Pittsburgh's Cultural Treasures

collage of black artists and artwork with an overlay of the Pittsburgh Cultural Treasures word mark

Pittsburgh's Regional Strategy for the Ford Foundation's America's Cultural Treasures Regional Challenge Initiative

Overview

The Heinz Endowments is honored to join the Ford Foundation and its national partners on the America’s Cultural Treasures Regional Challenge Initiative. The Endowments has long held a deep commitment to supporting Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and cultural organizations in the Pittsburgh region. In the wake of a global pandemic and racial justice uprisings, philanthropy has been rightly challenged to examine its history and role in addressing inequity. Alongside other national and regional partners in this effort, we welcome this opportunity to lift up a proud cultural tradition, better understand its needs and significance, and invest in meaningful ways that will contribute mightily to the culture and dynamism of our community.

Ford’s goal for the program is to “provide regionally significant cultural organizations of color with meaningful sums of operating support during this period of unprecedented upheaval, and to encourage related local efforts to strengthen cultural endeavors that reflect and benefit BIPOC communities over the next five years.” The Ford Foundation will provide $5 million that will be matched with $5 million by the Endowments. Given Pittsburgh’s demographics, the Ford Foundation and the Endowments have agreed that our regional focus will center support for the Black cultural sector, highlighting organizations whose historic contributions, commitment to cultural activities in the region, and future promise we will celebrate as “Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures.”

The primary objective of the Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures program is to develop and implement the most celebratory, elegantly strategic, streamlined and appropriately measured regional challenge program in the nation.

Program Goals

Our goals for the Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures Initiative are:

To leverage the Ford Foundation’s investment to create transformational change in Pittsburgh’s Black cultural sector.
To celebrate creative organizations whose contributions have brought beauty and brilliance through the art they make, support, and share.
To support a cohort of Black cultural organizations in a self-determined process aimed at achieving their goals that may both lead them to long term and measurable success and concurrently position them for broader regional and national support.
To develop strategies that amplify the scope of Pittsburgh’s Black cultural sector.
To use the initiative’s evaluation and general learnings to inform the Endowments’ future funding decisions and grantmaking strategy.

Program Values

Immediate and Deep Investments
Leveraging the Ford Foundation’s grant and local funding, we hope to create transformational change by investing unrestricted dollars in Black-led cultural institutions, intermediary organizations and cultural anchors in our neighborhoods. Through the initiative we also seek to improve our ability, and that of the philanthropic sector, to become more aware of and responsive to emergent strategies from the field in the future. We believe that by providing immediate sizable support, we will acknowledge the tremendous work that continues to take place in our communities and celebrate the impact of Black-led cultural institutions, intermediaries, and neighborhood anchors on the financial, managerial, and artistic health of our region. We also believe that the leaders of these critical cultural organizations will find respite, rejuvenation and opportunities for increased creativity and innovation as a result of the monetary and general support received from the initiative.

Proclaim and Promote the Black Cultural Sector
The Endowments will utilize this grantmaking program to celebrate the work and accomplishments of Black-led organizations throughout Pittsburgh and the region. The awards are meant to recognize the perseverance of the Cultural Treasures and amplify their authority, excellence and ability to uphold the beauty and reflect the necessity of autonomy and independence. Using data-driven asset mapping and community voices, the Endowments will publish the findings drawn from the exploration of Black Cultural Treasures through digital and print publications.

Data Driven: From the Field First
Utilizing quantitative and qualitative information, the Endowments will work alongside a steering committee and community stakeholders to explore and document how deeply the work of cultural treasures impacts the overall vitality of the communities within which they exist, and who are those most deeply affected by their work. This data will be gathered through a series of community conversations and stakeholder focus groups that began in December 2020, as well as through community input from interviews, surveys and an online platform launching in mid-2021 to solicit nominations of Pittsburgh’s Black cultural treasures. Through the online platform, the program will engage in an asset-mapping project that will broadly describe Pittsburgh’s Black cultural resources and map them in real time.

While only a select number of Black-led cultural organizations will be recipients of monetary awards, community members and cultural workers are encouraged to use the online nomination form to help identify and map all Black-led cultural assets. By doing this, our communities will directly contribute to the conversation, “What defines a Cultural Treasure?” This input will also help us to marry the definition held within the Black community with that developed within philanthropic institutions. Together we will identify and underscore the unique characteristics of Black cultural organizations that make them invaluable to life in our city and region.

Program Strategy

Our proposed strategies for the Pittsburgh/Ford Regional Cultural Treasures work are to:

Immediately distribute significant funding to a select number of the Pittsburgh region’s Cultural Treasures identified through the Endowments’ past funding history and determined with input from the initiative’s steering committee.
Conduct creative community and stakeholder conversations, and develop an asset-mapping project to define and document Pittsburgh’s Black cultural sector.
Partner regionally and nationally to unearth key studies, findings and learnings that will enable us to improve long-term outcomes by utilizing best practices in program implementation.
Promote the findings of our study of the Black cultural sector in a manner that is mutually agreed upon by those who are participants within the study.
Provide capacity-building support to a cohort of Black cultural organizations that correspond to the Ford criteria and that communities of Pittsburgh and the Endowments recognize as Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures.
Influence and improve grantmaking practices for the Black cultural sector at the Endowments and philanthropy more broadly.
To forge and support interdependent networks within philanthropy and in the field that will continue to impact the work beyond the initiative.

Design & Implementation

The initiative will distribute approximately $9 million dollars directly to Black-led cultural organizations, including to consultants and participants that aid in program design and implementation. Grants will be informed by a steering committee comprised of local, regional and national Black artists and arts leaders as well as representatives from the POISE Foundation and the Endowments. Final grant decisions will be made by The Heinz Endowments and the board of the POISE Foundation. Additional criteria will be developed in collaboration with the steering committee and made available for the public to review.

The initiative will consist of three primary grantmaking components:

Component 1: Initial Grants
Grants ranging from $500,000 to $1 million will immediately be provided to a select group of Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures that have served as leaders and have demonstrated a commitment to Black people, arts and culture over a significant period time. These Black-led cultural anchors have made undeniable cultural contributions to the region and are recognized as authorities in the field by both philanthropy and by the communities with whom they work and represent.

Component #2: Capacity-Building Support
Concurrent with the community conversations described above, the Endowments will work with its partner, the POISE Foundation, and CJAM Consulting to design the program and manage asset mapping. Pittsburgh-based civic and cultural leaders as well as national and local consultants will assist in building a major funding program focused on capacity-building and implemented over multiple years with various levels of investment. The program will target a Pittsburgh cohort of organizations, in line with Ford Foundation criteria and Pittsburgh community input. Members of the selected cohort will receive significant multi-year support and will have access to a variety of capacity-building resources. All aspects of the program will be designed in collaboration with its participants to yield self-determined outcomes. Grant levels will be determined by the plans outlined by each participating organization.

Component #3: Funding Forward – Special Opportunity Awards
Funds will be set aside to be responsive to what is learned and in order to meet unanticipated needs as the initiative progresses. In addition, we expect that special opportunities will arise during the next three to five years that may require additional investment. We are reserving funds that will be geared toward supporting these developments.

The Heinz Endowments’ Creativity program is committed to learn from the insights produced by joining the Ford Foundation in its America’s Cultural Treasures Regional Challenge Initiative. We are especially interested in understanding, as a result of this effort, how to better integrate equity into our giving. We also plan to share the findings of this work with other Pittsburgh philanthropies.

Program Budget

$9 million grantmaking

$5 million unrestricted one-time grants
$3 million capacity-building support
$1 million funding forward special opportunity one-time awards – supporting emergent projects

$1 million administration

90 percent going to Black-led consulting groups; steering committee members, roundtable participants, evaluators and research partners; and program celebrations and retreats.

Nominate a Cultural Treasure

The Heinz Endowments is honored to join the Ford Foundation and its national partners on the America’s Cultural Treasures Regional Challenge initiative, which will commit multi-year support to cultural organizations committed to communities of color, with exceptional regional or local significance.

The Endowments has long held a deep commitment to supporting Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) individuals, collectives, and cultural organizations in the Pittsburgh region. Our participation in the America’s Culture Treasures Challenge will initially focus on the region’s Black cultural life, and will have two major foci: significant grantmaking to a select cohort of Black cultural institutions; and asset mapping, promotion, and celebration of the broad array of Black Cultural Treasures in our region.

From our previous work, we have come to understand that it is imperative to engage and listen to communities as we begin to comprehensively map Black Cultural Treasures. Through this form, we invite you to name the people (both living and those who are ancestors), places, organizations, collectives, and moments/memories/movements that you esteem as Cultural Treasures. The names, places and memories gathered will result in an asset map that amplifies keepers and cultivators of Black culture and the incalculable contributions of the region’s Black cultural sector.

Throughout the initiative additional Cultural Treasures will be celebrated. Those in existence and eligible may receive monetary awards and other forms of support through a process involving public input (including this form), community-based stakeholder conversations, and the recommendations of a steering committee of representatives in the field. Submissions are anonymous, and all those recognized as part of this process will be contacted directly and will be invited to opt in to be part of the asset map.

NOMINATION FORM

You will need to complete a separate form for each organization you would like to honor. Please write “N/A” if you do not have a response for a particular question.

We thank you for your time and thank you for answering the following questions that will assist this initiative in honoring our region’s Cultural Treasures.

1. Do you identify as Black / African-American and/or as indigenous or a person of color?

2. How would you define a Black Cultural Treasure? Your definition may include people, places, movements, historic moments and memories. We invite you to share.

4. If we can contact you, please provide the following information: Name, Email, Primary Phone Number.

5. (Organizations/Collective) Is there a Black-led cultural organization (or fiscally sponsored collective) whose past contributions and future potential makes you feel it is a Pittsburgh Cultural Treasure? (yes / no) If, so, please share it with us by answering the following three questions.

6. (Organization/Collective Question #1) What is the name of the organization/collective you would like to have considered for designation as a Pittsburgh Cultural Treasure? The organization does not have to be a 501c3.

7. (Organization/Collective Question #2) Within which county does this organization/collective primarily work? Please select from the dropdown.

8. (Organization/Collective Question #3) If available, what is the URL for this organization/collective’s website?

9. (Cultural Leaders) Is there a regional cultural leader you would like to acknowledge that is living or that is an ancestor? If they are living, please provide a name, contact information and organizational affiliation (if available).

Current leaders may be contacted and asked to provide insight, guidance, and expertise to the Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures initiative during its five-year timeline and beyond.

10. (Influencers, Media and Brands) Please share any social media handles and/or brand identities for the people, places, organizations/collectives that you’d like to honor.

Please complete the required fields*