Our Journey towards Accessibility and Diversity: The Accessibility and Diversity Initiative

The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance has been working towards making our sector more accessible, diverse, equitable and inclusive. We started with an internal assessment of our organization in 2016 and created an affinity group to explore Diversity, Equity and Inclusion issues in our sector.

We extended this work through the Phillyfunguide and Funsavers programs. For the past two years, we have been committed to upgrading the Phillyfunguide to be more accessible and providing more visibility for organizations of color through our Accessibility and Diversity initiative, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to shift the services provided to the cohort for the Accessibility and Diversity Initiative. Due to COVID-19, our five organizations of color required more capacity to continue to market their content during this time. We provided in-house design support, producing creative for an assortment of marketing products, such as ad spots and direct emails, using the Phillyfunguide and Funsavers programs and social media channels. In addition, in partnership with Art Reach, we provided the cohort with a professional development learning session focused on how to make programming accessible both for in person events and in the digital space. The cohort reported feeling supported during a challenging time and felt that their involvement with the program increased and maintained their visibility.

As we complete our two-year Accessibility and Diversity Initiative, we are evermore committed to ensuring inclusion and equity in all of our programming and marketing. This summer, we launched a new Access the Arts! campaign, highlighting the accessibility offerings of the cultural events on the Phillyfunguide.

In addition, in 2021, we will be facilitating our “Unconscious Bias Series: Helping Arts Organizations Understand & Breakdown Audience Barriers”, a series of four workshops for arts organizations to understand how unconscious biases can impact their ability to connect and engage with their current and potential audiences. Be on the lookout for that and more from us soon! You can also learn more about the Cultural Alliance’s work in DEI, visit philaculture.org/DEI.   

Examples of design created for the A/D Initiative (Left: an example of a sponsored email  for Asian Arts Initiative. Right: An example of an ad created for The Colored Girls Museum):