Multiplying the impact is Trump 2.0 with devastating changes at numerous grant-making federal agencies, a destabilized market, rising inflation, and fears of an eco- nomic recession. The community demand that founda- tions would release more than 5% of their assets is now even more a pipe dream. Economic instability means foundations are hesitant to take big risks which includes investing in artists at the level of an emergency as they did from 2020-2023, thus reducing their power and control over their money. So how did we get here and where do we go from here? INTERMEDIARIES & CONTROL I f I am going to boil down my curiosities of the moment to one word, it would be intermediaries. In the nonprofit dance ecosystem, I define inter- mediaries as the nonprofits that ferry funds from foundations to individuals, such as fiscal sponsor- ship and re-granting organizations. I focus on these entities because I think they reveal a lot about funders’ larger goals and the impact on artists embedded within their communities. Philanthropy in general is obsessed with the idea of risk. None of their actions can be too risky; no funded entity can seem like a risky investment. In practice, this means foundations are slow to distribute grants to individuals (which alternatively could be done through forgivable, zero interest program-related investments vs grants). Instead foundations use the various interme- diaries described below to shield their assets from the “risky” artist. As the use of intermediaries became more popular in the late nineties (post NEA Four), the intermediaries rewarded by mitigating risks were often white-led nonprofits that are now at the center of the field. At its core, this process replicates trickle-down economics. This economic theory favors the rich and their security and assumes that the benefits of a stable wealthy class will ultimately ‘trickle down,’ benefiting all parties along the way. We are seeing this conservative approach now more than ever. Recently, the team at Justice Funders, a partner and guide for philanthropy in reimagining practices that advance a thriving and just world, put out an Open Letter on the response to Trump’s current administration and his reinforcement of trickle down economics (among many other oppres- sive policies). Unfortunately, the larger, field-wide response is inadequate and discouraging, even from the seemingly most progressive segments of philanthropy. Many foundations are either taking a “wait and see” approach or retracting all together, cower- ing to authoritarianism by “obeying in advance” and removing language about race-explicit grantmaking from their website
However, when faced with the realities of today’s arts ecosystem, I understand why fiscal sponsorship is nec- essary. In light of this, I generally advocate for artists to deeply consider why fiscal sponsorship is right for them at the moment and encourage them to form meaningful fiscal sponsorship relationships with community partners over more transactional entities like Fractured Atlas. I will note that the under-the-radar nature of fiscal sponsorship can be helpful in moments of political conflict when artists’ often progressive values conflict with more conservative founda- tions as nonprofits are not required to report fiscal sponsor- ship activities on their tax form 990s (though many do). 3 Beyond fiscal sponsors, I include the aforementioned re-granting organizations like Creative Capital, National Performance Network, United States Artists, MAP Fund, and New England Foundation for the Arts (which is also one of six Regional Arts Organizations). All these organiza- tions do much more than re-grant private foundation and public funding, but this work is a major part of their mis- sions. Some still require fiscal sponsorship despite not being foundations, though many have eliminated that require- ment after feedback on the practice’s exclusionary nature. However, it seems like regranting intermediaries have lost the favor of foundations as they began to listen to and implement artists’ demands in alignment with trust-based philanthropy and more radical resource distribution. CONSULT ARTISTS FIRST (again, please!) S o why the focus on intermediaries and their role in this major funding shift? In short, I believe that foundations realized that these intermediar- ies, especially the re-granting organizations, were increasingly effective at distributing their long sequestered funds. Art workers’ advocacy toward trust- based philanthropy (minimal reports, short applications, conversations over writing), was eliminating the depen- dence on philanthropy to steer the field at large. In some cases, artists didn’t even need cultural validation from the intermediaries in order to receive funds as some intermedi- aries began selecting artists via lottery systems or reducing fiscal sponsorship fees for BIPOC artists. Recently reflected in a conversation I had with Dr. Michelle Ramos, is the reality that artists’ work always is dynamic and prolific, even without funding. This realization for foundations can be disempowering because in that dynamic; art will always be more powerful than money. 3 For example, the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) in the Bay Area is fiscally sponsored by the Tides Center. AROC’s mission is to “envision powerful and liberated Arab communities living with freedom and self-determination from the Bay Area to our homelands” and is supported by Tides’ mission to “advance social justice by shifting resources and power to historically excluded communities” alongside community partners. This expansive mission and umbrella support under 501(c)(3) Tides, means that AROC can organize pro-Palestinian protests, provide legal services and other progressive, community centered activities that may otherwise not receive philanthropic funds largely governed by more conservative boards. AROC’s direct expenses are also not visible as part of Tides’ annual 990 or financial audit. In this case, I think fiscal sponsorship is a productive way to play the system and move forward a political agenda.
To me, this fear is made most clear by the Mellon Foundation’s recent move to defund a number of these intermediaries and instead to direct their monies straight to artists they chose. 4 While this is not a blanket move– many organizations still receive Mellon support–the shift has been dramatic such as these two notable changes which mean that touring support for dance in the United States has lost substantial funding support. 5 • New England Foundation for the Arts ends the National Theater Project and National Dance Project grants in their current iterations due a conclusion of Mellon Funding. (September 6, 2024) • MAP Fund ends national grantmaking due to funding changes at Mellon and Duke Foundations. (December 12, 2024) By highlighting these (public) changes, I don’t mean to diminish the work of all the staff at each respective insti- tution or the work of many brilliant artists who are on the other side of the Mellon funding. Instead, I hope to highlight trends and ask questions. AND, I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that the cessation of these kinds of funds, especially those that supported national tour- ing initiatives like NEFA’s NTP and NDP and MAP Fund, will irrecoverably change the field. For me, it brings up two critical questions: • How will post-emerging artists receive funding for the next stage of their development if they are too small to be noticed by the major foundations like Mellon, Duke and Ford, three critical funders of dance in the last twenty years? • If intermediaries turn to solely focus on artists’ services (like MAP Fund plans to through the continuation of its Scaffolding for Practicing Artists (SPA) program) or “pay-to-play” programs like many fiscal sponsor- ship, residencies or professionalization efforts, will this reduce the number of artists who have the resources to invest in their practice (and therefore create a sus- tainable career), thus perpetuating an existing lack of equity in the field? I am especially concerned by the way the news of this funding shift seeped out into the broader community. Peer funders likely knew first, then intermediaries, and finally it began to flow into my administrator/artist 4 Disclosure: Until recently, one of my many part-time jobs was funded by Mellon’s direct-to-artist grants from 2022-2025. As an indirect recipient and witness of this change, I believe that many individual artists were not/art not equipped to take on the scale of these grants especially in terms of their tax burden and ability to redistribute funds. Many artists who received the funds also are now conducting projects that make them the new intermediaries as they pass Mellon monies to other artists in their commu- nities, creating a closed network often with a singular decision maker. I think this approach somewhat negates all the great work organizations like NEFA and NPN did over the past decade in making their grantmaking processes more equitable. This reflection deserves more conversation and research in the future. 5 Visit this webpage and filter for “Arts & Culture” to see a recent list of all Mellon’s grants.
or shutting down those programs entirely, and shifting to the center with their grantmaking strategies rather than holding the line to continue resourcing the social justice movement ecosystem. – OPEN LETTER, FEBRUARY 26, 2025 So, who are the intermediaries foundations consider when evaluating their risk assessments and how has this changed over the years? From the late 1990s, post-NEA Four (which I’ll briefly discuss later), to the present, fiscal sponsorship has become an increasingly necessary intermediary in the field. Incorporating as a 501(c)(3) was and continues to be an infrastructural challenge for artists due to financial and personnel requirements. Fiscal sponsorship became a relatively easy way to access the nonprofit umbrella without managing your own board, local/state/federal compliance, and more. Critical to this specific historical account, private foundations are legally barred from giv- ing grants to individuals. Fiscal sponsorship became the go-to method for pass-through granting and has grown in popularity exponentially since then, though with little research and oversight. A few years ago, I dedicated two years to gathering and analyzing the existing data and anecdotal evidence on fiscal sponsorship’s implementation in the arts. I’ll spoil the 100-page thesis for you now. From my van- tage point, there is little evidence that fiscal sponsorship builds long term financial equity for individual artists and overwhelming proof that the fiscal sponsorship to nonprofit pipeline is no longer realistic. Instead, histor- ically artists embedded within nonprofit cultures now turn to for-profit business structures such as LLCs and S-Corps to diversify their income streams and somewhat detach from funding. 2 However, in all the examples I’ve witnessed of this “for-profit” move, very few entities are turning a profit and still work on a net-zero profit lead- ing me to believe that philanthropic funds are still float- ing their bottom lines. Despite this zero income, even the usage of for-profit models reveals a dramatic change from the early 2000s when creating nonprofits was more the norm. Economic instability means founda- tions are hesitant to take big risks which includes investing in artists at the level of an emergency as they did from 2020–2023, thus reducing their power and control over money.
2 There was a recent move by two state arts agencies, California Arts Council and New York State Council on the Arts, to stop LLCs and S-Corps using fiscal sponsors to apply for grants. CA advocates managed to strike this eligibility requirement from California Arts Council’s guidelines, but the New York State Council on the Arts continues to restrict any for-profit entity (save sole proprietors with a fiscal sponsorship) from accessing funds.
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