The Kenneth Rainin Foundation supports visionary artists in the Bay Area who push the boundaries of creative expression and possibility. We champion the power of their work to imagine the world as it could be and then to create it.

Artists’ readiness to explore uncharted territory mirrors our own instincts to follow paths of experimentation and learning. In 2019, we created new avenues for accessing resources and reducing the administrative burdens that constrain the creative process. Our goal is to ensure artists have the support they need to create and thrive—now and into the future.

Two multiyear grants fund pilots to create equitable support systems for Bay Area artists and artist-led organizations. Social Impact Commons is exploring an idea to develop a network of “management commons” for the Bay Area to offer integrated back office support through Comprehensive “Model A” Fiscal Sponsorship programs. Community Vision (formerly the Northern California Community Loan Fund) and Silicon Valley Creates will pilot business service navigation centers in Santa Clara and Alameda Counties that offer expertise ranging from contract negotiation to real estate consulting.

Additional awards support innovations that could improve conditions for working artists. The Center for Cultural Power will help underrepresented artists build their practices, engage in social movements and overcome barriers to success. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is studying the feasibility of a concept they call “The Umbrella” that would offer back office, facilities management and arts employment agency services to artists. And, the recently displaced Ragged Wing Ensemble is designing a cooperative with other small, diverse arts nonprofits in the East Bay. Their goal is to create a network of rehearsal and performance spaces with a centralized booking portal.

Rainin Foundation investments are also seeking to address inequities in the field and build artists’ economic wealth by valuing the artist’s role in community health and wellbeing. AmbitioUS, a national initiative by the Center for Cultural Innovation, is investing in “trailblazers” in the East Bay to build out alternative economies and support systems that will help artists and cultural communities achieve financial freedom.

CultureBank will pilot a collaborative investment model with artists and communities. Their distinctive model values nontraditional assets, such as art, language skills and community safety, along with the long-term social impacts brought about by cultural activities. This equitable approach centers the artist’s role in cultivating hidden assets that lay the groundwork for shared health and prosperity.

Last year, the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) developed additional partnerships and investments to safeguard the arts in San Francisco. In the Excelsior district, the historic Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse opened as an arts education and community center. In the South of Market neighborhood, CAST partnered with a real estate developer to create a 10,000-square-foot community cultural center. CAST will own and manage this historic building, located at the epicenter of the larger four-acre, $1 billion 5M Project. Opening in summer 2021, its tenants will be nonprofit organizations paying below-market rent. CAST views this project as a first in a constellation of buildings that will address the issue of affordable space for artists. Next, CAST will venture into artist housing, using a limited equity community land trust model.

In Oakland, we continued partnering with the City of Oakland, Community Vision, CAST and East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation. We’re focusing on building real estate security for cultural anchors serving diverse communities in neighborhoods that are experiencing profound change. Our work draws on insights from our benchmark study, Mapping Small Arts and Culture Organizations of Color in Oakland.

Elevating artists’ voices can help us transcend divisions and reconnect us with our humanity. The Rainin Foundation’s Open Spaces Program brings community-connected art into public spaces in San Francisco and Oakland. Artists create visionary projects that invite and inspire community participation and illuminate the most critical issues of our time.

Our 2019 Open Spaces Program awards totaled $625,000 to support five projects in Oakland and San Francisco. Collaborations will engage citizen histories, create identity-inspired artworks and feature public partners. Projects explore immigration, incarceration, the preservation of cultural assets amid gentrification and displacement, and the marginalization of people with disabilities.

In January 2020, we partnered with the Oakland Museum of California to present our third Exploring Public Art Practices symposium. The event showcased diverse public art practices including a keynote presentation by Mike Blockstein and Reanne Estrada of  LA-based Public Matters.

Narrative film is a powerful medium for conveying vivid stories that inspire social change. We’re working to ensure that a diverse array of voices can tell those stories, including women and people of color. So, we’re proud that the 2019 SFFILM Rainin Grants supported filmmaking teams largely led by females. One of these grantees, Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, premiered at Sundance 2020 in January. This shift is a bright counterpoint to the industry’s lack of diversity and gender parity.

Awards totaling $425,000 supported the screenwriting, development or post-production stages of 15 narrative feature projects. Spring awards supported films that span genres and a spectrum of tales, from true-life to magical, haunting to hopeful. Fall grantees take on both historical and contemporary stories with compelling intimacy.

The humanity and artistry of grantees’ films capture the attention of audiences and industry alike. Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco premiered at Sundance 2019, winning awards for Best Directing and a Special Jury Prize for Creative Collaboration.

Our unique partnership with SFFILM makes them the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the United States. The FilmHouse Residency provides year-round resources to grow the professional and economic capacity of the Bay Area filmmaking community.

This evaluation will inform the creation of an Arts program evaluation framework to better monitor and develop our grant programs. As we dive into the results, we’re excited to use what we learn to further the work of visionary artists and support creative change for our communities.

Supporting Artists That Push Boundaries

NEW & EXPERIMENTAL WORKS (NEW) PROGRAM

Provides project support to small and mid-size dance, theater and multidisciplinary arts organizations that enable Bay Area artists to produce timely, visionary projects. View more information about these grants.

OPEN SPACES PROGRAM

Supports nonprofit organizations to partner with artists to create temporary, place-based public art projects in San Francisco and Oakland. In January 2019, the following teams received Open Spaces Program grants. View more information about these grants.

Changing Systems Together

OPPORTUNITY FUND

An invitation only grant that offers support for projects that will impact conditions for working artists to help them thrive. View more information about these grants.