Creative & Performing Arts

Arts for Social Change

The Pincus Family Foundation’s Creative and Performing Arts portfolio supports programs where young people use art as a tool to address the structural inequities they face.

We know that access to the arts provides innumerable benefits to individuals. We also know that art has the potential to enable collective action and systemic transformation.

This approach recognizes that philanthropy can’t fill the gaps, but it can strategically resource youth-led efforts to decrease the impact of those gaps. Young people with lived experience of marginalization have invaluable insight into the systems that create the barriers they face, and art can serve as a uniquely powerful tool for them to develop and express themselves, build critical consciousness, and drive social transformation.

Our vision imagines a future where all young people can use artistic expression to question, challenge, and remake the systems that shape their lives.

STRATEGY

GOAL
To connect young people from marginalized communities with the arts as a tool for agency and social change.

FIVE STRATEGIC PRIORITIES

Arts for Social Change Focus – Integrating artistic practice with community organizing, policy advocacy, and/or systemic change efforts
Hyperlocal Community Integration – Deep community embedment with extensive local partnerships
Teaching Artist Investment – Commitment to the professional development and well-being of teaching artists
Cultural Responsiveness – Programming that incorporates community cultural wealth with community input
Environmental Justice Integration – Authentic integration of environmental themes from community-identified priorities

TARGET CONSTITUENCY
Organizations serving preK-12 youth from marginalized communities with arts for social change programming that connects them to the power of art to question and transform systems.