Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

This was originally posted to the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation website October 13, 2025, when I announced my plans to step down and make space for new leadership. Now that I have officially ended my tenure at the Foundation I thought it made sense to repost to my personal blog. Excited about what the future holds for me, and also look forward to following the next phase of the foundation as it continues to serve the community. (Apologies for any formatting challenges in transferring this post!) After more than twelve years leading the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, I have decided it is time to move on, and it has been announced that a search process is underway to identify my successor. I will stay on through the process to ensure a smooth transition. I am excited about what the future holds for the Foundation and the opportunity for new leadership. I am extremely proud of what we have  accomplished at the Foundation since I arrived in 2013. This has been made possible by an extraordina...

“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” are not just buzzwords, but the subject of critically important conversations among funders, nonprofits, cultural organizations, artists and civic leaders. These conversations – which are often difficult and even messy – can and should lead to action. I have served on the Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) board for the past few years, and they have been a leader in urging arts funders to apply a racial equity lens to their grantmaking and operations. In fact, they developed and disseminated a  Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy Statement of Purpose  in 2015, and followed it up with dialogue and in-depth training through their conference, webinars and publications. GIA has also been a leader in promoting the term ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American) as a replacement for the more common “people of color.” No terminology is perfect, and it is easy to get paralyzed in this work by the fear of using the wrong term. There is ...

I recently gave the keynote talk for the Colorado Wyoming Association of Museums annual conference in Boulder, CO. This is the text of my remarks (you will understand the picture after you read the piece): In thinking about what to speak to you about today, since you are all experts in museums and I am more of an observer of museums, I decided what might be most helpful is to share my personal reflections, based on my experience and a lifetime of interacting with museums. There is probably nothing I can tell you about the technical aspects of operating a museum, dealing with curation, conservation and management that you don’t already know. I grew up in New York City, in Manhattan, with parents who while not working in the arts where stereotypical New York City culture vultures. From a very young age I was being taken to museums – MoMA , the Met , Museum of Natural History , the Whitney , Guggenheim . I also grew up in an era when even New York City public schools had regu...

You would have to be living under a rock to not be thinking about equity these days, and all its related terms/concepts - structural racism, inclusiveness, privilege, etc. Just having the conversation can be a minefield, especially as someone who comes to the conversation from a position of privilege. Am I using the "right" language. Am I being aggressive/forceful enough in my approach? Am I being too aggressive? Will I offend someone by being too timid? Will I offend by being too threatening? If I verbally commit, then what will I actually do to make that verbiage actionable? Those charged with looking at the "big picture" of the cultural life of our communities - service organizations, funders, local arts agencies - have a special imperative to think deeply about these issues and take action, both to examine their own operations for bias and inequity, and to foster these values in the field. Over the past few years Grantmakers in the Arts went through an extr...