Description

Arts organizations rooted in communities of color often operate at the intersection of artistic ambition and structural disadvantages such as a lack of funding from governments and philanthropies. Despite these disadvantages, they produce extraordinary work with significant cultural and civic value. 

With the goal of supporting early career scholars and building out the evidence base within the field, Wallace approached the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to establish a fellowship to help build a better understanding of the practices and the effects of such organizations. The fellowship, called the Arts Research for Communities of Color Fellowship, matched scholars with organizations participating in Wallace’s Thriving Communities cohort of the Advancing Well-Being in the Arts initiative. Fellows and their partner organizations worked together to address key questions of importance to the organizations, with many focused on organizational history and culture. Fellows produced evidence-based resources for the organizations with which they were paired as well as academic scholarship for the field. 

This report analyzes cross-cutting themes in the fellows’ work. It presents an overview of the organizations’ contributions to cultural innovation and identifies a set of adaptive strategies that shape how arts organizations rooted in communities of color sustain their work—and, in turn, contribute to cultural vitality and community connection.