This Cement Absorbs Pollution in Smoggy Cities

Recommendations for Arts Philanthropy Leadership

Giving Compass' Take: • In this post, Createquity gives recommendations for foundations, government agencies, individual philanthropists, and others providing resources to support the arts. • A major takeaway from the advice given here is not to look put your name on a building, but instead seek knowledge: Funding arts-related research can go a long way in developing this sector. • Here are five more lessons in disrupting arts philanthropy. For the past three years and change, Createquity’s mission has been to research “the most important issues in the arts and what we can do about them.” During that time, in networking meetings with potential donors or friends of the organization, I would often get questions along the lines of, “so what are the most important issues in the arts?” Createquity’s approach involved deeply investigating a wide range of potential issues before coming to firm conclusions about which ones might be most deserving of our attention, or what kinds of actions we might want to advocate for. Now, however, with Createquity having announced its intention to cease operations at the end of 2017, the time has come to share what we do know – even if there are still significant gaps in that knowledge – and what we think it means for those trying to improve people’s lives through the arts. People are fond of calling for more leadership in the arts sector. But the thing about an ecosystem is that it is fundamentally leaderless. Which means that we all have to be leaders if any leadership is going to happen. And to me, in the context of grantmaking, that means all of us taking the time to thoroughly understand the arts funding landscape before deciding what role is most appropriate for us to play.