In this episode, we’re talking to Shaunda McDill, who is my philanthropy sister, and a member of the maybe newly formed “Shay’s Babies” group -- folks who have had the pleasure to come of professional age in the culture world with Shay Wafer as a mentor. We met back in 2018, but leaned heavily on each other in the early days of the pandemic, mourning, sharing best practices, fast-money-movements to organizations, and looked to the future.
Shaunda McDill joined The Heinz Endowments in October 2017 As program officer for arts and culture, promoting the strength and vitality of a suite of Pittsburgh-based artists and arts organizations through general operating support and a programming portfolio comprised of the Investing in Professional Artists program, the Small Arts Initiative, the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh initiative and the foundation’s first cross-programmatic social justice initiative, Just Arts, which she helped to found.
Shaunda has more than a decade of nonprofit executive and arts management experience, working for theater companies across the country. In 2006, she also founded demaskus Theater Collective, a nonprofit, service-oriented collective of artists and administrators who produce theatrical projects that share stories of the marginalized.
This conversation was recorded May 1, 2020
Produced by Curtis Caesar John
Music by audionautix.com
