A Sustained Commitment: Fostering diversity in the arts through 30 years of transformation
/by Meghan Hunt and Mary Gray
When Joan Weinstein, Director of the Getty Foundation, thinks back to the time the Foundation started its Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship program almost thirty years ago, she sees a moment not unlike today: “The beating of Rodney King and the resulting civil unrest in 1992 brought widespread visibility to deep-seated inequities in Los Angeles and generated a city-wide reckoning on race,” she writes in the foreword to the program’s latest report. The events caused Getty to examine inequities within the arts sector, including a lack of racial diversity in the staff of Los Angeles County’s museums and visual arts organizations. As one avenue to address these issues, the Foundation created the Getty Marrow program, offering paid, full-time summer internships in museums and visual arts organizations in Los Angeles for undergraduate students of color. To date, the internship has dedicated over $14 million to support more than three thousand interns, many of whom go on to participate more broadly in cultural institutions across the world and establish long-term careers in the arts.
In 2019, the Getty Foundation partnered with Engage R+D to assess the impact of nearly three decades of the Getty Marrow internships. While much has changed in that time, many challenges remain. “Even as our sector faces an economic crisis and field-wide job losses, cultural organizations of all sizes must work with intention to combat structural racism and pioneer change,” wrote Weinstein, “particularly if we want it to return stronger and more equitable in the future.”
How can foundations support people of color in the arts? And what does it take to sustain and evolve these supports over time, through changing societal contexts? Below, we share three lessons from our evaluation of the Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship Program, one of the longest-running arts internship programs in the country.
1. Ask, Listen, and Act on What’s Heard
Getty staff solicited input from stakeholders to develop the internship program and gathered feedback from interns through surveys and site visits throughout the first few years. As the program evolved, the Foundation worked to define how success would be measured and developed an evaluation plan. Starting in 2007, the Foundation launched a series of evaluations to better understand who participates in the program, what their experience was as interns, and how the program affected their career paths. Over the past 13 years, internship alumni have been invited to participate in ongoing surveys as well as focus groups and interviews conducted by external evaluators.
The team at the Getty Foundation realized that simply introducing people to the arts would not be enough – they needed to work to make the sector more inclusive of diverse staff.
These evaluations have created valuable opportunities to learn and improve. In particular, the Getty Foundation was willing to ask hard questions about its program, commit to consistent tracking of outcomes over time, and share what it learned publicly in hopes of advancing the field. For example, while the internship was conceived to make the arts more accessible to people of color, interns who participated in Engage R+D’s recent evaluation reported that they did not always feel welcome at the institutions where they worked: “Several alumni recounted stories of experiencing racist micro-aggressions such as ‘someone asking for my badge or being asked if I worked in the cafeteria’ during their internships.” The team at the Getty Foundation realized that simply introducing people to the arts would not be enough – they needed to work to make the sector more inclusive of diverse staff. As a result, the Foundation began offering antiracism workshops to supervisors and interns during the summer of 2020. They are also making plans to incorporate culturally responsive mentoring into their supervisor training activities and materials.
A key force that drives the Foundation’s interest in continuous learning is the care they have for their alumni and the desire to support their success in any way they can. Engage R+D saw this in action when the Foundation decided to pause the release of the evaluation report in spring 2020 because they were concerned about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their alumni. Our team partnered with the Foundation to conduct a brief follow-up survey to assess the initial impact of the crisis on alumni. We learned that early-career alumni working in the field were among those most affected by the pandemic and in need of support. As a result of their ongoing commitment to ask and listen, the Foundation was able to ascertain which resources and supports would be most valued by alumni.
2. Commit to Long-Term Support
The Foundation has not only made a multi-decade and multi-million-dollar investment in its internship program, but it has also made a long-term commitment to supporting the program’s alumni after they finish their internships.
Through the evaluations, the Getty Foundation also began to learn about the career pathways of alumni after they left the program. They found numerous positive results, including that 80 percent of alumni continued to engage with the arts as members, attendees, or volunteers at arts organizations. Furthermore, 1 in 3 alumni went on to pursue careers in the arts, a remarkable percentage given that prior work experience or educational background in the arts is not required to become an intern.
The findings have also uncovered some areas where alumni might benefit from additional support. Of the alumni who go on to work in the arts, the majority work in entry-level positions and one-third work only part-time. The report notes that “these findings point to a vulnerability among those who recently entered the arts field, as well as a reality that many in this early-career stage are switching jobs.” As a result, the Getty Foundation is currently developing more ways to deliver alumni support. In this way, the Foundation has not only made a multi-decade and multi-million-dollar investment in its internship program, but it has also made a long-term commitment to supporting the success of the program’s alumni over time.
3. Invest in Field Learning and Collaboration
While these learnings have been helpful to inform Getty’s work and deepen the program’s impact, there is only so much a single foundation can do. As noted in the report, these efforts alone “are not enough to solve longstanding problems of racism and inequity in cultural institutions.” In addition to partnering with similar organizations in this work, the evaluation report shares insights for other funders centering people of color and thinking about work across small and large foundations. The Foundation actively invites other funders to collaborate with them in the hopes of making the arts sector more representative, equitable, and inclusive of the talent and expertise of people of color.
Through sharing and reflection, the Foundation continues to deepen its understanding of what is needed to truly make progress.
While there is still much work to be done, it is through this type of sharing and reflection that the Foundation continues to deepen its understanding of what is needed to truly make progress. By sharing this information with the field, it also frames this conversation in terms of the ecosystem rather than something that can be solved in a silo. It is with these lessons in mind that the program will continue to grow and evolve in response to the ongoing needs in the fields.
