GIA Podcast

In honor of November’s Arts & Health Month, GIA brings together experts from across the field to explore how the arts contribute to healthier, more connected communities. Throughout the series, guests consider the arts’ role in well-being, environmental health, cultural organizing, and policy-making. Listen to the episodes for shared ideas and experiences on how creative work can support community life.

Across the nonprofit arts sector, national regranting programs are ending and institutional infrastructures are shrinking as philanthropy resets how it supports the field. In this moment of contraction and uncertainty, institutions can no longer afford to remain unprepared to work with artists on structural design. The Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists program (DFA) became one attempt to learn how.   In this episode, Haowen Wang of Dance/USA joins artists Laurel Lawson and Peter Rockford Espiritu (Tau), and curator Michèle Steinwald to reflect on eight years of responsive design through DFA. Together, they examine moments of rupture, redesign, and learning, and share lessons about what it takes for institutions to reposition themselves so artists can lead. This episode was recorded on March 9, 2026.

AI is often framed as either a miracle tool or a looming threat, but what does it actually mean for disabled artists navigating grants, fellowships, and creative partnerships? In this episode, Meier Galblum Haigh [Hague] and Kenrya Rankin from Disability Culture Lab take over the GIA podcast to unpack the realities of AI, from access tools to authorship, labor, and institutional policy. Listen for an examination on how justice-minded organizations can channel conversations about AI that center on disabled artists’ autonomy, creativity, and care.

In philanthropy, when we think about all of the ways we are invested in our communities, we often don’t think about our retirement savings. Yet, around $20 trillion is invested in retirement savings across the United States. However, who gets to participate in our retirement systems, how decisions are made about our retirement money, and how that money is used before we retire are often complex and, frankly, hard to navigate in ways that align with our values. In this podcast episode, Rachel Fagiano (Philanthropic Consultant and Former Senior Fellow with Funders for Justice) interviews Erin Axelrod (LIFT Economy), Courtney Wicks (Racial Justice Investing Coalition) about ways foundation staff can start thinking about a spectrum of interventions and community care when we think about retirement – at the tactical, organizational, and worker levels  – and how that can impact you and your community.  The Center for Cultural Innovation commissioned Rachel Fagiano to author a toolkit called Envisioning Retirement that explores these themes. Listeners interested in next steps should be encouraged to follow an upcoming working group from Racial Justice Investing, co-sponsored by LIFT Economy and Just Futures.

Sunsetting a foundation isn’t just a financial decision; it’s relational and strategic. In this GIA podcast episode, Cate Fox (Center for Cultural Innovation) and Farhad Ebrahimi (Solidaire Network) share candid insights from their (completed and/or currently active) spend down journeys, unpacking how funders can collaborate to avoid funding cliffs, align resources, and strengthen the cultural ecosystem. This conversation tackles the tension between strategic clarity and trust, what it takes to foster vulnerability with grantees, practical steps funders can take to begin a spend down journey, and the importance of civic positionality. This podcast was recorded on January 21, 2026.

We asked a simple, generative question: Which systems have we replaced, and with what alternatives? A clear chorus answers: we’ve lost too much to speed and spectacle, and we’re committed to building slower, more human infrastructures of care. Across voices, we hear a shift from optimization to stewardship, from extraction to relation, from technology to meaning. “We’ve emphasized education and the arts and rethought our political infrastructure for something more humane.” —Radha M. This is a practical imagination. It doesn’t trade in slogans; it drafts replacements—communication that protects dignity, mobility that privileges access, governance that codes care, and practices that rehearse the futures we want. Which system will you replace—and what will you grow there instead? Learn more about Deem at www.deemjournal.com

We asked a body-level question: What does “enough” look and feel like—of time, resources, rest? What emerged isn’t a finish line but a practice. Voices move from accumulation to sufficiency (“needs—with a handful of wants”), from schedules to presence (“time, not clocks”), from lone resilience to shared accountability. “Enough” shows up as a calmer nervous system and a commons that redistributes care—room to breathe, margin for the unknown, and infrastructures that make slowness livable. “Enough isn’t a destination—it’s a practice.” —Sophia F. The invitation is practical and collective: how do we design for capacity, not just velocity, so everyone has time to belong? This week, what single ritual could you add—or what metric could you retire—to build your capacity to rest and respond? Learn more about Deem at www.deemjournal.com

Across these voices, freedom isn’t a destination; it’s a practice. It appears as chosen absence—leaving the phone behind and meeting the world unmediated. It shows up as chosen presence—tending a youth garden with a child, anchored to land and purpose. And it arrives as chosen attention—making space for curiosity even while money, health, and deadlines hum in the background. Two tensions thread the tape. First, freedom versus feeling free: several voices name the gap between the performance of ease and the structural conditions that make ease possible—or impossible. Second, solitude versus community: for some, freedom is sensory quiet and softened obligations; for others, it’s the company of people whose unguarded expression rubs off, reminding us freedom can be contagious. “So feeling free doesn’t always mean freedom or equate to having freedom. Feeling free is just a feeling.” —Robert S. Freedom is evolving and improvised, found in small choices that let us reclaim scale and self amid obligation. If freedom is a practice, what will you subtract—or what will you stand closer to—this week to make room for it? Learn more about Deem at www.deemjournal.com

Community-oriented arts organizations are the lifeblood of their communities, and support for their work is more vital than ever. Yet, they are often the hardest for large funders to reach. The Wallace Foundation believes that intermediary regranting organizations, often overlooked, can play a pivotal role in bridging this gap to get support where it is needed most.  As part of its Advancing Well-being in the Arts initiative, a five-year initiative supporting arts organizations rooted in communities of color, Wallace partnered with the six Regional Arts Organizations (RAOs) on regranting efforts that sought to better understand and alleviate the constraints intermediaries may face when undertaking equitable regranting efforts. In this GIA podcast episode, we will hear from Juan Souki (Mid-Atlantic Arts), Anika Tené (Creative West), and Joy Young (formerly South Arts) in conversation with Bahia Ramos (Wallace Foundation). This podcast was recorded on September 5, 2025

What assumptions have we inherited that limit the transformative potential of philanthropy? And how can funders release ourselves from the constraints of these limiting beliefs? In this episode, GIA is joined by Mandy Van Deven (Elemental), Zaineb Mohammed (Kataly Foundation), and Erin Williams (Constellations Culture Change Fund and Initiative) to explore some of the narratives that underpin common practices in philanthropy and provide examples of funders that have adopted ways of thinking and being that accelerate progress toward a more just and joyful world. Building from The Myths of Philanthropy series that was published by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the Association of Charitable Foundations, and VITA, this conversation challenges cultural funders to imagine what becomes possible when we shift the narrative: from scarcity to abundance, from rigid structure to iterative practice, and from donor darlings to a flourishing ecosystem. Listeners will walk away with bold insights on how narrative strategy isn’t about magic words, messaging, and single stories, and a better understanding of the role funders can play through the application of resource redistribution and other acts of solidarity that enable our collective liberation.