and BIPOC organizations are less risky, these organizations’ nimbleness is the result of decades of under-investment in their overhead. Overhead funding is what pays people’s salaries. The greatest support for overhead is general operating support.
GIA is also grateful that 44% of our members increased their support to individual artists in 2022, more than had anticipated doing so (33%) and more than did so in 2021 and 2020 (41%). In 2022, 53% of GIA’s members increased their support to trans artists, more than had done so in 2021 (20%). In 2022, 40% of GIA’s members increased their support to artists with disabilities, more than had done so in 2021 (37%). These increases are especially encouraging in light of the report, Foundation Giving for Disability, by Disability & Philanthropy Forum, which found that marginal amounts of funding go to disabled people. Even when grantmakers do increase their support to artists with disabilities, we create the risk of those disabled artists’ public benefits becoming threatened by the current outdated caps on assets that people with disabilities are allowed to hold before being deemed ineligible for their public benefits. These caps have not been updated since the 1980s and have never been indexed to inflation. GIA calls upon our government to raise these limits and to index them to inflation. GIA has shared information on this issue in this webinar and in this blog. Like all artists, disabled artists are workers and deserve to be rewarded and renumerated for their work while still being allowed to receive benefits.
GIA is heartened to learn that 60% of our members cite Public Policy & Advocacy as a theme about which they want to learn more. As I explain in this blog, all of us can advocate for changes to government policies and funders can support both advocacy and lobbying for changes to government policies. In this blog, I also explain the differences between advocacy and lobbying and who can do and support which.
In 2022, 80% of GIA’s members increased their support to BIPOC artists & culture workers, more than anticipated doing so (65%) and more than did so in 2021 and in 2020 (50%). GIA is grateful that 73% of our members have increased their giving to BIPOC organizations, more than anticipated doing so (65%) and more than did so in 2021 (63%) and in 2020 (51%). GIA is also grateful that so many who reported increasing their support to BIPOC organizations cite the value of our Racial Equity workshops in informing their decisions. These increases to BIPOC artists and organizations are especially encouraging in light of Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity’s findings on how many funders have fallen short of their commitments to communities of color as shared in Mismatched: Philanthropy’s Response to the Call for Racial Justice.
I often joke that the greatest risk my fellow New York progressives run is breaking our own arms patting ourselves on the backs. At a time when artists and arts presenters are being sustained by changes in our grantmaking practices, our greatest enemies are self-congratulations and complacency.
In part two of this blog, I will share some urgent findings and further calls to action. The recent changes to grantmakers’ practices must be a movement, not merely a moment. Our collective future requires it.
