During this episode of Why Change? co-hosts Ashraf and Jeff discuss the season of change in their work. Jeff shares his interview with Porché Hardy, an arts program officer from the Wallace Foundation. They discuss the changing landscape and processes of philanthropy towards more equitable giving; primarily through humble curiosity. Ashraf and Jeff think about the implications for the broader field of arts, culture, and creativity funding in the U.S.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How funding processes can be more equitable for a variety of funders;
Why listening, learning, and flexibility are key factors in the equitable distribution of resources; and
The power of humility in continuous improvement.
Check out some of the things mentioned during this podcast, including:
ABOUT PORCHÉ HARDY
Porché is an arts administrator and senior program officer with The Wallace Foundation who brings deep expertise and experience working with teams in both government and nonprofits to develop programs to help build a stronger arts sector and a more equitable pathway to social change through arts funding and arts education. She began her arts administration career at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center where she grew from intern to Associate Director of Arts Training before shifting to community based arts education as Assistant Director of the Institute of Music for Children. She leveraged her experience of non profit arts leadership to further improvements in arts funding as a Program Officer with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Porché is also a performer and holds a BA in Sociology from Rutgers University. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Administration there, as well. She is an alumna of the William Esper Studio and has studied classical music (voice) at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Montclair State University, and privately with award-winning singers and coaches.
This episode was produced by Jeff M. Poulin. The artwork is by Bridget Woodbury. The audio is edited by Katie Rainey. This podcasts’ theme music is by Distant Cousins. For more information on this episode and Creative Generation please visit the episode’s webpage and follow us on social media @Campaign4GenC
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Jeff M. Poulin 00:02
This is why I changed the podcast for Creative Generation. We are your hosts. I'm Jeff. Oh, Hola. Hola, soy Carla. It's Rachel here. What's good, y'all. I'm Ashraf. And I'm Madeline. Why Change is a podcast that brings listeners around the globe to learn how arts, culture and creativity, especially as applied by young people, can change the world, one community at a time. You're invited each week to learn and laugh while exploring the question. Why change? Alright, let's get started.
Ashraf Hasham 00:37
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the wide change Podcast. I'm Ashraf. And I have Jeff with me, Jeff, what's going on? Hey, Ashraf, it is good to hear your voice. I am actually coming to you today from a trip I am on the road. And we'll spend the next two days working with a faculty of educators at a school that I've been working with for the last year. So I'm really excited. I'm a little sad, because it's the last time that I'm with them. But really excited because we build something really beautiful together and I get to sort of see it take off. You know, it's really exciting. What's going on in your world? That sounds awesome. Lots of things, we are just a month out from my wedding, which I've been talking about every single podcast for about a year now. So that will come to a close. And a big ol catharsis moment, just sounds like you're in right now. Very soon, we also got a new director at my office at the Seattle office of arts and culture. And they're the former director of the City of Minneapolis, Office of arts, culture and creative economy. Goon came. And we got to welcome her last week. And that was really special. And so excited to build something new and familiar altogether. exciting changes. Yeah, you know, I feel like that's sort of the season right now. It's, you know, sort of, for me the middle of summer, but some schools are going back. And, you know, we're not quite at the point of hitting a fall stride. But it's certainly a point of building and, and growing. And with a forward trajectory. I don't know, that's how I feel it is with a lot of things. But it actually, it's a really good segue into the conversation that I hope to share with you and all of our listeners today that I had with Portia Hardy, who is one of the program officers at the Wallace Foundation, which is one of the biggest funders in the country, focused on the arts and education, and youth development and all other sort of domains that touch our work. And, and that's kind of what Porsche has been doing the last couple of years is building some really cool things that kind of have this forward momentum for the future of what the Wallace Foundation will be investing in. So I don't know, should we jump into it and then discuss it on the other side. Sounds great.
Jeff M. Poulin 03:07
Welcome up, Portia, I am so thrilled to introduce you to the Why change podcast community. Finally, you are a person whom I have wanted to have on the podcast for a long time, because we've been in each other's worlds for many years now. And I've watched you transition roles and make impacts with all of these different organizations on our field of arts education. So now I'm just so excited to chat with you about that work, and how our listeners might learn a little bit from what you've been up to. So, welcome to the podcast.
Porché Hardy 03:41
Thank you. Thank you, Deb. I feel like we've been friends in my head for longer than we've actually known each other. So equally, as excited to be here today. And, and hopefully, you know, this conversation will add some fodder for the cannon that can be really helpful across the world. I know, Creative Generation has a lot of reach. And so I'm excited to
Jeff M. Poulin 04:06
be here. Well, excellent. I totally agree. I hope that we can certainly impact some thinking with all of our listeners. But before we start talking about your work, I want you to share a little bit about your origin story. So how did you get started in the arts? How did you begin working in education? And then eventually, how'd you end up in philanthropy? So tell us your story.
Porché Hardy 04:31
Okay, so my story starts in a really small town in North Carolina called Farmville, North Carolina. It's a real place. My mom who was a teenage mom had me at 15 and decided to make the really tough decisions and leave her hometown to give me and my brother a better life. Here in New Jersey, where I'm seated in the lobby of No island in eastern New Jersey, the luckiest girl in the world, I had a big voice and a really small body. And I landed in an elementary school that was turning itself into a full music curriculum. And so in the beginning and third grade, I was able to take sequential art, and music classes, everything from music theory to vocal coaching, choir, etc, etc. And I was able to not only learn from amazing teachers who look like me, and we're using what we now call culturally relevant education, and in really unique ways. I was able to learn about Lionel Hampton and Quincy Jones and all these great musicians and actually perform their music at the end of each year. So I thought everyone in the world experienced that kind of education. I went off to heights and studied vocal performance. I realized that not everybody had an opportunity to study music theory at a lower level in elementary and middle school. And so that kind of sparked me very early in high school to say, you know, what if we had a world where, like myself, access to music, education, and so that kind of took me through, to receive a scholarship, for vocal performance, to go off to college to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, actually decided to go for business instead. And so I have a background in economics and sociology is what I graduated with. Because I knew that I wanted to understand people more than I wanted to understand sickness as a discipline. And so I still studied and had coaching and had to do a recital every year with this. But one key moment was a part of the scholarship was me having an internship. And so through the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, I landed an internship. The education department ever looked back. I started there as an intern, and as a program coordinator, for after school programs and summer programs, scholarship programs, and ended that tenure there. Sophia, Director of arts churning, and so was able to understand the arts administration field from an actual practitioner. I wanted to go a little bit more deeper into the arts administration work. I saw a lot of students come through that space that needed more services than just music. And so I was wondering, and, and dance and theater, we also did those types of programs. So I was just wondering, are our education organizations really serving the whole child and I ended up finding an amazing organization called the Institute of Music for children, where they did just that the students came there and maybe not knowing how to dance or sing or act or draw, unless they're as a fully fledged human is what I what I saw. But I also saw disparities in those organizations and the way that it was being funded and the organization that I came from. And so I asked questions around how funding was basically looked at equitably to the difference between different organizations. And so that landed me to for an opportunity in the funding space, and landed at the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as a Program Officer for both performing arts organizations and arts education organizations, that trajectory, landed me always kind of centered, and equity and wonder and curiosity around a resources to be allocated in better ways.
Jeff M. Poulin 08:49
Well, that's a really interesting story. And I love that, you know, your trajectory of like, work is really actually driven by curiosity, which now that I've sort of heard that story in a succinct way. I feel like that is kind of the way to sum up my experience with you. We have these big conversations that are often really driven by curiosity. And that's kind of a predicating factor of what you're doing now, especially what you've been up to the last couple of years. So right now, I know that you sit at the Wallace Foundation, which is one of the largest funders and in the education and art spaces in the country. And you oversee a really interesting portfolio that's related to both arts organizations and arts education, which seems to be a pattern in your work. And you know, from that work, and I quote, you seek to develop programs to help build a stronger art sector and a more equitable pathway to social change through arts funding, and Secretary leadership. I love that. But what does that mean? Those are big words. So can you tell me a little bit about what it is that you do every day in this job with this really big aspiration? No goal.
Porché Hardy 10:02
Or I think, just sum it down really simply, I work with a team at the Wallace Foundation to be able to develop opportunities for nonprofit arts organizations currently that are serving organizations that are led by people of color, serving people of color and founded by people of color I created for those organizations to be able to ask the big questions that they have about themselves about their communities, about their well being, provide the resources for them to answer. So that is, I answer resources, but also technical resource planning, support, financial coaching, support, all the things that you would need to really look at, yes, your organization, and with assistance to answer those big questions about yourself. And then we have an opportunity to document that work, and be able to best practices from that, from that understanding, and from that partnership and from what people organizations are doing. So we do that in what's called an interdisciplinary fashion. And I think what is important, that is that the voices of the partner organizations through the program team, our research partners, through our research team and our communication, our communication teams, really, it really comes together to support an opportunity for information to be disseminated and shared in a way that will help not organizations, but will help us feel that large, really move forward best practices and a really streamlined way. So I get to be a scientist and art. They build the program, and usher resources and opportunities to new and different and unique and innovative spaces.
Jeff M. Poulin 12:03
That's It's really exciting. I mean that, can I get your job like that sounds super, super interesting and really multifaceted. But I want to zoom out a little bit because I think for folks that operate in these intersectional spaces between arts and culture, and like education, youth development, and social and community change. We all sort of know the name, the Wallace Foundation, it's been a leader and does a tremendous amount of work funding, everything from you know, youth arts historically to audience development to research and communications, like you mentioned. But recently, I know that there's been a really tremendous effort to put money in the hands of those arts organizations of color, as you described. And this actually required a revision to the whole process of decision making that happens and how the money can actually flow. So can you tell us a little bit about what that process was and how you went? What was the process that you went through? And where did the foundation land? And its new approach?
Porché Hardy 13:04
Absolutely. So in order to answer that question, really fully, I would have to talk a little bit about how Wallace thinks about initiative development. And so each of our initiatives really come from a place of questions, as I mentioned earlier. And so we work together with the field and researchers to really understand what the big questions are in the space in the field. And with those, that knowledge we develop, and it usually takes about two years. Honestly, we do want to take our time to make sure that we're getting field input from a practitioner's point of view on the researcher's point of view, we are able to really understand what the issue is, and deploy the resources to do that. And so this initiative came after approximately 10 years working with organizations that were looking at answering the question, how do you diversify audiences for financial health. And we call that building audiences. Once the building audiences program completed, we had our insights. And we started to really think about what this means for the sector. Just this was in order to really diversify your audience, welcoming new audiences, whether that is from people of color from younger audiences, you really have to think about who you're trying to serve, and what that community needs from your organization. And what we found was organizations that are founded by and serving people of color, really have a unique village, with their community because typically, they're born out of the need of the community. They are advocating for the needs of the community. And we know that they are also under-documented and so from the findings from the building audiences where we really started to dig deeper into understanding these eight of our organizations that are led by people of color because we had never been. And so when we think about the things that we had to do differently, we had to think about, understand who these organizations are, and so welcoming field leaders and practitioners into the space, to talk with us and to learn with us, as we learned from them about the what the skills needed from the the foundation and from philanthropy as a whole. We also, the art students took an opportunity to develop its first open path, typically, while the foundation is an invite only opportunity. And we also do proposals of request proposals. So we developed our first open call for this opportunity and welcomed about 252 applications. We also thought about the ways in which we developed the application. We know that capacity is an issue in many nonprofit arts organizations, but it's especially our organizations that are led by people of color. And so even the way that we designed the application process, reduced burden by asking very simple but high level questions, and gained interest in the process, we also opened up our doors to meetings with all of the organizations that put forth proposals. And so we sat down with about 30 organizations, were really in depth conversations about the needs of the organization versus the needs of the foundation. And so I think the key key learning from this was around learning, the state, really listening and in an in -depth way, and being flexible in what the organization's needed, but also what we could do on the foundation side with regard to capacity.
Jeff M. Poulin 16:57
Well, that learning, I want to like to pull out that learning a little bit. Because I think, especially in the last few years, you know, looking at the response to the COVID 19 pandemic, the increased community violence at the hands of police and vigilantes, particularly against members of communities of color. I think there's a climate crisis that's going on, there's growing economic disparity, there's a lot of just things that are intersecting at the same time that are causing funders to really rethink their decisions about resource allocation. So from this process, what could other funders or people that are charged with dispensing money do? We're even the artists and educators and community organizations that are seeking those funds. What can we do to enable more equitable practices when it comes to resource allocation.
Porché Hardy 17:49
And thinking about how partners in the field are part of the planning process, it's important that if we're talking about arts organizations that are led by people of color, or any arts organization or nonprofit that is in the funding space, they need to be at the table decisions that are being made about them as a whole. I also think that one of the key learnings that we had was ensuring that we went into the space with humility. Coming in, already having the power dynamic of a funder to an organization space, it was important that we kind of took a step back and had an opportunity to help patients understand that we didn't know what we didn't know. And coming from that place of humility was very important. And just thinking back to what I said earlier, around flexibility, we have to change and pivot several things. In this process, I give one story around how we had thought we were going to do a $50 million initiative that served around 10 to 12 organizations, specifically for five years, and then we would document the work that we will be doing. And we would disseminate that knowledge period. And I think very quickly that serving 10 to 12 organizations just did not give us the right of makeup of a cohort in order for these organizations to really be represented. We know that arts organizations as a whole are multifaceted, and they're especially so in the arts organization for color space. We also are still the language that we're using. We know that arts organizations of color are probably not the right language, developing that language in partnership with the organization. And I think what we also learned in This process is that the organizations that we chose, we reduce our financial budget. Right. So organizations that come to Wallis typically had to have a budget size of a million dollars. We know that that space is not real for the arts organizations. So we lowered the budget thresholds so that we can make room for organizations to meet the requirements in order to be a part of the process. But we learned in that space that most organizations that are led by people of color don't meet the 500 threshold. And so we were taught with five of the organization's in that space, and said, Listen, we need another opportunity, we need to be able to serve a broad field. And so that we have good representation. So we did out of that we developed another cohort, we're in development of that right now, of organizations that will have a budget size under $500,000. And now the initiative is 100, South about $100 million initiative. And now the foundation is investing $100 million in the sector in order to really serve the sector in a way that will have an opportunity to be broadly representative. And we will be able to serve the artwork in a way that will help them get to the well being that they desire.
Jeff M. Poulin 21:32
Well, we always love commitments of $100 million. That is, you know, tremendous, it's really fantastic work. And I think those lessons, you know, could probably be applied to everything, you know, funding evaluation, program development, it's really important work. And I applaud the efforts, because I know it's, you know, two years that's a lot to do in just two years. I know that sounds like a long time. But in fact, in the lifecycle of a big foundation, it's certainly not I shared that opinion coming from big institutions, government, I read, things like that, you know, it's, it's a lot, but that work that you're doing, even, especially through the lens of humility, and through the acknowledgement that, you know, you don't know what you don't know, and that we're going to be speaking in draft if I can, you know, use that terminology. And that it's continuously evolving, which is something that is hard, because, you know, when you don't ever feel like, you're done. It's exhausting, so interesting. But I think you know this about me, I am a bit of a research nerd, I love different ways of researching. So talk to me a little bit about the role of research in this new work.
Porché Hardy 22:49
Or I think it's important to know and understand that a wallet foundation, the foundation of our work is research, we are really interested, and sharing the knowledge that we are receiving from the organizations that work with us as partners. And so inside of the arts initiative, we have at least three streams of research work. One where we're investing in researchers of color, emerging researchers of color to work with the arts organizations could build out the organizational history of these organizations, and really help them to share what the organization kind of what's, what the internal mechanisms of the organization, what has helped them to thrive for so many years, is so we invest in emerging or emerging resources of color. We also have a relationship with the organization where we are looking at their organizational projects that they're working with, as well as foundations. And so we'll also be looking at how these organizations are making decisions that will help them work toward well being within their organizations. And so, again, resources at the cornerstone of the Wallace Foundation.
Jeff M. Poulin 24:06
So, as we do on the wide change podcast, as we get to know people all around the world, we love to see what sort of keeps them ticking, especially in those really challenging job scopes that they have working at those intersections. So I have a couple of questions that I would love to ask in rapid succession to get your perspectives on. Exactly what keeps you going. So I've got five questions. Are you ready? Who, who inspires you?
Porché Hardy 24:37
My mother fires me.
Jeff M. Poulin 24:39
What keeps you motivated
Porché Hardy 24:40
by and seeing undeveloped, underdeveloped properties that could be how, by artists?
Jeff M. Poulin 24:49
Where are you most grounded in my faith? How do you stay focused?
Porché Hardy 24:54
My dog keeps me focused.
Jeff M. Poulin 24:57
And lastly, why change
Porché Hardy 25:00
If you don't change, you break the human life cycle.
Ashraf Hasham 25:03
Well, excellent. Thank you so much Porsche for joining the wide change podcast, it was a real pleasure. So many big ideas, so many things to think about, and so much excitement about the future of this work that you're doing. I can't wait to see what happens. So thank you for being here.
Porché Hardy 25:21
Thank you, Jeff.
Ashraf Hasham 25:31
And we're back how exciting I loved, loved loved loved hearing about your purchase story and what she's up to at the Wallace Foundation right now. What are some big takeaways that you had? I heard you talking about that curiosity in the funding space? Yeah, that is actually I would say, probably the biggest word that has, has stuck with me, you know, since we last spoke, since I spoke with Porsche, you know, the, the idea that curiosity is something that's absolutely embedded in the fabric of that foundation, especially one of these, you know, massive foundations that are really driving change and having tremendous impact. And I love that curiosity is like a core tenant. And further the kind of three elements that she outlined as part of this new work that that they're doing around listening, learning and flexibility, which to me is like, let's just like put that on a sticky note that remains on my monitor at all times, because it's just such a good reminder of, of how we can be curious, in the work that we do, be it a, you know, 100 million dollar investment, like they're making up the walls Foundation, or a, you know, small project with your internal team in the office every day. Yes, absolutely. And how humility comes in that sort of listening and learning and flexibility, how expanding the table comes on into it. And how the research is right as part of that core part of learning to love that little ditty about open source research and making sure that's available to folks so that folks can start seeing themselves in it right, fellow funders or just folks who are reading about the good work. And you know, that that resonates with me, I mean, that was, in founding Creative Generation, one of the core beliefs that I was like, you know, listen, we can't just invest time and resources in doing that type of learning without sharing it for the betterment of the whole field. Like, I find it absolutely insane that there are still organizations or foundations or other public agencies out there that do research, and then keep it entirely to themselves, when in fact, you could save someone else that $100,000 of investment in uncovering the answers that you sought to uncover by just being a little bit generous and being a little bit humble in that, and, you know, in sharing it so that the field can progress. And we can continuously build that foundation, like, as a researcher myself, that's the whole point. That's why we do literature reviews, it's to not repeat what's already been researched by someone and build from what has been learned. And I think that that's so important. So I love that Wallace is investing in the research and documentation, particularly of researchers of color in communities that are often under invested by big philanthropy, and that, you know, are actually focusing on the narrative, right, telling the stories of these organizations of storytelling as research. I love everything about that, that just speaks directly to my heart. I agree and what I love about the research and open source pieces, the vulnerability, that that is sort of innate in that, what I mean by that is, research sometimes tells you how you should be doing it better, or perhaps ways that it could have gone better, or perhaps, ways to improve that you explicitly asked for, from the constituents. And that takes Yeah, that vulnerability to be able to share back out even when it's part of what you're doing that maybe isn't quite where it needs to be. Right. And so I just want to give shoutouts to anybody who's being that vulnerable and sharing the reports and research. It does take that decision point of, do we want to put ourselves in a position of being perhaps wrong or less than, or whatever it is, right. Yeah. And I mean, I totally agree with that. And really just underscore, in fact, I, that was sort of one of my aha moments, I feel like I have a couple of them a year and not and not in research or anything like that. Those are built in, you know, aha moments. That's, that's what you're seeking. But in just some of the operations of some of the projects that I've done, yeah, I actually had someone who said, you know, well, you know, I just don't know that this project was really that big of a success. And I said, Well, why why is that? Like, I think it's great. Like, we created this model together. And you know, and there's, you know, all this learning that happened in these big reports and these big outcomes, and you have a framework to move forward with. And they said, well, because, you know, there was this moment and that moment or whatever, when things didn't go according to plan. And I was Like, Oh, this is we have a fundamental difference of understanding here. Because I think that's beautiful. Yeah. When we, when we try something and it flops, that means we learned so much. Absolutely. There's so many things that can be learned from that. And so I think you're right, when it comes with that humility that like, you know, a huge foundation like the Wallace Foundation could certainly sit on their laurels and say, You know what, no, we know how to do it, we're the best at doing this. We know how to do it, right? And instead, they're saying, you know, what, we're actually going to listen to our communities. And we're going to focus on those most impacted and we're going to have that two way dialogue, not just talking at or researching, but engaging in listening and learning and that two way street, so that we can be flexible. Certainly, there's, you know, what, 100 years or more of the Wallace Foundation that they've learned from, and they may know how to do things really well. But there's always room for improvement. And I love that they're taking this moment in time to do that. And also, like, what a cool experience for someone like Porsche to be able to be part of that, and, and really kind of see that shift, what do they say, you know, like, a, takes a long time for a giant, you know, barge to turn in the ocean or whatever, there's something about this. But you know, like, you may not see that shift right away, because it's totally incremental in it, because the the weight or the magnitude of, of the institution of the system is huge, but it is happening, you know, little by little progress is progress. And that it can be done is the message here. And I think that that's great in a place where we could probably just sit here and complain about big foundations and big philanthropy for a long time. But also recognize that, you know, there's tremendous things that are afoot, whether we see it to the visible eye, or is it one of those things that you notice over time? I don't know. I think it's kind of inspiring. Yeah, I remember the conversation with Nicky Kirk, a few months ago, at the Indianapolis Arts Council. Similarly, right, they're there to make incremental change. And they came in at a time where the ship was already turning, so to speak. And they're there to make sure that it goes well and continue to innovate, right, continue to fail and be vulnerable. And, and you have humility, and be flexible and invite people to the table. So that it can be that it can fully turn, you know, wherever it's going to. And I love that in this case, Porsche did like without dropping a beat mentioning two to 10 years of research and engagement. Like that's just what it is you guys, which I like, look, he was, like stoked to hear. It's not just me or you, Jeff. It's all of us. It takes years to do this kind of work.
Jeff M. Poulin 32:41
Absolutely. And I think I mean, you certainly know being located at a city agency like that is something you know, and it's interesting, too, because I think I was just reflecting back. After you talked to Nicky Kirk, you spoke with Keita Suave back and Matt de Rico from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Clare Rose Foundation respectively. You know, and they represent a, you know, regionally focused Family Foundation and a statewide public agency. And then you have your city agency in the mix. And I know you do a lot of like public private partnerships and things like that, to that it's fascinating, because I think it really illustrates the point that you need a pretty diverse makeup of philanthropy to sort of keep this ecosystem afloat, right, where we have, you know, city agencies that could change every four years, say when there's a new mayor, Mayor in the mix, or, you know, federal funders that are totally responsive to what's going on in the White House in Congress, and they're on two year budget cycles, you know, you look at family foundations that are often a little more niche and driven sometimes by individuals or small groups of individuals. And then you have your kind of big public, big private funders, like the Wallace Foundation that, you know, just take a long time to move the mountains, because that's what they're doing. They're moving mountains. And that will talk that mix, you know, at the alchemy that happens is actually what supports the system. I mean, imagine if everyone was on two or four year cycles, yikes, that could really go south if things occurred, or if everyone was at the whim of individuals. Yikes, you know, and the idea that it all mixes together is what makes it possible. But it also means that that progress happens at different paces, you know, you could have an incredibly progressive mayor that comes in and directs all city agencies to have an equity lens and boom funding formulas change. You could have a family foundation, or an individual donor that totally decides to go away from one area and fund another area and it happens overnight. And that type of shift, sometimes, like the long game that that person was talking about, like maybe that consistency is actually good. You know that there's something a little bit more standard in the mix for a while, but I don't know I think I'll Change the script. And I really appreciate that the change that is happening here, even if it is long
Ashraf Hasham 35:06
Out of that a lot of the resonates certainly, and the fact that Wallace has such meaningful investments to make the 100 million dollars that Porsche dropped was quite amazing to hear about, especially hearing about organizations under $500,000 budgets. Boy, my heart just kind of exploded a little bit when I heard that.
Jeff M. Poulin 35:28
Yeah. And, and also investing part of that money and things that are like, not the sexiest, right, you know, doing some of the research to figure out, you know, this work or networking together some of these things. I mean, my primary area, as its portion of history, you know, is primarily around arts education, you come into that mix as well. And, you know, oftentimes we see funders who just want to, they love the idea of seeing a truck full of trumpets get delivered somewhere, and it's shiny, and you know, it takes an impressive photo. But in fact, the thing that's really important is some of that infrastructure, some of that learning or well finding of relationship that's
Ashraf Hasham 36:06
used. Yeah, well being is when I heard her say, Oh, love that. Yeah. And
Jeff M. Poulin 36:11
well being of people, well being of organizations, well being of communities, well being of ecosystems, it's across the board. And I think that health investing in that height, that health and vitality is that to me is like, so chef's gifts, like that is what we gotta be doing. You know,
Ashraf Hasham 36:27
I love it. That's so true. Boy, well, I really appreciated this conversation and hearing you talk to Portia. I also loved hearing about the business instead of the music choice that she made seemed like a key decision point. Internships, as part of her come up story, I saw myself reflected and a lot of what Porsche mentioned too. So I really appreciate you having this conversation and can't wait to hear from the audience and hear what else resonated for them.
Jeff M. Poulin 36:55
Yeah, well, thanks, Sasha, for discussing it with me. And Thanks to Porsche and the Wallace Foundation for allowing us to have the conversation and, you know, this just continues all the good thinking with all these amazing funders that you're getting to talk to Ashraf, I'm really jealous. I'm glad I got to do this one, but I'm jealous of all the other ones. Well, thanks, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Why change podcast. We'll catch you next time. Peace. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of why change the podcast for Creative Generation. All sources discussed in this episode are located in the show notes. If you haven't already, be sure to follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Also, you can write to us at Creative generation.org We would love to hear your ideas, the topics you want to learn about and why change matters to you. This episode was produced by Jeff M pooling. Our artwork is by Bridget Woodbury. Our editor is Katie Rainey, the podcast theme music is by distant cousins. A special thanks to our contributors, co hosts and the team at Creative Generation for their support.