To Black Women-Led Organizations... The Great Work Continues
Brooklyn, New York — July 8, 2021 — On June 15th, 2021, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott announced $2.7 billion in donations to “286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded.” The announcement was made in the Medium.com blog post, Seeding by Ceding.
We at Urban Bush Women, Alternate ROOTS, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, and Junebug Productions are deeply grateful to receive a portion of this gift alongside one another. Each of our organizations are led by Black women who have created the connective tissue for a distinct segment of the arts and culture field – artists who have a commitment to making work in, with, by, for, and about their communities, and whose cultural work strives for social justice.
Alternate ROOTS is a regional* arts service organization founded in 1976 that is based in the Southern USA with 45 years of history. As a member-driven national resource for artists and cultural organizers, we seek to champion social and economic justice and the work of people in our field.
Ashé Cultural Arts Center, founded in 1998, operates at the intersection of community, culture, and commerce. We provide event and performance space, programming, affordable housing, direct services, and platforms for equity in celebration of the people, places, and philosophies of the African diaspora.
Junebug Productions emerged from the Free Southern Theater in 1980 with a mission to create and support artistic works that question and confront inequitable conditions that have historically impacted the Black community.
Urban Bush Women, founded in 1984, seeks to bring untold and under-told stories to light through dance, from a woman-centered perspective and as members of the African Diaspora community, in order to create a more equitable balance of power in the dance world and beyond.
For decades, we have individually and collectively been doing the work for our people:
Preserving and promoting the history and lineage of the African Diaspora
Amplifying untold and under-told stories
Promoting social, economic, health, and climate justice through performance art and community-building
Dismantling systems of oppression
Providing art-making opportunities for artists of color
This donation supports the continuation of this important work. It provides us the opportunity to build lasting infrastructure necessary to continue transforming lives and addressing the needs of our people. And as Black women-led organizations, we have experienced firsthand the well-documented racial disparities in arts funding as well as disparities faced by arts organizations in the south. According to Freedom Maps: Activating legacies of culture, art, and organizing in the U.S. South, “In 2017, a person living in the South received only $4.21 in arts and culture funding from philanthropy, compared to the national average of $8.60 per person.”
Women of Color-led Nonprofits Struggle for Survival Funding: Why? shared, “Ms. Foundation released research that reveals that the actual numbers of monetary giving to WOC is shockingly low; it makes up only 0.5% of the $66.9 billion that is annually given to foundations.” And still, we have never wavered in our commitment to our missions and our communities.
What is most extraordinary about this transformative, unrestricted donation is that it comes without the rigorous application and reporting process customary with most funding institutions. The unrestricted nature of the donation is, in and of itself, a gift to organizations like ours.
We are proud to be among so many of our partners, including First Peoples Fund, Mama Foundation for the Arts, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC), PA’I Foundation, Sipp Culture, The International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD), and The Laundromat Project, in receiving these funds.
Because we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose.
— Reprinted from Seeding by Ceding Medium.com post by MacKenzie Scott
This type of funding affirms that our organizations are the experts in our needs and the needs of the communities we serve. This is what progressive philanthropy looks like.
Though this gift is a substantial amount of money, our focus is on long-term, sustainable solutions that allow us to balance the scales of a society fraught with inequity. We are forever grateful to our longtime supporters for their continued contributions to our aligned mission and commitment to give back to our people. We invite new neighbors/community members to join in this effort to sustain the legacy of our ground-breaking, Black women-led organizations. Community collaboration is at the core of who we are, and you are welcome to join us on our journey toward equity for all.
*The Alternate ROOTS region covers the Southern area of the United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Media Contacts:
Jennifer Williams | jennifer@alternateroots.org
Communications Coordinator + Wordsmith, Alternate ROOTS
Kelwynn Napoleon | napoleon@ashenola.org
Chief Experience Officer, Ashé Cultural Arts Center
Damia Khanboubi | dkhanboubi@junebugproductions.org
Director of Community Collaboration & Marketing, Junebug Productions
Makeda Smith | msmith@urbanbuswomen.org
Marketing Manager, Urban Bush Women
