Building Grantmakers in the Arts’ Board
Grantmakers in the Arts requests you visit the My Account section of our website, login, and vote on the nominees to our board of directors. As GIA asks our members to vote on our new slate of board nominees, we are taking this moment to reflect on how we have built our governing body. Arts and culture grantmakers are the point of intervention for GIA’s work; Grantmakers are not the point of GIA’s work. As we state in our Racial Equity Theory of Transformation, the point of GIA’s work is advocating for the resourcing of cultural self-determination for oppressed communities, such as those of us who are economically exploited through racialization.
GIA deliberately cultivates a board of directors that reflects the diversity within our membership. GIA has also acts strategically. For GIA, acting strategically has meant cultivating representation on our governing body of the places and people we want grantmakers to serve.
Through this process, GIA has built a governing body that is far more diverse than its membership by funder type, by region, race, and ethnicity.
GIA’s board has far more nonprofit regrantors (33% of GIA’s board) than our membership (23% of GIA’s members). Nonprofits directly serve people in communities while advocating and lobbying for changes to public policies. Nonprofits also raise money – giving GIA greater access to the insights of those who engage grantmakers as grant-seekers. The nonprofit field has felt this shift in GIA’s priorities. Nonprofit regrantors are the fastest-growing segment of GIA’s membership, jumping from 12% of GIA’s members in 2014 to 23% in 2023.
Through our process, GIA has built a governing body that is far more diverse than its membership by geography.
As of 2024, GIA’s board has a far greater representation of the South (28% of GIA’s board vs. 6% of GIA’s members) and the Midwest (27% of GIA’s board vs. 16% of GIA’s members) than our membership. This increase in geographic representation further informs GIA’s influencing our field to increase investments in these areas for the sake of equity. As GIA shares in our Racial Equity Theory of Transformation, we believe investing in cultural self-determination is a part of investing in economic self-determination.
The South: GIA is a learning organization with a learning agenda that we share with our members. GIA shared background on Memphis, TN and an overview of our board day of learning in Memphis. These were both informed by our board member Amber Hamilton, president of Memphis Music Initiative, which invests in youth through transformative music engagement, creating equitable opportunities for Black and brown youth in Memphis.
GIA’s learning about the South includes our learning about places and cultural forms that don’t receive sufficient philanthropic support. GIA’s commitment to learning about Black farmers and local autonomy regarding land, food-production, and cuisine in the South has been informed by board member Carlton Turner, founder of Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture), which supports community development from the ground up through cultural productions focused on self-determination and agency. Sipp Culture believes that history, culture, and food affirm our individual and collective humanity. Therefore, they are actively strengthening local food systems, advancing health equity, and supporting rural artistic voices – while activating the power of story – all to promote the legacy and vision of their hometown of Utica, Mississippi. GIA is heartened to witness the approach of Sipp Culture and others receive support and know that it’s not yet enough.
The South and Puerto Rico are both places that are culturally iconic yet philanthropically and publicly underinvested-in, environmentally vulnerable and federally neglected. GIA has learned from colleagues like the Southern Power Fund that parts of the social justice field considers and includes Puerto Rico as part of the South. GIA was able to use our board days of learning in Puerto Rico as part of our informing our first conference on the archipelago. GIA is fortunate enough to have recruited onto our board of directors, Glenisse Pagán Ortiz, executive director of Filantropía Puerto Rico (Philanthropy Puerto Rico), a philanthropy-serving organization connecting philanthropic entities and amplifying their impact in areas of equity, collaboration, transparency, and social justice. As a convener of funders with grantmaking focus on Puerto Rico – both those located on the archipelago and on the mainland – Filantropía Puerto Rico leads efforts to improve the lives of the marginalized.
GIA’s learning about the South also includes our learning about the Southwest, including the US/Mexico border, which is a rich source of cultural innovation despite being a site of narrative manipulation, demonization, and fear-mongering for political gain. Even our current presidential administration has embraced an immigration policy that fundamentally undermines the right for individuals fleeing dangerous conditions to seek asylum in the US. GIA is lucky to have our knowledge of these areas informed by such board members as Adriana Gallego, CEO of the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, which supports, promotes and advocates for arts and culture to advance artistic expression, civic participation and equitable economic growth in the region.
Through our process, GIA has built a governing body that is far more diverse than its membership by race and ethnicity.
GIA’s board of directors is more Black (41% of GIA’s board vs. 24% of GIA’s members) than its membership, as well as more East Asian and Southeast Asian (18% of GIA’s board vs. 7% of GIA’s members) than its membership. Only 18% of GIA’s board is White (2 people) compared to 64% of our members.
A community that GIA has been deliberate to cultivate for our governing body has been our nation’s First People. GIA’s governing body has far more Native American board members than its membership (35% of GIA’s board vs. 4% of GIA’s members). Additionally, GIA’s board has more than twice as many Native American people than it has White people or male-identifying people.
GIA’s board includes such members as Anna Needham (Red Lake Nation of Ojibwe), Tribal Relations Manager for the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Anna acts as the agency’s liaison with the 22 Tribal Nations in Arizona. Anna developed the first and foundational Tribal Consultation Policy of the total 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies in the US.
Quita Sullivan (Montaukett/Shinnecock), program director for Theater at New England Foundation for the Arts, practiced environmental justice law for 10 years. Sullivan is a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program and an alumna of the artEquity Facilitator Training. She is also a former Associated Grant Makers Diversity Fellow, the mission of which was to identify, recruit, and cultivate emerging practitioners of color who represent the next generation of philanthropic leaders and offer them training, support and strong community.
GIA’s board also includes Susan Anderson, who is of Tlingit heritage, former president/CEO of the CIRI Foundation in Anchorage, AK and current CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Southcentral Alaska.
Tina Kuckkahn, J.D., citizen of the Lac du Flambeau Tribe of Lake Superior Chippewa and a descendant of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, serves as Managing Director for NDN Collective’s Foundation.
Gaby Strong, enrolled citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, serves as Vice President of NDN Collective.
NDN Collective were particularly supportive of GIA’s programming for our 2022 conference. Our 2022 conference keynotes highlighted the voices of Indigenous artists, Marca Cassity (Osage), Will Wilson (Diné), Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota), Sarah Sunshine Manning (Shoshone-Paiute), and Mic Jordan (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe). Among the feedback we received from the 2022 conference included such insights as: “This started a conversation in my organization on how we can do better outreach to folks in Indian Country.”
Our learning journey is ongoing and never-ending. Of GIA’s 22-person board, two are male-identifying and two are gender-nonconforming, which tracks with our membership. GIA’s board also tracks with our membership when it comes to disability, neurodivergence, and representation of the LGBTQIA2S+ community.
As we cultivate colleagues for nomination to our board of directors, GIA asks ourselves, how they can help inform our work and the work of inspiring increased investments in the cultural self-determination of oppressed communities. GIA’s considerations of potential board nominees includes our multiple identities as well as our lived experiences, geographic insights, and strategic approaches. This new slate of nominees to the GIA board were chosen for their approach to using the levers of social and systemic change to support intersectional equity toward justice across our nation.
We hope you join GIA in supporting this slate of nominees – go to the My Account section of our website, login, open your Board Ballot and vote – as we work to advance our support of equity toward justice and liberation through cultural self-determination.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Eddie Torres is president & CEO of Grantmakers in the Arts
