Taking Steps to Center Equity

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

That phrase resonates with The Presser Foundation as we seek to center equity and end systemic inequities. We began our equity journey in 2019 and accelerated it after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.

You can learn more about the “why” of centering equity in a previous blog post. In this post, we wanted to share the “what” and “how” – what steps are we taking and how are we implementing them. Fully centering equity takes time, but there are steps that can be completed more immediately. The work accomplished in the short-term allows for the recognition that larger steps to center equity takes time and committed engagement. Short-term successes make long-term change possible.

Learn more about what we’ve done so far.

• Expanding the genres of music funded.
  • Originally a funder of only classical music, the Foundation has expanded to fund music organizations working in a broad range of traditions, genres, and styles.
• Hiring a Racial Equity Intern to conduct an analysis on the demographics of the Foundation’s nonprofit partners and Undergraduate Scholar Award recipients.
  • In the summer of 2021, the Foundation hired an intern to do this work. Artivia Tahir conducted research and analysis on the Foundation’s partners and created a report based on that analysis.
• Re-evaluating grantmaking guidelines through the lens of racial equity.
  • The Special Projects grantmaking area considers grant requests for grants for innovative and special projects in music. Typically, this includes funding for pilot programs and first-time collaborations between music organizations or a music organization and a non-music organization, significant organization anniversaries, and initial general operating funding for newly established music organizations. For the 2021-22, the Special Projects Committee considered applications for planning grants up to $5,000 for efforts to center racial equity within music organizations.
    • The Foundation will continue to consider applications for racial equity planning grants in the 2022-23 fiscal year.
  • This is still a work in progress – we’re slowly but surely reviewing all of the applications and reports to see how we can make them less burdensome. We know there’s more work to be done to fully integrate equity into the requests that we have for our partners.
• Hiring a Music Fellow to amplify the work of our grantee partners.
  • The Foundation recently hired a Music Fellow to work with us during the 2022-23 academic year. The Fellow will attend grantee music organizations’ performances and programs, and write about performances, programs, people contributing to the field, and other music-related stories in blog posts. The Fellow’s music knowledge and programming experience will also significantly contribute to the Foundation’s grantmaking processes.
  • As part of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, The Presser Foundation is committed to incorporating more diverse voices within its staff to inform the Foundation’s external communications and grantmaking. In addition, the Foundation hopes to amplify its grantees’ voices and share, with a broad audience, thoughts and reflections on its grantees’ performances and programs.
• Hosting our “Next Movement” event that featured nonprofit partners as panelists in a conversation about racial equity practices and efforts.
  • We also paid the panelists for their time and thoughts!
• Hiring a designer to revamp our website so that it’s more transparent and more “welcoming” for a variety of music organizations.
• Creating a standing DEI committee so that these efforts will continue to be front and center.
• Finding office space that is accessible and meets requirements so that it is seen as a usable space among grantee organizations.
• And there’s more, but I’ll stop here.

Our efforts (not all listed here) so far have considered the Foundation’s grantmaking, communications, investments, convening power, and more. We’ve completed some work. But we know there is a great deal more to do. More complex efforts take time and tough conversations. These aren’t practices that will be implemented over night, and frankly, they shouldn’t be.

For example, one of our areas of exploration is identifying and bringing on more diverse trustees and committee members. We’re actively looking into platforms such as DiverseForce. However, we also don’t want to tokenize individuals/potential board members (in other words, ask them to serve on the board just to have them there). The Foundation wants to have board members whose passions and talents and energies align with what the Foundation is looking for. We know it’s vital to have diverse viewpoints, experiences, and opinions, but what we don’t want is a talented individual feeling like they were asked to join the board simply because of one demographic characteristic.

These are the thoughts and conversations that we’re having. Some centering equity efforts have been easy or easier to implement. Others will take time, and lots of thinking, feedback, iterative design, and so much more. But The Presser Foundation is in this for the long haul. We’re committed to these efforts. Our goal is to not move too slowly, because racism has been embedded in this country since the 1600s. We know that we need to move constantly, consistently, thoughtfully, and intentionally.

We’ll continue to share updates as we strive to learn more, implement these efforts, and become more transparent about our work and our efforts.

If you have comments, questions, or feedback to share with us, reach out to me, Abby Rolland, at arolland@presserfoundation.org.