Challenges and opportunities for Leeway

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEEWAY

In the course of the impact assessment, we saw clear support for how Leeway is working now, and even a mild concern that Leeway would change any of the elements of building community, grantmaking and programming that artists and cultural producers feel are working so well. Nevertheless, we did hear a small number of interviewees offer thoughtful challenges to Leeway, stemming from their expressed desire to see Leeway continue to grow. For each of these challenges and opportunities we suggest questions that Leeway could explore either as part of their forthcoming strategic planning process or operationally within the Leeway staff.

Supporting working-class women of color — Grantees knew and appreciated that Leeway works hard to center women and trans artists and artists of color, and to encourage them to apply for grants. A very small number of interviewees, however, questioned if Leeway is doing enough to support working-class women of color, which seemed to be based on an assumption that many of the gay and trans artists that Leeway funds have class and economic privilege. A white interviewee noted that they knew independently wealthy artists who had been awarded grants by Leeway, and this was frustrating for them as someone who didn’t have those resources.

“Leeway does try to do broad outreach, but it still attracts the same people! It’s around class. You can’t deal with class if everyone on your staff is middle class, even if Black, white, gay and straight. If you don’t have class diversity, then you have a blind spot on class. … When Leeway changed its funding priorities, it went from funding women painters to considering the work of people who were busting their ass. It made a lot of sense to make that change. But conversely, there’s a way you return to the problem you’re trying to solve in the current iteration. It just looks a little different. Maybe you’re not funding rich white women who paint with their husbands’ money, but now you’re funding gay people with resources who are aligned with institutions. You have to look and ask, is this really happening? It sneaks up on you! The people who apply are the same kind of people.” (grantee)

These critiques triggered an interesting conversation about class and economic privilege within Leeway as part of this process. Staff and board members noted that Leeway is committed to paying its staff sector-appropriate salaries, which means, for example, that women of color who work in Leeway may appear to be, or have become, middle class even though they have a variety of class backgrounds. Leeway’s “radical hospitality” is a choice to present grantees with plentiful support so they can escape feelings and realities of scarcity that they experience as working artists, but this may be perceived as a lavish use of resources by some applicants. In addition, Leeway doesn’t currently collect demographic information, which could include economic information, so that artists are free to define their identities in more complex ways than through a limited set of checkboxes. However, it means that Leeway staff are not able to assess the class backgrounds of their applicants to see if this

pattern does in fact emerge. Staff and board members noted that though this feedback might misunderstand the degree of support that Leeway gives to working-class women of color, if the perception exists out there about how Leeway is, or is not, supporting working-class women of color, then Leeway should respond.

Recommended question to explore: • How can Leeway learn more about the class background of applicants in order to ensure Leeway supports them as much as possible, while also not collecting demographic information in a traditional way that forces applicants into identity descriptions that don’t fully reflect them?

Improving the grantmaking panel process — Interviewees offered some areas for future consideration in thinking about who sits on the panels and how they make their decisions. One wondered if there are enough local, working-class artists and cultural producers on the panels. Another noted how artists do not have to submit work samples in the Art and Change Grant application, because the focus is on their story and their vision for and analysis of social change. They felt that perhaps the pendulum had swung too far in this respect, and that perhaps the panel should look at the applicant’s work as well as the social change impact. (We note that work samples are submitted in stage 2 of the Transformation Award process.)

“There were only three of us. How could we represent the larger community?! It felt very, how to put it, as if we were identity tokens, a Black woman, a Puerto Rican woman, and me a white trans-masculine person. We turned to whoever’s identity was closest to the project we were looking at. Was that OK? It felt tokenizing and reductive to the artist: They’re not just a trans artist. I was frustrated that the grant wasn’t interested in the art and only the social impact, and that there wasn’t information given about that. Like, “I’m making a film” is such a massive category. I only know their story for the film and their identity. I felt like that was a real oversight.” (grantee and panelist)

Recommended questions to explore: • How might Leeway want to change the makeup of the grantmaking panels in the future? ο Are there enough local, working-class artists and cultural producers sitting on the grantmaking panels? What is enough? • Should the Art and Change Grant applicants submit work samples as part of the application process?

Expanding Leeway’s national influencing role — All the national partners we spoke to wanted to see Leeway increase the time it spends influencing these wider philanthropic conversations. Some questioned whether or not Leeway actually wanted to do this. Some, knowing that Leeway’s resources and the executive director’s time are not limitless, questioned whether or not Leeway could take the time necessary for travel and conferences to influence these conversations. One national partner was not sure that Leeway had been as influential as it could have been. They thought this was because the work that Leeway is doing is too radical for mainstream philanthropic organizations, and because mainstream

philanthropy privileges white, straight, male voices that compete for coverage and attention, and because perhaps Leeway was content working with the smaller cadre of philanthropic colleagues who were already on these journeys, preaching to the choir, rather than reaching out to more conservative institutions.

“Like, it’s a very masculine, straight, we write blog posts, we thump our chest — and I don’t think that’s Leeway’s style, and so Leeway would rather it be known among the true. And it feels good about that. Those who know, know.” (national partner)

Recommended questions to explore: • Should Leeway spend more time working to influence national partners to take up key elements of the Leeway approach as described above? If yes, who does Leeway want to influence and why?

Building power or bridges — In the course of the impact assessment, we heard different analyses and opinions about how social change happens. These opinions might lead Leeway panels to different conclusions about what kinds of social change to fund, and artists and cultural producers to different conclusions about what their role as a social change artist is and what social change art they want to make. The forthcoming strategic planning process offers an opportunity for Leeway to explore these theories of change in more depth.

We heard two different opinions about what kind of social change work is needed in this current political moment. First, implicit in some of the interviews and the ripple effect exercise from the December 2018 community meeting was a building power theory of how change happens. It goes something like this: Power is unevenly distributed in society. People with power seldom give it away freely. In order to make change happen, oppressed communities need to build power and to organize. Many Leeway artists pay attention to and work on the social issues faced by oppressed communities and ways for them to build power, as they themselves are most often from those oppressed communities.

In the process of exploring how national partners working in philanthropy have learned from Leeway, one national partner said that they thought that the executive director’s background in community organizing was a crucial part of her influence on other foundations’ conversations about social change, because often program officers don’t know enough about how social change happens. 25 We also know that some staff and board members have a similar background in organizing or supporting organizing, and a similar analysis about how social change happens. It happens when communities build power, and art and culture can help them do that by illuminating the issues those communities face and illuminating potential solutions.

“Denise, because she brings a depth of experience as a community organizer, she is particularly insightful. What happens in our sector is that funders and practitioners have a vision for what change looks like, but they often don’t have the experience or tools of how to get there. There’s a real gap between aspirations and resources to pursue those aspirations.” (national partner)

Second, we heard that the artist should enable a bridging process, where divergent and/ or conflicting political points of view can meet and explore their differences, and this role is especially needed in this political moment. One national partner we spoke to noted that in the current polarized political climate arts grantmakers may need to explore how art can serve as a bridge in order to bring polarized sides together. On the other hand, one artist we interviewed talked about hearing from a famous artist that the responsibility of the artist was to be a bridge between victim and oppressor, and that they strongly disagreed that this was their role.

“He said we need to sit down with the victim and oppressor, and our role as an artist is to be a bridge between them. I was fed up. Our communities are under attack. And I just got really upset. I said I honestly don’t want to waste my time in trying to convince an oppressor of my humanity. I’d rather uplift the person who is being oppressed. He didn’t like that answer.” (grantee)

These questions echo a wider political debate: Is this a political moment to build bridges or build power? This may be a false dichotomy. Leeway may want to support artists to do both.

Recommended question to explore: • Does Leeway want to support artists and cultural producers to build bridges, build power or both?

Wit López (ACG ’18, ’19) performing at Leeway’s 25th anniversary Changemakers Cabaret, International House Philadelphia, October 16, 2018. Kenzi Crash 2018.