On Earth Day 2015 the City of New York released One New York: The Plan for a Strong and Just City. That plan enshrines equity as one of its core values, and for the first time in a sustainability plan of its kind, includes access to culture as one of the essential components of an equitable city.

In this context, “equity” means broadly that assets are distributed fairly and justly for the benefit of the public.

Inclusion refers to the degree to which individuals with diverse perspectives and backgrounds are able to participate fully in all elements of an organization, agency, or system. You might have a diverse staff, but is a diverse group actually involved in your organization’s decision-making processes? An inclusive group is, by definition, diverse. But a diverse group is not necessarily inclusive.

“More programs for low-income residents across the five boroughs with additional work for all types of artists.”

Jay
Artist, Manhattan

In 2015, DCLA launched an initiative as part of larger efforts to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the New York City cultural sector. The initiative began with a demographic study of DCLA’s more than 900 grantee organizations that examined race, ethnicity, gender, disability, age, and other factors.

The results, mirroring every other national study of its kind, were troubling. According to the study, New York City cultural staffs are 38% people of color and 62% white non-Hispanic. In contrast, U.S. Census data shows 67% of New York City’s population identifies as people of color and 33% white non-Hispanic. And the disparities were extreme: the whitest job in arts and culture? Curator. The jobs with fewest white workers: maintenance and security. And it gets worse. The report provided little or no data regarding people with disabilities or people of non-binary gender employed in our city’s cultural organizations—pointing to deeper structural issues we need to address collectively.

While issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access are often addressed using categories of identity and community, people and communities are not divided neatly along lines of race, gender, age, disability, immigration, or other characteristics, and that intersectionality is a critical part of the complex and nuanced ways we experience identity. Greater equity cannot be achieved through diversity and inclusion alone. Equity requires shifting policies and practices, not just numbers. It is a fundamental principle that benefits us all.

In direct response to these findings, an internal DCLA Diversity Committee formed to advise on the agency’s approach regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, as departure points for the work the agency does in programming, partnerships, and service as catalysts for like-minded work in the field. In pivoting toward inclusion, the agency will continue to engage Future Works Institute for inclusion training programs for DCLA staff and the larger cultural field.

PATTERNS IN FUNDING

According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, the largest percentage of the cultural community’s philanthropic support (42%) comes from individual donors. Studies have shown that these resources go primarily to large institutions, following self-reinforcing patterns of social connection. Meanwhile a 2015 DeVos Institute of Arts Management study, entitled Diversity in the Arts: The Past, Present, and Future of African American and Latino Museums, Dance Companies, and Theater Companies, revealed that arts organizations whose mission is to serve people of color and low-income communities report a median of only 5% of contributed revenue from individual donors. These networks of big donors have often been unavailable to low-income communities, which instead rely on government funding. This makes it an even greater imperative that public funding is allocated with an eye toward historic inequities.

“Many low-income community members don’t feel empowered to engage in the variety of arts and cultural opportunities in New York City; more needs to be done to bring the arts to low-income communities, and in bringing low-income community members to prestigious arts and cultural organizations.”

Rodney
NYCHA Resident, Queens

Across the country, funders are making efforts to increase equity and inclusion when distributing resources. Examples of progress are heartening. The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture has made a formal Commitment to Racial Equity that includes capacity building, space, and grant programs in alignment with the city’s Race and Social Justice Initiative. Los Angeles County has undertaken a Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative. And the San Francisco Arts Commission continues its decades-long commitment to cultural equity through its grant programs. Like OneNYC and DCLA’s sister agencies across the country, one of the main goals of CreateNYC is to promote a more inclusive and equitable cultural ecosystem in New York City.

SNAPSHOT OF PROGRESSIVE CULTURAL FUNDING

This is not the first time that New York City has made changes to more equitably fund cultural organizations. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the City added a dozen new members to the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), the first such deliberate expansion in the history of the CIG. These new members were primarily located outside Manhattan and focused on traditionally underserved communities, including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and El Museo del Barrio. This commitment to long-term, substantial public investment in these groups has helped them become cornerstones of New York’s cultural life.

Another major move toward equity came in 2008, when the City re-directed substantial amounts of capital support, funding provided to organizations for construction, renovations, and equipment. Before 2008, with few exceptions, capital funding from DCLA was available only to the CIG, whose members occupy City-owned property. Since that time, legal and policy changes have been made allowing City capital support to be available to many other groups not on City-owned property. In 2017, the City currently has over $800 million invested in cultural capital projects at around 200 organizations citywide. With little fanfare, this innovation opened a major new source of public funding to hundreds of nonprofit cultural organizations across New York City. City money now helps to provide better equipment, more accessible facilities, and indeed whole new buildings for the benefit of cultural audiences.

And over the last decade, the New York City Council has launched a series of initiatives directed at equity. These include the Coalition of Theatres of Color, the Immigrant Initiative, and SU-CASA, a creative aging program in senior centers citywide. Between these three initiatives, over $10 million will flow to organizations and artists in traditionally underrepresented groups in fiscal year 2018.

CREATENYC: A NEW CHAPTER IN PUBLIC SUPPORT

CreateNYC offers a new opportunity to increase the equitable funding of cultural organizations in New York City. Public input for the plan revealed a clear desire for more investment of resources in historically underserved communities, including people with disabilities. In addition to being a clear priority for New Yorkers, the recent Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) report provides compelling argument for greater equity in cultural funding.
The conclusions of the SIAP report highlighted in more detail on pages 41-43 were clear: while arts and culture are present in all neighborhoods, certain sectors of the city have more cultural assets and higher participation. This is particularly alarming because the study also shows that those cultural resources are correlated to better outcomes in health, safety, and education. Culture is an essential component of a thriving community. And New Yorkers feel it.

“Make art and culture available in other languages. There are a lot of Russian speakers in my neighborhood, but not much information.”

Stephen
Resident, Rego Park, Queens

Equity and inclusion were the highest priorities expressed through CreateNYC community engagement. More than three quarters of residents participating in a phone survey conducted by Siena College Research Institute said they wished they were able to attend more arts and cultural activities. According to respondents, location and cost are what most often stand in their way.

Similarly, barriers to equitable, accessible, and inclusive artistry were also identified throughout the engagement process. New York City is alive with creativity, and New Yorkers overwhelmingly value arts and culture in their lives. However, for many artists and cultural workers, a need exists to expand access to creative opportunities. Underrepresented communities continue to be challenged by historic and persistent patterns of exclusion—both as independent artists and cultural workers at all levels within institutions. Ahead, the City is tasked with prioritizing expanded support for diverse art forms and cultural groups such as disability arts and people with disabilities.

“芸術と文化を5つの小町に持ち込みましょう。 これはアートと音楽を通して文化と受容を教えるでしょう。”

“Bring the arts and culture to the five boroughs. This will teach culture and acceptance through arts and music.”

Elissa
resident, queens

CreateNYC provides an opportunity to support disability artistry and to ensure that it is widely acknowledged as an artistic discipline that uses disability as a tool and a source of creativity. Further, it presents an opportunity to acknowledge and highlight disability as an area of identity among artists, staff, leadership, and boards. Looking forward, New York City’s cultural ecosystem can grow in ways that allow a diversity of individuals and groups to thrive.

In New York City, arts and culture are for everyone. What follow are proposals for how we can seek cultural access for every New Yorker—no matter what neighborhood they call home—so people have access to the transformative benefits of culture as consumers and creators.

STRATEGIES

CASE STUDY

PROFILE