Giving Compass' Take:

• Helicon Collaborative released a report on it's findings that examine inequalities in arts funding. 

• What are possible solutions to shifting funding priorities? Can the emergence of funding collaboratives and collective impact strategies help sustain the shift?

• Read the book review of Anand Giridharadas' Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World that talks more in-depth about the flaws of philanthropy.

Last year, Helicon Collaborative released Not Just Money: Equity Issues in Cultural Philanthropy, a research study conducted with funding from the Surdna Foundation. The study continues our examination of inequities in arts funding in the U.S., starting with Fusing Art, Culture and Social Change in 2011, published by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Not Just Money looks at the picture now, to see what has changed in that time.

Spoiler alert: despite important efforts by many leading foundations, funding overall has gotten less equitable, not more. This means that cultural philanthropy is not effectively — or equitably — supporting our evolving cultural landscape.

This means that cultural philanthropy is not effectively — or equitably — supporting our evolving cultural landscape.

Key findings of cultural philanthropy:

  • Finding #1: Arts foundations and nonprofit leaders are increasingly aware of diversity, equity and inclusion issues in the nonprofit cultural sector.
  • Finding #2: But despite these efforts, funding is getting less equitable.
  • Finding #3: The inequities are systemic, and local funding patterns mirror national ones.
  • Finding #4: San Francisco shows that sustained and systemic efforts can make a difference.

As a result of these intentional strategies, not only does San Francisco have more diverse nonprofit cultural groups per capita than other cities, those groups also receive a significantly larger share of arts foundation funding than their counterparts in the other urban areas we studied.

Read the full article about arts funding from Helicon Collaborative at Medium