ReFrame. ReStore. ReImagine. February 2024
LETTER FROM OUR MANAGING DIRECTOR
Kresge's Arts & Culture Program refines its funding focus areas
Greetings, colleagues and partners,
As a national funder that supports place-based initiatives, Kresge's Arts & Culture Program positions culture and creativity as drivers of more just communities. Through this strategy, a cross-sectoral approach that integrates creative practices into community development, we aim to ensure that creativity is valued widely as an integral resource for healthy and sustainable places and for residents of color to live abundant and self-determined lives.
Earlier this year, we announced the refinement of our funding focus areas to ensure we are explicit about where, with whom, and how we intend to deploy our grant dollars — in place, with people, and through partnerships — to advance the pre-conditions for long-term change. The pre-conditions include resident agency, narrative control, social cohesion, and collective action, to name a few.
To be transparent, we share these refinements to reflect how we've invested over the past several years.
We invite you to learn more about our program strategy. While we are not accepting unsolicited applications, please forward any questions to arts_cultureinquiry@kresge.org. We know that our work does not exist in a bubble, so this newsletter offers a range of updates, new reports, resources and announcements. If you missed the White House Domestic Policy Council and National Endowment for the Arts Summit: Healing, Bridging and Thriving, or Philanthropy for Civic Engagement's podcast on how democracy needs poetry, I encourage you to keep reading.
Finally, this year marks the Kresge Foundation's Centennial. Since 1924, the Foundation has awarded over $5 billion across the United States and beyond. Plans for this year include several events for community and grantee partners to come together to reflect on the past and dream for a more just future in cities. The Centennial website is the place to keep track of what’s happening.
We, along with many partners, still have much work to do. The Arts & Culture Program looks forward to staying the course to ensure that culture and creativity are dimensions for achieving sustainable places where residents live abundant and self-determined lives.
Regina R. Smith
Managing Director
Arts & Culture Program
PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
In this Q&A, Nonprofit Quarterly Senior Editor Steve Dubb interviews Anasa Troutman on her role as executive director of the Historic Clayborn Temple, a $25 million project to restore a building that was the central organizing hub of the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while visiting Memphis to support that strike. The article explores the history of the Clayborn Temple, the project to restore it, and the vision of Troutman and her colleagues to use the temple as a hub for developing a community-based economy in Memphis that is Black-owned, Black-governed, and which sustains a thriving culture rooted in the Black imagination.
NEWS
To elevate arts and creativity’s contributions to the health and well-being of residents across the country, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the White House Domestic Policy Council hosted a cross-sector policy summit, “Healing, Bridging, Thriving: A Summit on Arts and Culture in our Communities.” Kresge’s Arts & Culture Program was among the summit’s nine philanthropic supporters. Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, a former Kresge senior advisor, used the summit to announce new initiatives and partnerships across federal agencies.
News & Resources from the Field
- Funding Opportunity: Cultural organizations in the U.S. and U.K. can apply for funding to improve their essential digital infrastructure, Bloomberg Philanthropies
- New funding focus areas and proposals accepted, Nathan Cummings Foundation
- Culture and Community Power Building, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2024
- Policy brief on Why Cross-Sector Collaborations Now?, National Assembly for State Arts Agencies
- 2023 Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, The U.S. Surgeon General
- The People’s Practice, an anti-racist community development research project, ThirdSpace Action Lab
- Resource and toolkit for creative campaigns, The Center for Artistic Activism
- Storytelling Guide: Nurturing Seeds for Our Future, Youth Organizing and Culture Change Fund
- Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being framework, Building Healthy Places Network and ReThink Health
Calls to Action:
- Advance Guaranteed Income Now: Recommendations from Creatives Rebuild New York’s Guaranteed Income for Artists Working Group
- Advance Sustainable Livelihoods for Arts and Cultural Workers: Recommendations from Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Working Group
Upcoming Conferences:
OUR TEAM
Joyce Holliman,
Senior Grants Management Associate
Candace Kita,
Program Officer
Inés Familiar Miller,
Program Officer
Sarah A. Moreno
Program Team Assistant
Regina R. Smith
Managing Director
Kaniqua Welch,
Communications Officer
