Collaborative for Creative Practice and Social Justice
United by a steadfast commitment to collaboration and positive community change, twenty-one arts and cultural organizations were brought together by The William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in April 2017 to form a professional learning community called the Collaborative for Creative Practice and Social Justice.
In August 2021, after more than eighteen months of planning, the Collaborative for Creative Practice and Social Justice and The William R. Kenan, Jr Charitable Trust launched a new and transformative funding model for the fields of art, culture, and education.
The new Collaborative for Creative Practice and Social Justice Fund was designed, structured, and administered by an opt-in committee of Collaborative members, transferring the decision-making power for resource allocation from the Carolina-based Trust to the Collaborative organizations situated in, and working in partnership with, communities of color in New York City and Durham, North Carolina.
By asserting a new model of participatory grantmaking that centers the wisdom and experience of a diverse range of leaders working collaboratively, the Fund will have two lasting impacts: demonstrating a methodology for achieving greater equity across the field, and stabilizing quality arts programming within the nonprofit sector, which too often must shift its priorities to meet the interests of institutional philanthropy.
By empowering the Collaborative to self-govern the Fund, The William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust has seeded a paradigmatic shift in philanthropic and organizational behavior.
The Power of Many: A Collaborative’s Journey toward Social Justice and Creative Practice celebrates the co-creative work of professionals dedicated to social transformation through the arts in their own words.
This book was co-written by staff drawn from a group of twenty-one organizations across New York City and North Carolina who all work toward social justice through a variety of arts-based practices.