Helping funders and arts organizations realize their vision since 1996.

Fair Funding Access
A Call for Interest in Assessing Progress
From Grantmakers in the Arts
and the Doris Duke Foundation

Deadline: September 10, 2025

How are you continuing to advance your support for fair access to funding?
How do we know what progress means over time?

Overview
FAQs
Intake Form Questions
Link to Intake Form
Book a Consultation

Overview of Intake Process

Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) and the Doris Duke Foundation invite arts funders that are GIA members to work with your peers to explore the answers to these questions. 

Managed with Callahan Consulting for the Arts (CCA), Fair Funding Access (FFA) is a project to develop and test a system for measuring the fairness of its grantmaking by participating arts funders.

The goals of FFA are for funders to:

  1. Move from general impressions of progress to concrete data about the degree to which our grant portfolios are making progress in advancing fair access to funding.
  2. Augment our grants data with an agreed-upon set of measures of fair funding access, as developed by peers.
  3. Take ownership of our data and our story of addressing fair funding access.
  4. Eventually, consider setting goals related to fair funding access to which we can hold ourselves and our field accountable.

Over several years, Doris Duke Foundation developed the FFA Framework by working with a larger cohort of funders, mostly foundations, to measure the fairness and effectiveness of their arts grants in meeting their stated goals. Originally, racial disparities were the main source of content for the framework, but the flexible design can be adapted to other funder priorities or interest areas.

FFA will provide a discussion space about encouraging fair funding access as well as technical assistance to do so in dialogue with our peers.

Through an intake process, GIA is collecting information to better understand your organization’s interest in FFA as well as your capacity to participate. Using this information, a group of 30-60 funders to be invited to participate. FFA has two Tiers; GIA members can participate in one or both tiers.

Requirements

Tier 1 involves attending a series of  monthly forums in 2025 to share recent experiences and strategies in funding according to their values and aims. These sessions will not be recorded.  

Tier 2 involves learning about and applying the FFA measurement framework to code your grants for their fairness according to your goals, and participating in monthly sessions (which will not be recorded). Support will be offered from GIA staff, CCA, and/or peers. GIA members will be required to code data from their arts portfolio, as well as actively participate in meetings.

Coding will be done using a Working Guide, a set of measures that were designed with arts funders including DDF, Jerome Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Opportunity Fund and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in prior rounds of REG.* You will sort and code your grants across two stages:

  • Rough Sort. A quick review to filer out grants that are not related to your specific aims for fair funding.
  • Refined Coding. A closer assessment of each individual grant remaining on the list. In this step, program staff will apply ratings (e.g., low, medium, high) across three measures related to the organization, grant activities and beneficiaries and write a short rationale for each rating.

Both Tiers are required to sign a confidentiality statement about this project so as to protect your and your organization’s privacy as well as that of the other FFA participants, and ensure the integrity of the coding process, as it was designed and intended. 

See FAQs to learn more about the time involved and other aspects of FFA.

Benefits and Support

Participating arts funders will receive:

  • Individual technical assistance offered by CCA and/or GIA staff. 
  • Guidance from peers in coding grants and using that data to build understanding and foster change within their organizations.
  • The opportunity to develop a data set that can be built upon in future years.
  • A deeper understanding of how to apply measures in areas of interest to grants data.

  • Guidance in developing visuals and reporting that can be used in presenting findings to others, such as senior leadership and boards.  

Schedule

Selection process: September 2025:  members notified about acceptance.
Tier 1: Meetings take place on October 1, during GIA conference, at a time TBD, November 5, December 10. All online meetings take place at 12:00-1:30 ET.  (However, note that members who are not attending the conference, and therefore cannot participate in the in-person meeting, will not be disqualified.)
Tier 2: Activities begin in January 2026. Training will be provided via an online session, video, and written guide. Monthly meetings will take place at a regular time TBD.  In addition, staff from GIA and/or CCA will be available to offer technical assistance at a time convenient for participants. 

See elsewhere on this page for details on applying and selection. 

Selection Criteria

GIA seeks members with:

  • Past engagement with addressing fairness in their grantmaking through, for example, grants made, programs, decisions, and policies.
  • The willingness to learn about effectiveness in addressing fair funding access.
  • The desire, on the part of the funder, to hold themselves accountable in addressing fairness within their giving.
  • The capacity to participate, as outlined above.

We will select a group of about 30-60 members with a range of budget sizes that support the arts in a variety of ways.  Priority will be given to members who commit to participating in both Tiers.  

To Apply 

To express interest, complete the form at this link by September 10, 2025. The questions asked are available separately here. 

Questions? Email fair@ForTheArts.org or schedule a 30-minute consultation via Calendly. 

* Acknowledgements also go to participants in the 2023-24 cohort: 

Calgary Arts Development, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, Atlanta, GA

Doris Duke Foundation, New York, NY

Indy Arts Council, Indianapolis, IN

Jerome Foundation, St. Paul, MN

National Performance Network, New Orleans, LA

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, New Orleans, LA

Opportunity Fund, Pittsburgh, PA
The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Washington DC

Success:  

Plan for it.
Fund it.
Measure it.