Bridging the Gap
By Jessica Bynoe, Executive Director
Last week, letters of inquiry for Variety New York’s next grant cycle were due. Variety received yet again a record number of applicants-well over 100. Many of the applications are from small, grassroots organizations that we had yet to hear about till now.
I give most applicants’ letters a quick scan when we receive them just to get a sense of what I will be reading about in greater depth in the coming weeks. Already I can tell the quality of the programs requesting funds is higher than in years past, the impact of these organizations on the lives of children is deeper than we could ask for, and the need for support is greater than we will ever be able to match.
With these observations, I find myself wondering why so many prospective grantees, with such talented staff and innovative programs and incredible results, cannot find the resources they need to survive. Especially at a time when research continually supports the notions that arts exposure helps youth achieve higher grades, express increased interest in school, gain more skills relevant to career success and have a stronger sense of their own personal and civic power. At the same time other research shows declines in exposure to the arts, with as many as 70% of young people of color in some neighborhoods having zero exposure to the arts in school or community programs.
One cannot help but notice disconnect between what is desired and working for youth and communities and how few resources there are to support transformative arts programming. A few years ago, as we were commiserating on this overall trend in the nonprofit sector, a stalwart in the youth development field, Richard Murphy, said to me how ridiculous it was to expect youth and communities to do more with less. It seems large corporations get more when they achieve, or even fail to achieve, but the opposite is true in our sector. For some reason, achievement seems to lead to fewer funds, time or talent for small nonprofits.
This is not simply another complaint about the shrinking resources of our field, but rather an observation of the counter-intuitive logic in our field. When programs are working and communities are creating and calling for more of the same that cannot be the time to divest in a field or a model. That is exactly the time to reinvigorate support and infuse additional resources.
Variety New York is trying to fill a small part of the gap left by divestment in youth and arts programs, but based on the letters of inquiry collected last week it is clear that gap is only growing. This is not a time to challenge successful grassroots groups to do more with less, but rather a time to give more to achieve the most!