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

This reflection was created as part of my report to the Board of Directors at our recent quarterly board meeting. It seemed to me that it might be worth sharing more widely. So much has happened at the Foundation over the past ten years, it was a helpful exercise to try and capture those changes. I am sure I missed some! October 1, 2023, officially marked my ten-year anniversary at the Foundation. Inevitably with these milestones it is helpful to reflect on what has been accomplished, what has changed, and what remains to be done. Because this is an important and extensive story to tell, I hope you will indulge me as I share how the Foundation has transformed over these past ten years. Board/Governance I have worked with three (soon to be four) chairs in this time, starting, of course, with Lanny Martin, who led the search process that brought me to the Foundation. When I began it was a small board of five with no term limits and a Board that had not had a trustee of color in it...

2020 was a year unlike any other in my lifetime, and I have been through growing up during the 60’s civil rights struggle, the anti-war movement of the 60’s and 70’s, being in NYC for 9/11 and grappling with the massive economic impact of the 2008 recession. And now, I must bear not just the same personal impacts of 2020 (continuing into 2021) that everyone else is grappling with, but also the burden, privilege and responsibility of determining how Bonfils-Stanton Foundation can most effectively deploy its resources to respond. We have talked about it in some previous communications, but as we turn the corner into 2021, with the impact of COVID still very present, and the work of fighting racism ever present, I thought it might be helpful to reflect on what we have been doing, what I have been thinking, and where we are going. New Space A couple of years ago the Foundation had decided that our longtime home in the Daniels & Fisher Tower on the 16 th  Street Mall was no longer s...

The significant actions of very large foundations like Ford and Mellon, both in response to COVID and the imperative to address racism and social justice, have understandably received considerable attention, in both the general press and the philanthropy press. The work that they have been doing has been extraordinary. From Ford announcing an allocation of 10% of their assets - $1 billion - towards  impact investing in opportunities like affordable housing and economic opportunity, and committing $156 million to support arts organizations run by people of color ,  to Mellon's recent announcement of a $250 million commitment to reimagine monuments in America , these commitments are big and meaningful. There are about 120,000 foundation in the US, mostly independent private foundations (as opposed to community foundations and operating foundation). 98% of these foundations are smaller, with assets of $50 million or less. If you use a cutoff of $100 million or less, the figure i...

“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 ...