The winds of change have been blowing for some time now, ebbing and flowing like the sea, returning after a period of quiet to demand more of us. Reflection and re-evaluation are part of the growth process for any individual or organization, and moments like those of the past few months provide a unique and urgent opportunity to do so.
It doesn’t have to take a global pandemic and significant civil unrest to provoke reflection, however. Ideally, a reassessment would happen before such a moment, so that a person or organization is poised and prepared to change direction when the moment of upheaval comes. The Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of the arts, recently announced a change in their focus that had been in the works for at least two years. But this current moment provided the Foundation with the right opportunity to announce the change and lead the way for the nonprofit sector to adjust its heading.
According to a press release on June 30th, 2020, the Andrew W Mellon Foundation will focus on “prioritizing social justice in all of its grantmaking,” which will include “a refined mission statement and updated program areas.” The new mission notes that the Foundation’s focus will be on building “just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking where ideas and imagination can thrive” and animated by a belief that “the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity.”
I feel like artists are the essential workers for the soul.
Elizabeth Alexander, President of the Mellon Foundation
This focus on a social justice lens for all of their incoming grant applications will ensure the Foundation’s support goes to organizations and communities who are addressing racial and social injustices. It will also cause a ripple effect across the nonprofit world by encouraging grant proposal writers to examine their programs through the same lens. If they want funding from the Mellon Foundation, they will need to make promoting social justice a priority.
The Mellon Foundation has increased its giving from roughly $300 million annually to $500 million this year, recognizing that artists and cultural organizations have been hard hit by the financial downturn. That’s included helping forge an Artist Relief coalition making 100 grants of $5,000 each to individual artists—who are not normally eligible for Mellon grants. Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander told Artnet, “I feel like artists are the essential workers for the soul. We don’t have an art ecosystem if we don’t have individual artists.”
In making this shift, they joined the Ford Foundation, who made a similar adjustment in 2015. The two foundations also teamed up with three others to pledge a combined $1.7 billion to help sustain nonprofits who have been rocked by the triple-whammy that has been the first half of 2020.
In our own small way, our Bliss Action Fund is our company’s way of keeping that social justice lens in focus.
If other foundations and grant-makers make similar adjustments over the coming months and years, there is hope that we can all collectively move the needle towards a more just and equitable nation and world.
(Photo by Jerrett Fifield on Unsplash)
