Support Equity for All in San Francisco
Show your support by signing this petition now
Last spring the City’s budget analyst Harvey Rose conducted a lengthy study of Grants for the Arts and found that communities of color received less than 28% of the agency's grant monies. Rose’s report contends that since 2006, GFTA's funding to communities of color have been trending downward. In response, the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee transferred over $300,000 originally allocated to GFTA to the Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants program.
The City’s funding inequities will not disappear and we need the Mayor and Board's acknowledgement that the problem exists. The solution could be simple and straightforward: no budget increases money should be allocated to GFTA until the agency submits a plan to diversify its funding. Until the agency publicly demonstrates its commitment to cultural equity, the City should award all new arts dollars to the Cultural Equity Grants Program.
This simple solution affirms that Western European arts forms are neither more nor less important than others and consequently, they should not receive the bulk of the city’s arts dollars. It also affirms that community art and artists can make a profound impact by preserving, promoting and fostering cultural expressions that authentically reflect the lives and experiences of all of San Francisco’s culturally diverse residents.
This approach should not allow the issue of cultural equity to be diverted into a discussion about combining the City’s two arts agencies. Nor should the solution take away grant dollars from the non-profit arts groups the City currently funds. GFTA’s general operating grants play a valuable role in the arts community’s stabilization and they should continue doing so.
We ask all City-funded arts groups and our elected officials to join us in recognizing the existence of disproportionate funding disparities and advocate for equitable funding allocations using the same criteria for all arts groups, thereby promoting cultural, social, economic and health equity for all San Franciscans.
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