Impact on panelists

The grantmaking panels are made up of artists, cultural producers and activists who are invited because the foundation sees them as being exemplars of the kinds of practices Leeway exists to support. Leeway aims to create panels that are intergenerational, crosscultural, multidisciplinary and representative of varied identities. Panelists loved being on the panel.

“I loved it. It was a phenomenal experience. There was incredible intimacy in the cohort. It was delicious. It was emergent, collective practice, which I totally loved.” (grantee and panelist)

“[I] don’t remember witnessing an ah-ha moment, but there’s something about the conversation and how it happens, that because everyone in the room is involved in their own craft, it does seem to deepen their thinking about their own work, about how to do work with an art and social change lens, to ask different questions about their own work or work of others. It’s hard to pinpoint where it happens in the process, or at what level, but I do think there’s something real about the infusion of this conversation deepening people’s own analysis.” (panel facilitator)

Rigorous, emergent practice

Before the panel sits to make decisions for the Transformation Award, Leeway hosts the panelists, facilitator and staff for dinner and an “art share.” Everyone (staff included) talks about and provides examples of their own artistic practice, or an example of one they admire, in a process that interviewees described as intimate and compelling. Leeway’s goal in doing this is to build relationships between panelists to aid the consensus decision-making process, but also so that they have an appreciation for the emotional vulnerability that artists experience when they put forward their work to be judged. The panelists are given a “charge” that provides information about the decision-making process and guidelines on what they should be looking for, including “The Anatomy of a Leeway Foundation Artist,” a document that lists important characteristics to consider when making decisions. The panel is actively facilitated each time by an experienced facilitator. Panelists agreed that the charge to the panel, including the definition of a Leeway artist, the facilitation, and the feedback that is given afterwards to all grantees, mean that the process has rigor, and that the conversation most often does not get reduced to a subjective judgment of art or allow one voice to dominate.

“Leeway’s panel process helped me see that ‘consensus’ could be more than a nonconfrontational way to get to the lowest common denominator. It is a process for helping panelists to assess where to place the weight of their own knowledge and passion, in the interest of serving the articulated values of the whole process. It encourages us to feel the weight of responsibility to step forward to champion an artist when our knowledge and experience deserves special weight in the process, and to step back when others on the panel deserve to wield that weight. We are encouraged to trust that this expression of championing and ‘yielding’ will result in decisions that were fair, informed and substantive.

It doesn’t work perfectly all the time, but it does in most instances.” (panelist, grantee and board member)

“Because Leeway recruits panelists, they have a developed political analysis, and that comes through on how people read the applications. … They’re thinking about power in a way that a range of people can get grants, small neighborhood projects to gallery world art curation projects.” (panel facilitator)

Shifting power through experiential learning

For some artists and cultural producers we spoke to, being on a panel taught them how philanthropic decision-making works, and they used this new knowledge and the power it gave them to apply for and get other grants, and to influence grantmaking processes in other places.

“I was so anti-grant as a community organizer. I’d never looked into it before Leeway, but shortly after that [being a Leeway panelist] I got approached for a fellowship ... that I received. I wouldn’t have conceived of doing that if I hadn’t been on the panel. I would have been really critical and unwilling to participate if I hadn’t seen that there was some possibility to redistribute resources like Leeway does. And reading their applications helped me write mine! I knew what I would be looking for as a panelist. ... It’s helped me be successful and know what to apply for because I know how the process works. Knowing how to frame things, how to balance talking about the art and the social justice aspects — all of those things helped me successfully leverage arts funding for the cultural organizing that I’ve done with my collective and individually. And I’ve helped dozens of other artists to apply for grant and fellowships, to be that kind of support system for my own community.” (panelist)