Pittsburgh Black Arts initiative wins major donation
“We are grateful to MacKenzie Scott for her award that celebrates the organizations and individuals who have received funding from our program, and who continue to contribute to artistic excellence in our community.” — Lisa Schroeder, The Pittsburgh Foun
The Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh initiative is on a list of nearly 300 organizations that will receive part of $2.74 billion in funding from MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist wrote in a blog post published Tuesday.
In the post titled “Seeding by Ceding,” Ms. Scott, the exwife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said, “Community-centered service is such a powerful catalyst and multiplier,” adding that she and her team worked to identify and evaluate “equity-oriented nonprofit teams working in areas that have been neglected. The result was $2,739,000,000 in gifts to 286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked.”
Ms. Scott, 50, said a portion of the money will go to The Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh program, which provides grants to artists in the community in partnership with The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments. Its mission is to provide “access and opportunity to Black artists and is committed to helping create a vibrant cultural life in Pittsburgh and the region.”
Ms. Scott did not reveal how much funding would go to each organization but said they will be “relatively large gifts” that will “enable their work, and as a signal of trust and encouragement, to them and to others.” However, The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments issued a joint statement confirming that the initiative will receive $2 million.
In the joint statement, Lisa Schroeder, president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation, and Grant Oliphant, president of The Heinz Endowments, said: “This is terrific news and is a wonderful recognition of the canon of Black cultural creativity in Pittsburgh.
“In uplifting this program that for more than a decade has supported artists rooted in the Black experience, this generous grant underscores an invaluable part of Pittsburgh’s rich cultural heritage. We are grateful to MacKenzie Scott for her award that celebrates the organizations and individuals who have received funding from our program and who continue to contribute to artistic
excellence in our community.
“We are extremely proud of the success of our joint Advancing Black Arts initiative and deeply thankful for this support,” they said.
Ms. Scott said the recipients “were selected through a rigorous process of research and analysis.”
“These are people who
have spent years successfully advancing humanitarian aims, often without knowing whether there will be any money in their bank accounts in two months,” she said. “What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected? Buy needed supplies. Find new creative ways to help. Hire a few extra team members they know they can pay for the next five years. Buy chairs for them. Stop having to work every weekend. Get some sleep.”
According to the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh website, the program’s goals are to:
• Help build the careers and support the lives of individual artists.
• Increase the sustainability of cultural organizations that focus on Black arts.
• Build community awareness of the Black arts sector.
• Support efforts toward greater collaboration and the elimination of racial disparities within the larger arts sector.
• Prioritize the documentation and discussion of Black artists’ work and well -being as part of the region’s cultural health.
• Support work that directly addresses and calls for the eradication of systemic and structural racism that allows for disparities to exist.
The program is not the first Pittsburgh organization to be on the receiving end of Ms. Scott’s generosity.
In December, she distributed $4.2 billion in grants, with the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh receiving $20 million. The YWCA was among 384 organizations that received money.
According to Forbes, Ms. Scott is the 22nd-richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of nearly $53 billion.