On March 9, I learned that in 48 hours President Biden would be visiting Luis Muñoz Marín Elementary School in North Philadelphia. Our school was selected for the presidential visit because it received critical funding from the American Rescue Plan—funding that kept essential before- and after-school programming going, like the arts clubs that I co-lead. It is not uncommon at Marín for students to participate in two to three clubs each week. During this special visit, I would have the opportunity to share how the art and design clubs I run are making a difference in students’ return to school amidst the pandemic. Over the past two years, everyone across school communities has been asked to press on and adapt in uncertainty. It feels like we have a lot to make up for after so much time spent online, yet we’ve also grown a lot from this experience. This visit prompted us to take stock of how much we have done and how empathetic, engaged, and wise our students are, placing our experiences within a broader interconnected web. That day, I felt reinvigorated by my commitment to listen to my students, provide them opportunities to lead, and create clear connections between the work they are doing and the impact they can have on our school community, their families, neighborhood, city, and world at large. 

The arts are fundamental to our humanity. They ennoble and inspire us—fostering creativity, empathy, and beauty. The arts also strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically—benefits that persist even during a pandemic that has been devastating to the arts. The following 10 reasons show why an investment in artists, creative workers, and arts organizations is vital to the nation’s post-pandemic healing and recovery. The arts are a proven contributor in keeping us mentally healthy—reducing depression and anxiety and increasing life satisfaction. Just 30 minutes of arts activities daily can combat the ill effects of isolation and loneliness associated with COVID-19—and 78% of hospital CEOs say the purpose of their arts programs is to aid in the emotional and mental healing of patients Those data points nail it. The arts are all about stories—often personal, always meaningful. This advocacy season, find your stories and pair them with the research-based findings in “10 Reasons to Support the Arts.”

Riva Lehrer is no stranger to difficult times. Growing up with spina bifida in the 1950s and ’60s, Riva experienced a very ableist world where children with disabilities were often hidden from public view. She very quickly had to learn to mask her own disability or acquire other identities to overshadow her “differentness.” She didn’t learn how to advocate or vocalize her needs as a disabled person until later in life. It was through her art and writing, and joining the Disabled Artists Collective, that gave Riva a way to portray and publicly amplify the humanness of those with impairments as people like everyone else, including herself. Riva stands squarely at the intersection of so many identities: advocate, disabled, queer, artist, writer, professor, public speaker, Jewish, and a woman. But the one she gets asked to weigh in on the most is disability, as if the mere fact that she has a disability makes her an expert in the field: “When I present my portrait work with people with impairments and who deal with stigma I can’t just talk about the art or some other aspect of the art. I’ll start talking about working with some trans or queer subjects and most of the time people just want to bring it back to disability. It often feels like a lot of me is left outside the door.”

As creative placemaking coordinator for The Arts Commission in Toledo, Ohio, David Ross is a community artist turned advocate for youth and creativity. An alum of The Arts Commission’s Young Artist at Work program, he has been a member of the creative placemaking team since 2020, working to connect visual art and social issues. Ross also chairs the City of Toledo Human Relation Commission’s Stop the Violence Committee, co-chairs the Toledo Racial Equity & Inclusion Council, and is the founder of a local celebrity basketball charity contest, Dunkin 4 Donations. “Creative placemaking is the answer to social justice artistically filling in the gaps and barriers in equality and opportunity. Not knowing how to express yourself or not having pride will make you not see the value of the land or opportunity to flourish. Creative placemaking directly addresses those issues with a creative and sustainable approach.”

In recent years, there has been greater intentional focus on equitable language and communication. That focus has led to noticeable, positive change. The arts and culture field is uniquely positioned to help reinforce and advance this movement, particularly through the literary work of playwrights, novelists, poets, journalists, dramaturgs, editors, scholars, and critics. Equitable language opens dialogue and invites more people to the conversation. The words we use and the way we approach language can be the difference between diverse storytelling and empowered representation, or failed attempts to establish equity. The ripple effect of creating and adopting equitable language is limitless. That’s why language banks and similar tools are so crucial to navigating conversations, communications, and storytelling, and why these tools are essential to how we move forward together. Inside Americans for the Arts, we began dissecting and crafting how we could leverage our reach and resources in support of the work happening in communities across the county. We know that every organization, every individual, is on their own journey with equity and while we can’t bring everyone to the same level in one swoop, we could build tools to assist the work. 

I see Black genius as the soulful expression of the extraordinary creativity, intellect, and ingenuity of African Diaspora people. It is about how we incite the imagination, move the crowd, and stir the soul. There’s a spirit to Black genius that needs to be awarded. It’s not solely the moments of inspiration, but also the deep dedication and commitment to craft, the ways in which we locate ourselves within a tradition and traditions. The Black Genius Foundation is committed to transforming the conversation around genius by placing Black artists and the Black Creative Ecosystem at the center. The Black Genius Foundation is our opportunity to sing a praise song for new generations and advance the legacy that our ancestors and elders have so boldly created for us to carry forward.

Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix is the Dean of the College of Creative Arts and a professor of theater at Miami University in Ohio, where she teaches courses in world stages and American theater. As a theater historian, Mullenix writes about Antebellum culture/theater, cross-dressing, the American Civil War, first wave feminism, and gender/feminist theory. “I think theater has always been a great way to promote social change because it has the power to educate, raise consciousness, and emotionally impact audiences. The intimacy created by live theater affects people—audiences experience stories shared in real time by real people, stories about oppression and prejudice and how the world needs to change. Good theater can make people care and make them think.”

Located in Camden, New Jersey, Camden FireWorks is a Black-led, community-based arts organization that works to grow, gather, and invest in artists and artists-to-be in the Camden community. Executive Director Asiyah Kurtz is an applied anthropologist with 20 years of experience in leadership of private, nonprofit, and public sectors. “As a young arts organization, we had previously only relied on volunteers to teach our open studio workshops for our first five years of operations. With the support of our Board, one of the changes I made this year was to pay a meaningful wage to teaching artists for their time, labor, and talent. If I have anything to do with it, there will be no starving artists in Camden.” 

It is important for cultural leaders and individual artists to know the work of organizations elevating Native artists. This is of special urgency given the current challenges faced by local and regional arts agencies: Leaders in the cultural sector simply must have a broader understanding of social and economic justice issues. As our field does more to support civic engagement and informed public dialogue about these key issues, local arts leaders have the opportunity to assume leadership roles on the complex challenges in our communities—promoting equity, addressing the climate and other issues, and promoting civic literacy about the issues we face. As arts administrators and managers, it is not enough to be informed about the issues—we need to know how to communicate effectively with broader, more diverse publics that we serve. Local arts agency leaders must understand these issues on ever deeper levels as they develop meaningful competitive grant review processes and find effective ways for arts organizations to take central roles in public discourse. 

The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) is the only national philanthropic organization focused exclusively on Native arts and cultures with a deep commitment to supporting Native artists in a spirit of advancing equity and cultural knowledge for American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native communities. NACF is especially active in supporting artists responding to economic justice and environment issues. Its SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts program gives artists opportunities to work with communities to examine complex issues from a Native perspective, while LIFT – Early Career Support for Native Artists encourages artists to develop projects that advance positive social change at the community level. And through Mentor Artist Fellowships, emphasis is put on opportunities for contemporary Native artists working both in traditional and contemporary practice to deepen their connections to the artistic traditions and heritages of their tribal communities.

Founded in 2008, with start-up funding of $10 million from the Ford Foundation, NACF supports Indigenous artists, culture bearers, and Native-led arts organizations through fellowships and project funding. Betsy Theobald Richards (Cherokee), who served as Ford’s Program Officer in Media, Arts, and Culture from 2003 to 2010, provided key leadership in establishing NACF. Other Native leaders and artists were involved from the get-go: the civil rights lawyer Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), poet and musician Joy Harjo (Muscokee-Creek), museum director and artist Elizabeth Woody (Yakama Nation Wasco descent and Citizen of Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs), and singer, artist, and educator Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree First Nation of Canada), among others. It’s powerful to have such dynamic and creative national and community-based leaders setting the stage for NACF’s work. The organization is currently in the early stages of developing a major cultural facility and new headquarters: the Center for Native Arts and Cultures in southeast Portland, Oregon, with a vision to create a “vibrant gathering place” for Indigenous artists as a convening ground for cultural ceremonies and celebrations; as an incubator for Native artists to create; and as a venue for presenting contemporary exhibitions and performances, workshops, and seminars.

On May 16, 2021, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) sponsored an important virtual panel discussion about the epidemic of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and the need for allyship. The program was another installment of NJPAC’s Standing in Solidarity, a series of initiatives and events promoting racial equality and social justice. The series was launched in June of 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd to offer greater understanding of current racial disparities, as well as offer a forum for learning about the actions all citizens can take to advance the causes of equality and justice. NJPAC’s Social Justice Planning Task Force recognized that the resurgence of anti-AAPI violence was a critical issue to discuss and there was a dire need to help the broader community understand how they can become allies in the fight against this surging injustice. The panel was convened just as the results of a survey conducted by a new nonprofit found that 80 percent of Asian Americans “don’t feel respected and say they are discriminated against by their fellow Americans.”

Since the late 1970s, the Salt Lake City Arts Council has promoted, presented, and supported artists, arts organizations, and arts activities to further the development of the arts community and to benefit the public by expanding awareness, access, and participation. As director of the Arts Council, Felicia Baca acts as the chief arts and culture advocate for the city and oversees the development, promotion, implementation, support, and strengthening of creative programs and policy. “I’m an advocate, ambassador, and relationship-builder to elevate artists and art organizations in the city, while facilitating opportunities for residents to engage in the arts. My hope is to further the development of an arts ecosystem citywide that considers artists and arts engagement as essential for livability, equity, and economic development. Our Arts Council has a variety of functions, including granting, public art, and public programs. It all ties back to serving as an advocate for artists, and engaging residents in the many benefits of the arts.”

Following the strong, public statements of solidarity with Black Lives Matter that cultural institutions across the country made in Summer 2020, museums, artist-endowed foundations, and other arts organizations began to look inward, identifying all the ways their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access can be lived in their day-to-day activities. This has prompted endowed cultural organizations to seriously evaluate whether their investment decisions reflect their values, and to begin the journey to align their money with mission and purpose. Such a reflection is a natural outgrowth of recent debates over accepting donations earned through the sale of opioids, fossil fuels, weapons, and the operation of private prisons. It also recognizes that Next Generation art donors and foundations that fund the arts—many of whom are impact investors themselves—are beginning to evaluate an arts organization’s investments alongside its programs and policies when deciding where to give. America’s museums, libraries, art schools, performing art centers, and other cultural institutions steward more than $58 billion in financial assets through their endowments. This means investment policies and practices offer a meaningful way for cultural institutions to signal their values of diversity, equity, inclusion and access.

In the wake of a global pandemic, it is almost universally understood that there are innumerable factors from the past year that have made it difficult to indulge in our favorite art forms. These challenges also have highlighted inequities in the arts sector that can no longer be ignored. In the face of these inequities, artists have begun prioritizing their platform to combat these barriers and to help change the arts sector for the better. The Color of Music Collective, or COMC, is an example of a group of artists/arts patrons who are aware of these inequities and, in turn, seek to use their online platform to engage and dismantle inequitable systems in the music industry. When asked about the origins of the Color of Music Collective, Mia Van Allen, the founder of COMC, recalled her experience as an intern working in the music industry: “As a woman of color working in the (field) it was difficult to find representation.” This experience laid the groundwork for the birth of the collective. COMC is a new organization that developed last year during the pandemic—thus their experience as a collective is unique in that their programs have always been virtual with the intent of remaining as accessible as possible.

Unleashed by anxiety over the pandemic, the nationwide rise in anti-Asian hate has served as a call to action for many Asian American artists to take a stand: To actively challenge the historic negative stereotype of the vice- and disease-ridden Yellow Peril; to dismantle the pernicious and divisive myth of the model minority that pits achievements by Asian Americas as judgements against other communities of color; and to advocate for social justice, equity, and inclusion for all. Located on opposite coasts, the work of photographer Mike Keo and multimedia artist Monyee Chau exemplify this new generation of Asian American activist-artists who are working within their respective communities to effect change. Both skillfully employ social media to raise awareness. Keo and Chau follow a long line of Asian American activist-artists and curators who deserve wider recognition. Most notably, in 1990 artists Ken Chu and Bing Lee and curator Margo Machida founded Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, an influential collective of artists and curators in New York City.

Since 2016, Jeremy Johnson has been executive director of Newark Arts, one of the city’s leading nonprofits. The organization makes grants to neighborhood arts programs, produces the award-winning Newark Arts Festival, and advocates for policies to uplift Newark as a city of the arts. During his tenure, Newark Arts has strengthened the city's cultural profile, including the 2020 ranking of Newark among America's Top 10 Arts-Vibrant Communities by the National Center for Arts Research. Johnson led the creation of Newark’s first community cultural plan, Newark Creates, which resulted in the city-sponsored Creative Catalyst Fund to support area artists impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For queer-BIPOC identifying individuals, the endless and unique intersections of one’s identities can make it difficult to find yourself authentically represented in the arts. Working to carve out space for marginalized queer artists, The National Queer Theatre (NQT) elevates those who have been historically, and continue to be, underrepresented in the theater field. The NQT houses a unique initiative known as the Criminal Queerness Initiative (CQI), which focuses on highlighting the narratives of queer identifying international and immigrant playwrights—specifically, the censorship or criminalization they may face within their countries. The efforts of the artists are then celebrated in a culminating event, the Criminal Queerness Festival (CQF). In addition, they host the Criminal Queerness Lab: a (virtual) residency that seeks to elevate playwrights on an international scale by providing rigorous support in the writing and production of new work. I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Odsess-Rubin, founder of the National Queer Theatre and the Criminal Queerness Initiative, about the initiative’s origins and the importance of conversation surrounding the varying degrees of censorship queer-identifying individuals encounter on an international scale.

The Arts & Science Council (ASC), the local arts agency for Charlotte-Mecklenburg in North Carolina, for nearly 60 years engaged in practices that led to inequitable funding to organizations and creative individuals. In June 2019, ASC’s Board of Directors approved a Cultural Equity statement. It creates a framework to set organizational policies and practices and offers external visibility for the organization’s commitment to cultural equity. It also guides ASC’s decision to cap operating support grants for large institutions to fund small and mid-sized organizations so they can build their capacity and thrive. The board agreed that if it is committed to doing this work, ASC must report to the community on its progress. The report was not done in a vacuum. Experts in the history, equity, cultural transformation, philanthropy, and public relations space served as external readers. Their feedback was valuable. When the report was published on February 24, 2021, it felt liberating. While I knew the facts in the report were startling, I never thought I would experience so intimately the uncomfortableness, the defensiveness, and the scaredness of white people reacting to the unvarnished truth.

As a Korean adoptee facilitating anti-racism workshops within the arts field, I have experienced many artists who view race and racism as a black and white binary. I have noticed terms such as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) being weaponized against People of the Global Majority by organizations when they are only referring to the Black community. Now, don’t get me wrong. We do need to center the most harmed and impacted communities which are the Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. However, that does not mean communities such as the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander), Middle Eastern North African, Latinx, and Mixed should be forgotten. If your anti-racism work is not intersectional, you are still upholding white supremacy. This has shown up in the arts community even when artists are practicing and actively becoming anti-racist. I have had conversations with individuals who question if we should call the hate crimes the AAPI community is experiencing because of COVID-19 “racist events.” I have also had to explain that AAPI individuals who are light skinned do hold power but not enough to define, protect, and pass laws to protect our own community. When conversations and topics like these come up, my proximity to whiteness is questioned. This is white supremacy showing up. Not all Asians look like me. Not all Asians have a similar experience.