Elevating and Preserving Black, Indigenous, and Immigrant Foodways through Arts and Humanities Funding – A Briefing Hosted by Community Food Funders

About

**This program is hosted by our partner, Community Food Funders, who has extended an invitation to PNY members.

What’s on your plate can speak volumes about where you are, who came before, and the rich histories of oppression, resistance, and collaboration that produced the ingredients and created the recipes in your meal. In addition to sustaining life and impacting environmental conditions, food is also a critically important means of retaining cultural identities and exploring more complete and accurate narratives about the people and places that have shaped this country. While important, approaches to food that emphasize access, nutrition, and agricultural practices without humanistic engagement can obscure how deeply our food systems and choices are shaped by racialized histories, cultural practices, and the ways we make meaning as individuals and communities.

With a social justice focus, and as the nation’s largest funder of the arts and humanities, the Mellon Foundation regularly makes food-related grants that aim to increase scholarship, art, and public programming dedicated to the food histories and cultural practices of Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities in the US. Mellon’s grants also improve access to culturally appropriate food by protecting and preserving food knowledge and cultural traditions. Join us for a briefing in which Mellon program officers and two of the Foundation’s grantees will discuss what food grants in the humanities look like and why it is important to integrate this work into food funder strategies. Attendees who wish to continue the conversation after the seminar will have the opportunity to join a community of funders interested in integrating arts and humanities support into their justice-focused food grantmaking.

What will you learn?

• The importance of Black, Indigenous, and immigrant food knowledge for other food justice outcomes, including food access, nutrition, food sovereignty, and environmental justice
• Descriptions and examples of what arts and humanities food funding can look like at different kinds of institutions and organizations
• How funders can integrate arts and humanities projects and grantees into their food justice grantmaking
• Relevant grantee organizational capacities and needs in this work

Speakers

• Justin Garrett Moore, Inaugural Program Officer, Mellon Foundation
• Yin Kong, Co-Founder and Director, Think!Chinatown
• Maria Sachiko Cecire, Program Officer, Mellon Foundation
• Zella Palmer, Director, Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture

Who should attend?

All interested funders in grantmaking roles. What to expect: discussion followed by Q&A.

How do you sign up?

Registration is required by April 28th. Registrants will receive log-in details a day before the program.

Members and Non-Member Funders: Please click on the "Register Now" link above. Dial-in and webinar information will be emailed to you before the webinar.

Please email register@philanthropynewyork.org with any questions.