Key elements of how Leeway does its work

Building community

“So, it’s been really powerful for me to have a community that is just so multiple, so complex and such an ecosystem that is different creative mediums, different neighborhoods, different racial and ethnic groups, different generations. So, it’s one of those things that it’s a rare place that has so much of Philadelphia be part of it.” (grantee)

Social change happens through building relationships — Leeway believes that building relationships and community are necessary to achieving social change, and that centering relationships is a way to amplify the impact of limited grantmaking resources. They see it as a form of movement building. Leeway has built strong, vibrant relationships with artists and cultural producers working on social change in the wider Philadelphia area, and with local and national partners — relationships that are binding, and full of trust. In the impact assessment interviews, grantees and local partners said that they felt part of a community that Leeway had built. Grantees know and love the staff at Leeway, and feel like they have strong relationships with them, and that those relationships are a source of support. Almost everyone we spoke to loved the fact that getting a grant or being involved, say, as a panelist meant that you became and stayed a member of the Leeway community.

“They give funding, but they leverage so much more than an exchange of dollars. They are creating and growing community and appreciation, opportunities for new ideas, which they incorporate as they go along. I find it unique.” (grantee and panelist)

“They’re super smart, creative, generous. When I’d see them around, they’re super friendly. They were so excited about my Pew grant and wrote me to say so. That was really kind.” (grantee and panelist)

“There are so many ways I’ve seen Leeway support other people. ... They try to support someone even if they don’t have a current grant. I emailed Leeway to ask for teaching artist recommendations because I manage teaching artists. They sent me a list of 20 artists. It included an artist who hadn’t had a grant in 20 years, but they were still considered a member of the Leeway community.” (panel facilitator)

“Radical hospitality” — Leeway takes care of people when they’re in Leeway spaces in a thoughtful way, purposefully offering comfort and sustenance so that artists and cultural producers feel valued and respected. One artist, who had been both a grantee and a panelist, called this “radical hospitality.” 4 Leeway staff go out of their way to make sure there’s good food to eat, and that people are comfortable and feel at home whenever they come to events, workshops and meetings. They’re thoughtful about and responsive to people’s needs. When panelists come to Philadelphia to take part in a grantmaking panel, Leeway makes sure

they have everything they need. One artist talked about how Leeway creates a stress-free environment for group meetings. And people notice. Artists, cultural producers and partners, both local and those coming from far away, feel taken care of by Leeway. This care means that they feel loyal to Leeway. They feel that they are in active relationship with Leeway.

“[Because of Leeway I am] operating within strong values about how to center communities who should be at the forefront of the work and thinking well about how to make each stage of the process intentional and reflective of our values — from the snacks to how we pay and appreciate people’s work.” (panel facilitator)

“Local love” — Artists and cultural producers emphasized how unusual it is for them to have a local art and social change funder that supports them in their own city and community compared to colleagues in other cities and regions. They know that it’s unusual to have a local foundation that supports women and trans artists working on social change. It’s even rarer to have one that wants to build community with them, and shift power toward them. Artists and cultural producers we spoke to in other cities who know Leeway’s work also pointed out how unusual it is, and noted that their work would be better supported if they had access to similar resources.

“It was wonderful! Good to be recognized in my own city, which I feel like never happens. ... And finally, I get to exhibit my work at home with other brilliant artists. … It felt like really being treated how I want to be treated as an artist. They’re very classy at Leeway. They really treat people with respect. In Philly, it just feels like people throw you a bone and you’re supposed to be all happy about it.” (grantee)

Leeway is well known, and loved, by grantees and partners — It is unusual to carry out evaluation interviews where the responses are so loving and generous, and where people feel such a strong sense of connection to an organization. People did have criticisms, but offered these in a spirit of friendship and a desire to see Leeway continue to grow. It was striking how much grantees and partners knew about Leeway. They knew about Leeway’s history as an organization that had changed over time to address racial justice and become trans-affirming. They knew who worked there. They knew about Leeway events, the newsletter and information sessions. They knew how they could connect with Leeway and receive support from staff there. They pay attention to Leeway, maybe because they feel paid attention to. One local partner said that Leeway was a model of how generosity and democracy inspire love for an organization.

“There are ecosystems [in Philadelphia], and [they are] not always connecting. One of the virtues, Leeway has been able to make visible how they aren’t connecting and cut across systems and cultures. I think that there’s also ... raising principles, and being consistently responsible to those principles has raised the level of discourse and given clarity to what they’re doing. By doing this for 25 years consistently, and continuing to be a learning organization, there’s been this family building process of just intimate connections, purposeful and meaningful connections. Connections of feeling that are important to creating communities and interconnecting communities. It’s been very important that Leeway has continued to maintain a democratizing, decolonizing approach. Its work

around trans inclusion and making people understand that any moment for justice benefits everybody — that’s been hugely important. To the degree it responds to people coming into its orbit, it amplifies their capacity.” (grantee and panelist)

“Hearing critique is really difficult, but it’s really important. Because it’s Leeway, it’s part of the Philadelphia family, the Leeway Foundation is. So, when you get feedback from folks here, it’s like getting feedback from your artistic family, folks who you know want the best for you.” (grantee)

Shifting power to artists

Shifting power through grantmaking — Leeway’s grantmaking system aims to shift power to artists. Leeway’s approach to grant decision-making disrupts the traditional power dynamic between a funder and grantee. Leeway has done this by building a transparent and clear grantmaking process that is easier for applicants to understand and navigate, and by offering applicants extensive support to apply. Leeway’s staff don’t make grantmaking decisions; instead, other artists and cultural producers from the Philadelphia area and further afield do. All applicants get feedback on their application whether or not they were successful, with the goal being to make the decision-making process transparent. Leeway understands when grant plans need to change. Interviewees and participants at the community meeting confirmed that these actions mean that they have more power in the grantmaking process. 5

“The notion of doing philanthropy having let go … of that type of power … is such a more honest way of being and is so much in some ways demanding, because it demands that you have honest and challenging relationships with your peers and with the artists in your community, and if they keep talking to you it might be because they are interested in hearing what you say, and if they laugh at you it might be because you are funny.” (national partner)

Leeway’s clarity and transparency about what they are looking for in the grants shifts power toward the artist. Via the outreach described below, Leeway clearly describes how the application process works, and what they’re looking for in an application. Interviewees noted that other funders sometimes obscure the process, and in doing so hold on to power.

“I had been nominated for a larger award in Philly that I didn’t get. I got such mixed messages from [the other funder]. I went to Leeway and got help and went to an info session. I talked to Sara Zia. I was amazed at how transparent they were. Other grants processes are needlessly mystified, which is so frustrating. ... Usually if you approach a foundation it’s just a complete soup — they won’t tell you anything — which is a shame, because clearly they’re looking for something, and sometimes applying for these applications is a part-time job … and yet the amounts of money are tiny. It’s like the Hunger Games for a tiny amount.” (grantee and panelist)

Leeway is committed to grantmaking processes and grant conditions that shift power to the artists and cultural producers. We cannot tell if the positive impacts of the Leeway grants listed below are enhanced because of this shift in power, but the rewards for Leeway are stronger trust and relationships between Leeway and artists and cultural producers.

CeCe McDonald and Joshua Allen during a Black Excellence Tour Free CeCe discussion sponsored by Leeway Foundation at the BlackStar Film Festival. Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, August 2016.

Flexibility — When it comes to the work the grantees do, Leeway is flexible and realistic about the unexpected twists and turns a project can take. A small number of grantees worried that this lets people off the hook for completing the project, but Leeway is clear that the journey is as important as the destination.

“What I think is … really positive and important about the way that Leeway funds [is that] ... the organization behaves like an organization that understands how artist projects actually roll out. You say it will take 12 months and then it takes 18 months, and they understand. That’s really important for women and trans artists. Women are managing multiple things at the same time, responding to people’s needs and crises, and they have an innate understanding of that and build it into their practice.” (grantee)

Working at the margins — We heard from grantees, Leeway staff and board members that Leeway is committed to figuring out as an ongoing process what the new edge of art and social change work is, and who is now at the margins who can be invited into that work. The goal is to bring those people into community with other artists and cultural producers working on social change.

“I think what’s great about the evolution of Leeway is that they’ve always tried to figure out what’s at the margins now and how do we push that and bring that closer to, I mean, not the center (who cares about the center?), but how do we lift up those voices? How do we broaden the platform so that other folks can stand on that? Now that we’ve pushed at these margins, what’s beyond those margins? And what’s beyond that?” (grantee)

Stepping out into the neighborhood — Leeway’s goal is to make the application process as accessible as possible. They don’t wait for applicants to come to them; they go out to where they are. Leeway holds information sessions for artists and cultural producers in neighborhoods around the region. They ask a previous grantee from that area to come along and talk about their experience as a grantee. Each year program staff look for new places to hold sessions in neighborhoods where the foundation has received very few or no applications.

Grantees, panelists and local partners are enthusiastic about Leeway’s outreach and can see that they actively try to encourage people who haven’t applied before to apply. Grantees love the information sessions, find them useful and practical, and like that grantees are there to explain what they did. Several grantees we spoke to said they had applied because Leeway reached out to them in some way. New applicants come into Leeway’s orbit, become grantees and go on to recruit new applicants to Leeway. If Leeway were not effectively developing relationships and reaching people through outreach, artists and cultural producers would likely not encourage so many of their peers to apply.

“Bread & Roses 6 and Leeway are both unique in how they work and how they engage the community. Others rely on their program officers as the expert. I always think: But you’re not the expert. But Leeway makes a concerted effort to see who else is out there, and to bring them in. I think it’s really important as opposed to relying on who you know.” (panel facilitator)

“I guess what comes to mind during my time on the board [is that] they were reaching out to Camden and South Jersey. I guess I was just struck during that time about how intentional and methodical they were — not just doing this in a performative way, but like, who do we need to talk to and how do we recruit? … How do we get the word out? … They were always very clear about like, how do we make this happen? Do we want this population to know about us? And to cultivate those relationships in real ways.” (grantee and former Leeway board member)

“Receiving the [Art and Change] grant was deeply affirming, and led to one of the most important creative processes in my life, which continues to have ripple effects now over 10 years later. Later, Leeway invited me to a ‘Learn more about the Transformation Award process’ event designed to encourage Art and Change grantees to apply for the Transformation Award. I wouldn’t have applied without that encouragement. The application process and receiving the award enabled me to shift the ways I take myself seriously as an artist.” (grantee)

A culture of learning and experimentation

Internal culture of learning and experimentation — Leeway staff and board members have built and continue to nurture an internal culture of learning and experimentation, a culture that is adaptive. The application process is a place where Leeway aims to respond to feedback they hear from applicants, grantees and panelists about emerging issues that frame the context for artmaking. For example, Leeway is currently considering how the application might engage more deeply with the question of privilege, a theme that surfaces frequently in panel deliberations. The process of Leeway becoming a trans-affirming organization involved learning and adaptation over many years. Leeway staff and board members explored and resolved questions around making sure the office space was welcoming for trans people, new practices around hiring, updating the application process to support trans applicants and many other steps. Leeway staff are clear that Leeway is an incubator of new ideas, a place to experiment and learn.

“At Leeway, I feel like I’m part of a big experiment. … Leeway is this rare place where we get to experiment with questions about money, power and community tangibly. Like, what happens when a family walks away from its wealth and fully releases their power to the community? What happens when we bring different people together in a consensus process to decide on the grants while also building community and trust with each other in the process? What would it look like if we valued artists’ work outside of a capitalist or post-colonial framework of marketability or museum exhibitions? Artist/activist adrienne mariew brown talks about modeling at the microlevel the kind of world we want at large, and Leeway is a place where we get to do that. It’s not always perfect, but it’s not about perfection. It’s about continuing to show up, observe and grow.” (staff member)

Space for grantees to experiment — Grantees also feel the benefit of this culture of experimentation and learning. They think that there is a lot of space given by Leeway in the application process and the project/award itself to learn and make mistakes. Staff provide

detailed advice on how to complete the application. The goal is to help the applicant write the best application they can, rather than to safeguard the technicalities of the process. One artist talked about a staff person from Leeway calling them and telling them about a mistake that they made on the application and telling them to fix it and send it back in. Leeway staff are able to provide this level of support in part because grantmaking decisions are made by independent panels, which frees Leeway staff to focus on supporting applicants to craft great applications.

Learning exchanges — Leeway aims to be generous and proactive in sharing their expertise and experience with local and national partners. For example, in 2014 colleagues at the Surdna and Robert Rauschenberg foundations who were interested in Leeway’s approach to grantmaking and charged with developing new grant programs focused on individuals and organizations working at the intersection of art, culture and change consulted with Leeway’s executive director as they were creating the programs that became Surdna’s Artists Engaging in Social Change program and Rauschenberg’s Artist as Activist program. 7

Leeway also supports staff and board members to engage deeply with and learn from emerging cultural and philanthropic practices elsewhere. The leadership of Leeway felt it was important to acknowledge that their work doesn’t happen in isolation, and that the foundation’s philanthropic practice has been informed by the following:

Learning from artists, organizers, colleagues, peer organizations and other partners in the field — some working in philanthropy and others deeply embedded within the spheres and points of intersection of art, culture and social change Being in spaces where current philanthropic practice was and is being broken down and rebuilt to better support and engage with ideas and constituencies outside the mainstream

For example, the executive director’s foundational influences include the following:

The formative and visionary work of the late Claudine Brown, former director of the Arts and Culture program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation 8

Decades of involvement with Bread & Roses Community Fund 9 and the Funding Exchange (which closed in 2018), 10 first as staff at Bread & Roses, and as a board member of both organizations, which provided grounding in a community-based participatory grantmaking model

Attendance at the National Network of Grantmakers (NNG) conference (NNG closed in 2008)

Roberta Uno’s work as a senior program officer for arts and culture at the Ford Foundation, including her support of Artography: Arts in a Changing America 11

Leveraging Investment in Creativity (LINC), 12 a 10-year initiative created to effect change in the support system for artists

Alternate ROOTS 13 and its explicit focus on artists and cultural producers who work for social justice, including the development of the Intercultural Leadership Institute, 14

ROOTS’ collaboration with the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC), 15 First Peoples Fund 16 and PA’I Foundation 17

The Allied Media Conference (AMC), which is produced by Allied Media Projects, 18 a network of people and projects rooted in Detroit cultivating media for liberation

The Art and Culture Social Justice Network, 19 a network of artists, activists, culture bearers and funders from around the country committed to the power of art and culture to advance social justice

Her role as a board member of Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA), 20 where she contributed to and benefited from the thought leadership that emerged from its racial equity committee. 21

Elevating and celebrating artists

Programming and celebration — Leeway carries out programming that aims to support their mission and enhance the impact of their grantmaking by increasing the opportunities for and visibility of their grantees’ artmaking. Programming in 2018 included new artist residencies and the 25th anniversary exhibition and celebrations. Leeway celebrates and promotes their grantees with verve and joy through events, exhibitions, performances, etc. Interviewees noted how they learned about new and/or interesting work and events through Leeway, and that they had had their own work promoted by Leeway. They felt more aware of other artists and cultural producers because of Leeway, and more connected to them. They did not say that specific collaborations had emerged from these connections, except for in the 25th anniversary exhibition, which provided collaboration opportunities for some of the artists and which they described as a powerful experience. These artists also said that working side-byside with the other artists as part of the exhibition had been a rewarding experience, and that they hoped that Leeway would do more exhibitions celebrating grantees’ work.

Each year Leeway publishes the artist book, which includes descriptions of every grantee and their work. Leeway wants to give a platform to the artists and cultural producers so that they all receive attention, rather than attention flowing only to those who already have a profile or other funding. As with all Leeway products, the artist book is striking to look at and highquality, with a distinctive and recognizable aesthetic, again as a way to validate the grantees’ work. Leeway distributes the artist book to grantees and local and national partners.

“That [artist book] was unlike any document I had ever seen from philanthropy. (a) It was beautiful, and (b) the group of artists who were selected and represented in that document were completely outside — not that they didn’t have relationships to conventional institutions, but it was a list that only Leeway could come up with, and it included trans people and it included a range of artistic practices that maybe were not legible to conventional philanthropy.” (national partner)

Detail of blackboard with messages to the ancestors from the altar room installation dedicated to Ana Guissel Palma (LTA ’17; ACG ’17, ’15, ’11). The altar room was designed by Erika Guadalupe Nuñez (LTA ’17; ACG ’17, ’15) for the Making Space: Leeway @ 25 exhibit at Moore College of Art & Design. Denise Brown 2018.

Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement, and artist and cultural organizer Favianna Rodriquez in a conversation moderated by Sonalee Rashatwar at The Pleasure Principle: Finding Pleasure in the Age of #MeToo, a program of Leeway’s 25th anniversary celebration. Temple Contemporary, Temple University, December 5, 2018. Kenzi Crash 2018.