Adaptive Strategies for Organizational Well-Being Uplifted in New Research Conducted with Arts Organizations Rooted in Communities of Color
Cross-cutting analysis of 18 organizations offers field-level insights into how community-based arts organizations navigate trust, artistic value, labor, governance, and placemaking amidst a shifting cultural and funding landscape
NEW YORK, NY, May 12, 2026—Today, The Wallace Foundation and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) released Building Trust, Sustaining Art, the first major cross-cutting research analysis from the Thriving Communities cohort of the foundation’s five-year, multi-strand Advancing Well-Being in the Arts initiative. This group of grantees comprises 18 arts organizations rooted in communities of color, with budgets over $500,000. Informed by qualitative studies developed by early-career scholars, Building Trust, Sustaining Art presents an overview of the organizations’ contributions to cultural innovation and identifies a set of adaptive strategies that shape how arts organizations rooted in communities of color sustain their work—and, in turn, contribute to cultural vitality and community connection.
"Through the Advancing Well-Being in the Arts initiative, The Wallace Foundation has invested in expanding the ranks of arts researchers while pursuing a broad array of research approaches around a single theme: the connection between organizational and community well-being in and through the arts," said Bronwyn Bevan, Vice President of Research at The Wallace Foundation. "The synthesis of studies illuminates the role community-based arts organizations play as anchors, resources, and advocates for those they serve, and contributes to an expanding evidence base that reinforces the importance of these organizations and their work."
“We are excited to continue sharing key insights from over four years of close collaboration with our grantees and research partners,” said Bahia Ramos, Vice President of Arts of The Wallace Foundation. “Grounded in embedded, year-long research partnerships with Wallace grantees, this report offers a candid picture of how arts organizations rooted in communities of color navigate an ever-evolving landscape, and points to flexible and responsive approaches that can best support their well-being and sustainability moving forward.”
To help build a field-wide understanding of these organizations’ practices and contributions to community, Wallace partnered with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to establish the Arts Research for Communities of Color (ARCC) Fellowship, which matched 18 early-career researchers with each of the Thriving Communities organizations. The ARCC Fellows conducted year-long collaborative, qualitative studies with their partner organizations that addressed key questions of importance to the organizations, with many focused on organizational history and culture. Researchers produced evidence-based resources for their organizational partner as well as academic scholarship for the field.
Drawing upon the individual studies, the cross-cutting report identifies a series of common challenges faced by organizations across the cohort, pointing towards tensions unique to—or faced disproportionately by—arts organizations of color. Shaped by historical inequities and competing expectations from communities, funders, and artistic institutions, these challenges include:
- Navigating histories of disinvestment and mistrust in their communities, where cultural and governmental institutions have often been absent, short-lived, or extractive;
- Challenging narrow definitions of artistic value that often position community-centered art as niche or outside the realm of “professional” artistic practice;
- Negotiating conflicting definitions of cultural excellence that emerge at the intersection of community expectations, artistic traditions, funder priorities, and field-level standards that have historically privileged Eurocentric aesthetics;
- Sustaining labor-intensive practices with limited resources resulting in overwork, understaffing, and conflicting notions of self-sacrifice; and
- Balancing local, national, and international orientations that often demand not only deep commitments to place-based communities but also relationships with broader cultural and diasporic networks.
The report also identifies seven core strategies that organizations have deployed in response to these structural constraints and field-level pressures, approaches that help strengthen community accountability, expand artistic possibility, and build legitimacy within the field. These include:
- Trust-building strategies and practices, with a focus on sustained presence in the communities they serve, providing those communities with access to resources, and responding to community priorities;
- Reframing dominant narratives and building field legitimacy through professionalization, innovation, and education;
- Archiving and documentation as a mode of preserving cultural memory, strengthening organizational capacity, and asserting the value of their histories;
- Collective responsibility and intentional investment in labor, care, and sustainability practices;
- Dynamic management and governance approaches that maintain community-rooted values while developing systems that support scale and accountability;
- Collaboration, fluidity, and solidarity strategies that help build capacity by cultivating interdependence across individuals, organizations, and movements; and
- Placemaking and capital investment practices that support community stability and belonging in the long-term.
Finally, the report identifies opportunities for further research and institutional support that account for the long-term, relational, and adaptive practices undertaken by each organization, rather than focusing on short-term outcomes. Proposed efforts include longitudinal research on trust and accountability; deeper inquiry into how concepts of artistic excellence are defined; and funding structures that allow for learning, adjustment, and flexibility.
SSRC Chief Operating Officer Fredrik Palm added, “Made possible by The Wallace Foundation’s support, the ARCC Fellowship offered a unique and robust opportunity for early-career researchers across a wide range of disciplines. The Fellows were not only intentionally partnered with and embedded within grantee organizations—allowing for meaningful and relationship-driven research—but also had access to mentoring, regular convenings, and opportunities for cross-cohort exchange. This spirit of collaboration and deep engagement is made evident through the findings of the report and demonstrates how empirical research and theory building can help build a more equitable arts ecosystem.”
Established in 2021, the $107 million Advancing Well-Being in the Arts initiative is anchored by its Thriving Communities cohort. Located throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico, the Thriving Communities cohort spans artistic disciplines and organizational models, including place-based community hubs; culturally specific performing arts organizations with national and international reach; organizations centered on community history, archives, and cultural memory; and media-making and storytelling organizations. Following is a complete list of the Thriving Communities grantees and their corresponding ARCC Fellows:
- 1Hood Media Academy (Pittsburgh, PA) – Cameron Herman
- Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) – Asif Majid
- BlackStar (Philadelphia, PA) – Davinia Gregory-Kameka
- Chicago Sinfonietta (Chicago, IL) – Timnet Gedar
- Esperanza Peace & Justice Center (San Antonio, TX) – siri gurudev hernández
- Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture (Charlotte, NC) – Monica Barra
- The Laundromat Project (Brooklyn, NY) – Amanda Boston
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (San Juan, PR) – Claudia Sofía Garriga-López
- Oakland Collective (Black Cultural Zone, EastSide Arts Alliance, Artist As First Responder) (Oakland, CA) – Jaleesa Wells
- Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadelphia, PA) – DeRon Williams
- Pillsbury House + Theatre (Minneapolis, MN) – Jason Price
- Pregones / Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (New York, NY) – Raquel Jimenez
- Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) (San Francisco, CA), Silvia Rodriguez Vega
- Ragamala Dance Company (Minneapolis, MN) – Ying Diao
- Rebuild Foundation (Chicago, IL) – Nazanin Ghaffari
- Self Help Graphics & Art (Los Angeles, CA) – J.V. Decemvirale
- Theater Mu (Saint Paul, MN) – kt shorb
- The Union for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE) – Jason C. White
To learn more about Building Trust, Sustaining Art, one of the nearly 50 studies being funded through the Advancing Well-Being in the Arts initiative, visit www.wallacefoundation.org.
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About The Wallace Foundation
Wallace is an independent, nonpartisan research foundation, with a mission to help all communities build a more vibrant and just future by fostering advances in the arts, education leadership, and youth development. We collaborate with grantees and research partners to design and test innovative approaches to address pressing problems in the fields we serve. The evidence-based insights we share—searchable online and free of charge—support policymakers and practitioners in their efforts to improve outcomes, enhance community vitality, and help all people reach their full potential.
About The Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is an independent, international, nonprofit organization founded in 1923. The Council fosters innovative research, nurtures new generations of social scientists, deepens how inquiry is practiced within and across disciplines, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues. The SSRC is guided by the belief that justice, prosperity, and democracy all require better understanding of complex social, cultural, economic, and political processes. We work with practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers in the social sciences, the humanities, the natural sciences, and related professions. We build interdisciplinary and international networks, working with partners around the world to link research to practice and policy, strengthen individual and institutional capacities for learning, and enhance public access to information.
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