Call for Sessions:
2026 GIA Conference

Call for Sessions for the 2026 GIA Conference will open on Tuesday, March 10. GIA Members may submit their sessions through the member portal.

The 2026 Annual Conference will be held in Memphis from Sunday, October 18 through Wednesday, October 21 based at multiple properties throughout several Memphis neighborhoods.

Grantmakers in the Arts is delighted to welcome you to Memphis, Tennessee—a majority-Black Mississippi River city whose creativity has shaped the nation’s music, movements, and imagination. Memphis is not simply our host—it is our living textbook. In a moment of politicization, instability, and inequitable investment patterns across arts ecosystems, we gather in a place that has long confronted these conditions with coordination, ingenuity, and collective care—connected to the Deep South freedom corridor of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

This conference invites us to examine how national funding logics manifest locally, how cultural infrastructure is built and sustained under uneven conditions, and how value moves through sound, migration, ownership, and narrative. Through artist-led dialogue, site visits, and interactive sessions, we will learn from what is working, interrogate biased systems, and clarify what shared responsibility requires.

The question before us now is: What flows back—and how do we move differently, together?

This call will work differently

This year, GIA is not accepting sessions through a typical “submit→review→accept/reject” process across broad funding focus areas. Instead, this call is curated and place-rooted, and focused on a limited set of geographic and thematic priorities.

Submissions will be evaluated for fit within the overall conference arc, balance across the program, connection to place, and usefulness to grantmakers’ practice.

Possible outcomes

  • Selected as proposed

  • Selected with revisions (scope, format, collaborators, or framing)

  • Held for matchmaking (paired with another proposal and/or local knowledge holders)

  • Not advanced this year

Timeline

  • Call opens: Tuesday, March 10, 2026

  • Deadline: Friday, April 10, 2026 at 5:00pm EDT

  • Notifications and follow-up conversations begin: June 15, 2026

Questions? Email the GIA team at conference@giarts.org

Eligibility

This call is open only to GIA members. Proposed speakers may include non-members. GIA members should log in to the member portal to access session guidelines and the submission form.

How conference programming is being co-designed

Program development is guided by GIA staff in collaboration with the GIA Board of Directors, the Support for Individual Artists Committee, the Public Sector Cultural Policy Committee, and the local conference planning committee.

To be considered, proposals should clearly meet at least one of the session priorities outlined below, either geographic or thematic. Some proposals may meet both, but that is not required. If your proposal is compelling but aligns more strongly with one priority than the other, GIA may still advance it through revision and/or matchmaking. GIA may also reach out to gauge openness to co-design if a proposal is not yet fully aligned to the conference arc.

Geographic Priorities

Session ideas can be connected to the region through a set of concentric circles that reflect how the conference is being shaped:

  • Memphis (host city and primary learning context)

  • The Mississippi Delta (the Delta) (regional corridor shaped by migration, music, and movement work)

  • The Alabama Black Belt (a regional anchor for Black land, governance, and cultural life)

  • The South at large (shared conditions, strategies, and contradictions across the region)

A Global South frame can be a connective layer across any circle, including comparative or relational approaches grounded in the Memphis/Southern context.

All three of the following types of geographic connection are welcome:

  • Sessions centered on Memphis/Delta/Southern case material, including proposals led by non-local speakers

  • Sessions grounded elsewhere in the Southeast/South with clear relevance to the Memphis/South framing

  • Sessions that use multiple Southern cases to interrogate cultural funding and grantmaking norms

If your proposal is strong on theme but lacks a clear geographic link, you are still encouraged to submit—GIA may hold it for matchmaking with other proposals and/or local knowledge holders.

Priority will be given to proposals grounded in, co-led by, or meaningfully accountable to Memphis/Delta/Southern knowledge holders, as defined by the submitter.

Thematic Priorities

Proposals should align with one or more of the following themes. Please identify a primary theme, and if relevant, a secondary theme.

  • Building cultural infrastructure in place

    • Arts + Health as cultural infrastructure

    • Southern and Black-led cultural ecosystems

  • Reworking the civic commons through creative community development

    • Reimagining the civic commons

    • Creative community development

  • Shifting power through investment and ownership

    • Infrastructure, investment, and power

    • Black ownership as a cultural strategy

  • Breaking extraction and redistributing risk

    • Breaking extraction loops

    • Redistributing risk more equitably

    • Collaboration and collective action without a safety net

  • Practicing collective governance and narrative accountability

    • Decision-making outside of dominant norms

    • Breaking silos and building collective power

    • Narrative power and accountability

Session formats and participation expectations

We will keep the standard conference session format options (as listed in the submission form). All programming will be in-person only. No hybrid or virtual sessions will be offered.

Lecture-style panels are unlikely to be selected. Historically, interactive and immersive sessions are included at significantly higher rates. Strong proposals are clear about what participants will practice, interrogate, or build together. Q&A with panelists is not considered interactive or immersive.

Speaker guidelines and matchmaking

  • Maximum presenters: 4 speakers + 1 moderator

  • Matchmaking is strongly encouraged. Being open to pairing your proposal with another session idea, adding local organizers and cultural leaders, and/or connecting your session to a place-based learning experience may increase your likelihood of inclusion.

Venues and local hosts

There are no “on-site” or hotel-based sessions this year. All sessions will be hosted at local venues. GIA and the local planning committee are partnering with local host organizations for all sessions. If you would like to propose a venue to host a session, please do. All venues will be subject to GIA approval, including an access audit.

Registration, honoraria, travel, recording, and access

  • GIA member speakers are required to purchase a full conference registration to attend the full conference.

  • Non-member speakers receive complimentary registration for the day of their session.

  • Non-member speakers are not eligible to attend the conference except on the day(s) they are presenting.

  • Member-eligible speakers (e.g., funders who are not currently GIA members) are welcome to attend the full conference by purchasing a registration.

  • GIA does not offer single-day conference passes for attendees.

  • Honoraria: GIA offers $300 honoraria for non-member speakers.

  • Travel and lodging: Travel and lodging support for speakers is the responsibility of the session organizer(s).

  • Recording: Sessions will not be recorded by GIA. Attendees should request presenters’ permission before recording for personal use and before any publication.

  • Access: Accessibility resources will be shared on the conference website.