Showing Arts & Culture + Black Philanthropy + Digital Equity.

How Arts & Culture, Black Philanthropy and Digital Equity Intersect

Across Charlotte and the Carolinas, communities tell their own stories through art, music and performance. Black philanthropy has long supported that storytelling and the community life around it. It draws on five kinds of giving: time, talent, treasure, testimony and ties. Today, digital access decides who can reach those stories and giving chances. A cultural group that cannot reach donors online struggles. A giving circle whose members lack reliable internet cannot fully join in decisions. A community's memory goes unshared if the platforms that carry it are out of reach.

Black Philanthropycommunity investment and leadershipArts & Culturecreativity and shared identityDigital Equityaccess to modern life
Arts & Culture and Black Philanthropy: Telling stories is itself a way of giving
Black Philanthropy and Digital Equity: Getting in requires a device
Arts & Culture and Digital Equity: Whose stories reach furthest
Where all three meet: where daily life compounds

Where all three meet: where daily life compounds

  1. Black Philanthropy and Arts & Culture: Telling stories is itself a way of giving
  2. Digital Equity and Black Philanthropy: Getting in requires a device
  3. Arts & Culture and Digital Equity: Whose stories reach furthest
01

Arts & Culture + Black Philanthropy

Telling stories is itself a way of giving

Black philanthropy has always included testimony. That means sharing stories that show a community's identity and leaders. Exhibits, murals, music and performance give those stories a public form. From 2013 to 2017, NGAAP worked with JCSU James B. Duke Library on The Soul of Philanthropy, an exhibit that made the tradition of Black giving visible to a wider public. Culture and giving work best together.

02

Black Philanthropy + Digital Equity

Getting in requires a device

Giving circles, community funds and local networks often run online. People use them to apply, to sign up for events and to donate. When internet access is uneven, so is participation. Black philanthropy reminds us that giving takes many forms: time, talent, treasure, testimony and ties. If a certain device or online skill is the only way to give, some neighbors get quietly shut out.

03

Arts & Culture + Digital Equity

Whose stories reach furthest

Online platforms now carry cultural programs, artist profiles, community archives and event tickets. Yet 14% of homes in Mecklenburg County did not have internet access in 2023, according to GovTech. Uneven connections mean that making and enjoying culture follow the same lines as economic chances. Communities with the richest traditions can be the hardest to find online.

How a quiet cultural group fades from view

  1. 01

    Cultural work stays unseen

    A neighborhood arts group has no digital tools to reach anyone beyond its own streets.

  2. 02

    Giving stays local and small

    Without online reach, collective giving depends on in-person ties, so fewer people can join in.

  3. 03

    Stories stay walled off

    Funders and young people never see the community's memory and what it has learned over time.

  4. 04

    Strength wears away unnoticed

    Arts groups lose funding and giving circles lose members, and few notice the slow decline.

Treat internet access as a first step for cultural events and collective giving. That can break this chain where the arts group first goes unseen.

By the numbers

  • $1.2B$1.2B generated by Charlotte’s visitor economy in 2025, driven in part by major arts, entertainment, and cultural events
  • $1.6M$1.6M infused into Charlotte by the New Generation of African American Philanthropists
  • 14%14% of homes in Mecklenburg County did not have internet access in 2023
  • 208+208+ public artworks created over three decades in Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Folio links, articles, and reports

Sources & methodology15 referenced sources

Based on fftc:FWD Folio material for these topics and public data, with broader context on how the issues connect.

AI assists with organizing and explaining selected fftc:FWD source material. It does not replace review by FFTC staff or the judgment of residents and civic partners.