Fund for Boston's BIPOC Theatre Folx

UPDATE 9/10: Our new goal is 15,000. Please keep sharing, and please check the updates below for any further info.

If you are a part of the Boston Theatre or Arts Scene, or have in anyway benefited from the arts, then you owe an amazing group of Black women, women of color, and more, a drink. A number of strong BIPOC artists really are the backbone of this community, and we want to support more work and grants given to our Black, Indigenous, and other artists who are people of color.

This grant fund was inspired by events happening within our community that show that major institutes are NOT doing the work to support BIPOC artists. You can find out about what happened at Gloucester here . You can see the DISASTER of a social media post from Lyric Stage Company here.
(Please note that for Lyric you will need to scroll through about 187 comments - but the long story short is that plans for the theatre to re-start operations in October were leaked, and their PR Manager, Henry Lussier, using both the Lyric Stage account and his own personal one, berated and insulted members of the Boston Theatre Community, including using racist language with our very own Tonasia S. Jones. CW for all those who choose to read). 

This fund will be given to a member of the group of Black and POC Boston theatre artists who have been doing this education, fighting, and calling in, all while enduring harassment from primarily white institutions. 

All gifts will be distributed to Boston based BIPOC theatre artists who are committed to dismantling racism in the American Theatre. The funds may be distributed in the form of small individual grants and/or as grants that can be used to fund a project. Depending on the work required to distribute the grants, an organization, existing or newly formed, may be sought to help with any administrative needs.  While we hope to distribute the funds in a timely manner, it may take some time before they will be made available in order to fully develop a plan for the disbursement of the grants. During this time the funds will be held in a high yield savings account. Each donation received is a gift of thanks and is not received in exchange for any goods or services provided.

We are excited to see what projects and artists this fund will ultimately support - this small gofundme has outraised its goal multiple times, and will help support and grant resources to Boston based BIPOC theatre artists during a time of financial hardship for almost anyone in the live arts right now. 

In a dream world this money would have been paid to them BY these organizations, as their service is specialized and deserves compensation. 

This gofundme page is currently run just by KT Grindeland, a white member of the Boston community who has benefited from the presence and labor of these artists.