10 Toes Down:

Twenty-five years after relocating to New Orleans, NPN continues to evolve what it means to be both national and Southern.

Nationally, NPN stewards a network of hyper-local strategies, from Maine to Micronesia, centering the arts in building more just communities. As NPN has expanded its Southern Programs and sharpened its grounding in Southern justice movements, this position — national in scope, rooted in place, and accountable to regional cultural ecologies — has come into greater focus.

In “Making the Invisible Visible: NPN Reflects on Five Years of Southern Grantmaking,” published by Grantmakers in the Arts, NPN staff share how we have shaped our funding and field-building practices to resist the extractive, fleeting patterns that too often define national grantmaking in the South.

For example, when NPN distributed emergency funds to New Orleans’ cultural community at the start of the pandemic in 2020, NPN’s Director of Southern Programs Stephanie Atkins designed an approach to avoid placing additional burdens on the community:

While significant changes in the national arts funding landscape have created uncertainty for NPN’s national and southern regranting work (as well as for other intermediaries), NPN remains committed to building power and resources that advance racial and economic justice in the South. “We are ten toes down with you,” says Stephanie.

Read the article at GIA Reader for more of NPN’s story.

“Stephanie made phone calls to elders, sought out family members who could accept payment on behalf of artists who didn’t have bank accounts, and quickly distributed relief funds to more than 100 local artists. She asked each artist who received a grant to connect her with others who were particularly vulnerable, working in batches until the fund was depleted. NPN was able to reach culture bearers operating outside of the nonprofit system and artists who would never have known about the funds otherwise; everyone Stephanie contacted who was eligible received a grant, and we did not require grantees to share trauma stories to receive funds. This commitment to center dignity and trust in a time of crisis continues to inform NPN’s national policy and philanthropic work.”