“This is a time to re-examine practices, to take bold action to reassess our priorities and practices,” says Gary Steuer, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation President & CEO, “to look at what more we could be doing. We have already developed an immediate response to the COVID-19 crisis affecting the arts, first with some immediate emergency grants in March, and then with a lead $1 million gift to create the COVID-19 Arts & Culture Relief Fund, which has seen over $600,000 in additional gifts. In April we also made an array of equity-based changes in our grantmaking, including a new program that funded for the first time 19 small organizations that are led by and serving BIPOC people or other historically marginalized communities..” Some of the other equity-related changes in our grantmaking that have already taken place are articulated here.
