Performing Arts Program — Strategic Learning & Racial Justice

CSC first partnered with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program to lead a strategic learning process at a pivotal moment in its evolution. The program sought to reflect on its funding strategies, deepen alignment with its values, and better understand how its investments were shaping the broader arts ecosystem.

In partnership with artist and strategist Ron Ragin, we designed and facilitated a learning and assessment process grounded in lived experience, cultural knowledge, and relational trust. Rather than approaching evaluation as a technical exercise, the engagement treated it as an opportunity to strengthen coherence across the program’s internal practices, external relationships, and capital deployment.

The work included:

• Conducting a baseline assessment of principles and practices
• Facilitating dialogue and reflective inquiry across the team
• Surfacing cultural assumptions influencing funding decisions
• Identifying opportunities to align strategy with ecosystem-level impact

The strength and depth of this engagement led to a second phase of work supporting the program’s racial justice commitments within the Foundation’s broader 10-year, $150 million initiative.

In this next phase, we supported the Performing Arts Program in deepening its approach to racial equity — integrating inner learning, relational repair, and structural redesign. The work examined how power, culture, and capital intersect within arts funding and clarified pathways to shift decision-making closer to communities most affected.

This process helped inform the development of community-led investment initiatives, including the Vallejo Arts Fund, advancing more equitable capital flows and strengthening community agency within the regional arts ecosystem.

Across both engagements, the program strengthened its capacity to act not only as a grantmaker, but as a steward of the relational and structural conditions necessary for shared liberation and long-term, regenerative change.

This work reflects CSC’s commitment to aligning learning, trust, and capital strategy — ensuring that equity commitments are embodied in practice and sustained over time.

In 2020, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced it would be taking bold steps towards addressing systemic racism through a 10 year, $150 million initiative. Leveraging existing DEI practices, President Larry Kramer shared that the Foundation will seek to more fully incorporate racial equity into all programming and grant making strategies. A full report can be found here.

Rooted in the aim of shared liberation, Foundation has adopted a new framework to assess and address issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice across the organization. Building upon the strategic learning process, the CSC, in partnership with Ron Ragin is leading this work for the Performing Arts Program. We are currently conducting a baseline assessment of the team’s DEIJ principles and practices, which we’ll be weaving with ongoing strategic learning and adaptation efforts in the new year.