Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Access
Dumbarton Arts & Education is wholly committed to being an antiracist organization—not just in theory but in practice. We feel strongly our staff and Board of Directors should represent the diversity of the city we serve, and we strive to increase the representation of different racial, ethnic, and other minority groups within our team because we know that a diverse team strengthens our work and our ability to carry out our mission of transforming lives through the arts.
Our Team
Our policy is to hire for any role or vendor-provided service from a diverse pool of applicants. Five of our last seven hires have been people of color, including people with Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ identities. Four of the five most recently elected members of our Board of Directors are people of color, and two identify as LGBTQ+. In 2022 Board Chair of 30 years stepped down, and was succeeded by a person our organization’s first African-American Board Chair. We recently awarded two large contracts to minority-owned companies and are a client of the minority-owned Industrial Bank in Ward 8.
Name Change
As part of our I.D.E.A. work, in 2021 we changed the name of our education program, from Inner City-Inner Child to Inspired Child. We felt it was important to remove that racially coded term “Inner-City” and evolve with a name that better conveys the ways the arts open children to new possibilities and give them a lifelong love of learning.
Anti-Racist Education
Our staff and board are committed to doing the work required to actively advance racial justice, and we have attended I.D.E.A.-focused trainings both individually and as a group. Our Executive Director recently completed a year-long fellowship with the Equity Lab’s Seeding Disruption cohort of education leaders committed to building knowledge, skills, and community across racial difference to catalyze movement toward racial equity. We are currently in the process of developing our three-year strategic plan, and setting and meeting ambitious I.D.E.A. goals is at the forefront of that work.
Equity-Focused Education Programming
Inspired Child's mission has always been to achieve greater education equity in Washington, DC, and we have always focused on children in historically underserved neighborhoods because we know that arts-based education is less readily available there. Decades of research have shown that children’s early childhood education experiences are a strong determinant of their outcomes later in life, and music and movement are essential in advancing young students’ cognitive and social-emotional development. We will not achieve education equity or true social justice until students of color in underserved DC communities have the same access to arts-based early learning as their wealthier and whiter peers, and Inspired Child is dedicated to providing these students with the enriching learning opportunities they deserve.
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Our programs honor the diverse heritage and experiences of the children, teachers, and families we serve through songs in multiple languages and dance styles from around the world. Our programming also celebrates DC through components like go-go music and the book A to Z: The Real DC, an alphabetical exploration of DC’s people, places, and foods, including Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, and chicken wings and mambo sauce.
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Our team of expert teaching artists represents diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, geographical, and artistic backgrounds. They embody DC’s immense artistic talent and play a central role in shaping our education programming.
Concert Outreach and Access
Dumbarton Concerts has always striven to create an environment that is welcoming and accessible to anyone who wants to experience beautiful chamber music. We present diverse musicians playing pieces composed and arranged by artists of color. Dumbarton Arts & Education is a signer of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals’ 10/20/30 Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) Pledge, which represents a 10-year commitment to devote at least 20% of programming to work by artists who identify as Black, Native/Indigenous, People of Color, women, individuals with disabilities, and LGBTQIA2S+, and to use at least 30% of their budget towards this goal. In the 2022-23 season alone, Dumbarton Concerts’ artist roster is 46% women and 33% people of color, far surpassing this goal. As we are planning the 2023-24 concert season, we are working to bring an even higher percentage of historically excluded groups to our stage.
We have increased our outreach to bring in more diverse audiences, and we have expanded access through our virtual programs, often at low or no cost to viewers. This has enabled us to open new avenues for the enjoyment of this music, including having an entire high school class enjoy a performance and ask questions of the artists after the show. Many elderly music lovers who are no longer able to attend performances in person have also been able to take advantage of our virtual concerts to continue enjoying vibrant arts experiences.
Our venue is ADA-compliant, and concert staff are trained to not make assumptions about each patron’s physical abilities but to instead offer them a variety of options for ways to access the performance space.
Pronouns
Dumbarton Arts & Education is an inclusive organization that respects the diversity of the community we serve. For many members of that community, their gender identity conforms to the sex they were assigned at birth, some of us experience an internal sense of self and gender that is different than the sex assigned at birth or does not conform to the gender binary. Mis-gendering people or ignoring their stated pronouns has the harmful effect of not only disrespecting them, but also invalidating someone’s identity.
We use non-gendered language unless individuals have expressed their own gender identity, and we welcome and support our staff, patrons, artists, and community to share their pronouns so that we may address them fully, respectfully, and appropriately. Our staff are encouraged to share their personal pronouns in their email signatures and when introducing themselves to new people. Additionally, we are in the process of implementing a wider range of pronouns on our website so that patrons may add their preferred pronouns in our ticketing system.
Land Acknowledgement
Inspired Child programs take place on ancestral lands of the Nakotchtank (Anacostin) and Piscataway nations. By acknowledging our presence on these lands, we recognize the history of injustice and oppression forced upon indigenous people by colonizers.
We humble ourselves to the indomitable spirit, strength, vitality and perseverance of indigenous people past, present and future
We dedicate ourselves to learn from the richness of indigenous people’s culture and countless contributions to society.
We commit to advocating for justice and planting seeds of love, understanding and empathy in our community through art and education.
We actively seek to discover our common humanity.
May our shared connection to art, land, spirit and the universe heal deep wounds of injustice.
Our Pledge to a Plan of Action
Dumbarton Arts & Education recognizes that racial reckoning, allyship, pursuit of social justice is an ongoing process, we will continue to provide learning opportunities to staff, teaching artists, board members and our community.
Dumbarton Concerts will continue to use our platform to honor and feature indigenous musicians and composers on our stage and indigenous visual artists in our art gallery.
Inspired Child will continue to develop residency and professional development content around land acknowledgement for children, educators and families. We commit to purchasing children’s books by indigenous authors.