Center for Cultural Power

The Center sponsors an annual Disruptors Fellowship program, a three-month fellowship for screenwriters of color who identify as transgender or nonbinary, as disabled, or as undocumented or formerly undocumented immigrants. ⁴ Additional programs include Climate Woke which is intended to get low-income communities of color, and indigenous and migrant communities involved in climate change activism by supporting the production of videos and performance pieces on climate change, ⁵ and Reclaiming the Border Narrative which provides funding for immigration activists and artists to work on content and stories that support expanded immigration. ⁶

Donors to the Center include left-of-center philanthropies Ford Foundation, Kendeda Fund, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Libra Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Surdna Foundation, Compton Foundation, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In June 2021, philanthropist, author, and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos MacKenzie Scott donated $11 million to The Center for Cultural Power. ⁷

Background or History

The Center for Cultural Power was founded in 2019 by left-of-center artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez. It is a left-of-center organization led by women of color artists focused on activism and community organizing through art. Focus issues are migration, climate, and gender and racial justice. ³ It was originally the Citizen Engagement Lab (CEL) Education Fund.  ⁸

The Center for Cultural Power supports artists through fellowships, training, and opportunities for activism, and organizes artists around issues related to migration, climate, and gender and racial justice. ⁹  The Center focuses on artists of color, immigrant and undocumented artists, disabled artists, transgender artists, indigenous artists, and women artists. ¹⁰

Programs

The Disruptors Fellowship is a three-month fellowship for artists of color who identify as transgender or nonbinary, as disabled, or as undocumented or formerly undocumented immigrants. ⁴ It was created in 2020 by Center for Cultural Power in partnership with 5050by2020, ¹¹ a trans and nonbinary artists’ support network that is an activist program of the left-of-center women’s advocacy organization Time’s Up. ¹² The program provides mentorship, workshops, networking, training and development, and a stipend of $6,000. ¹³ As a result of the program, the fellow completes a pilot television program. ¹⁴

Climate Woke is a program which is intended to get low-income communities of color, and indigenous and migrant communities involved in climate change activism by supporting the production of videos and performance pieces on climate change. ⁵ It started with a Climate Woke convening hosted by the Center for Cultural Power founder Favianna Rodriguez in Hollywood in 2019. Artists, musicians, and actors participated to share ideas. ¹⁵ One Climate Woke campaign is Cancel Prime, which claims that Amazon is responsible for air pollution and labor exploitation and subscriptions to its services should be canceled. ¹⁶

The “Good Energy Playbook” was released in April 2022 to provide artists and writers with tools to create stories to advocate for environmentalist approaches to counter climate change. ¹⁷ It was co-created with artists, writers, climate advocates, and environmentalist activists. Good Energy was funded by left-of-center philanthropies including Bloomberg Philanthropies, Walton Family Foundation, and Kenneth Rainin Foundation as well as environmental advocacy groups Solutions Project, 1.Earth Fund, and Sierra Club. ¹⁸

The Constellations Culture Change Fund began with a 2020 Constellations Convening of artists and activists funded by the Surdna Foundation. The design team included representation from The Center, Firelight Media, First Peoples Fund, and Race Forward. It is a 3-year $23 million initiative to support black, indigenous, and people of color artists and storytellers ¹⁹ who are working to advance left-progressive policies, “dissolve white supremacy, and mitigate the consolidation of wealth and power.” ²⁰

In March 2021, Ford Foundation announced a partnership with the Center for Cultural Power, Borealis Philanthropy, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures along with a donation of $4.5 million to launch Reclaiming the Border Narrative. This program provides funding for immigrant activists and artists to work over three years on content and stories that support immigrants’ rights and border communities that include illegal immigrants ⁶

Beyond Status was launched in 2021 by the Center for Cultural Power, led by lead content creator Jesús Iniguez. ²¹ Beyond Status is a showcase of five short films about migrants, created by migrants. A second showcase is in progress, targeted for a 2023 release. ²¹

The Center for Cultural Power created the Movement to the Ballot Box, which gathered artists to encourage people to vote by “offering personal and intersectional perspectives on the significance of elections.” According to the group, the art was shared online during the 2024 elections “reaching a national audience of over 3 million and engaging more than 85,000 people. Audience response testing found that four of the nine art pieces had a statistically significant effect on increasing certain BIPOC respondents’ likelihood of voting and/or enthusiasm for the 2024 elections.” In 2024, the group “supported thirteen movement partner organizations and commissioned eight artists for campaigns in Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Ohio, and Georgia.” ²²

Associated Organizations

The Cultural Engagement Lab (previously Citizen Engagement Laboratory) is the 501(c)(4) action arm of The Center for Cultural Power. It is a left-of-center artists’ collaborative focused on creating content that supports progressive political campaigns. ²³ Some of its programs included Color of Change, an online activist organization focused on “building black power”; ²⁴ UltraViolet, a left-progressive advocacy organization that fights for feminist culture and expanded abortion access; ²⁵  and Coworker.org, which helps workers launch campaigns in their workplace. ^{26 27}

CultureStrike is a left-of-center sister organization, made up of a network of migrant artists focused on increasing political power through art. ²⁸ The online CultureStrike Magazine supports open immigration and migrants’ rights. ²⁹

Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) is a nonprofit organization providing support for liberal activism to over 1,000 musicians. Programs include disaster response, artist activism retreats, and election-year strategies. ³⁰ RPM has transferred ownership of some programs to Center for Cultural Power. ³¹

The Center for Cultural Power partners with over 15 left-of-center advocacy groups including Caring Across Generations, MomsRising, and Community Change. ³²

Funding

From 2019 to 2025, the Ford Foundation had given another $4,067,822 to Center for Cultural Power. Much of the grants were earmarked for the group’s Reclaiming the Border project, which seeks to build support for open borders policies and opposition to the enforcement of immigration laws. ³³

In 2020 the Compton Foundation donated $225,000 for general support. The foundation refers to the Center for Cultural Power as a way for the progressive movement to create culture change in support of migration, climate, race, and gender issues. ³⁴

In 2021 the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation donated $400,000 to the Center for Cultural Power to “build the power of its network of artist-activists”. The foundation has donated $1,926,000 to the Center from 2012 to 2021. In 2023, the foundation gave another $750,000 to “inspire media and culture makers to imagine, and help build, a world where power is distributed equitably. Its goal is to advance new national narratives that create the cultural conditions for greater inclusion and equity.” Between 2012 and 2023, the foundation gave the Center for Cultural Power $2,676,000. ^{35 36}

In June 2021 MacKenzie Scott announced donations of $2.74 billion to 286 groups. The Center for Cultural Power received $11 million, with $3 million allocated for general support and $8 million for the Constellations Culture Change Fund. ⁷

In November 2021 the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $400,000 to the Center for Cultural Power for general operating support associated with their climate and energy focus. ³⁷

Leadership

Favianna Rodriguez is founder and as of 2025 was working as the cultural strategist for the Center for Cultural Power. ³⁸ Previously, Rodriguez was co-founder and director of EastSide Arts Alliance and Cultural Center, ³⁸ which is an organization of artists and activists of color in the Oakland area advocating for left-progressive social change. ³⁹ She co-founded Taller Tupac Amaru, ³⁸ an Oakland based artists’ collective that uses screen printing as a tool for political activism. ⁴⁰ She was hired by the Citizen Engagement Laboratory to launch Presente.org, which is a national left-of-center online organizing network focused on building political power in left-progressive Latino communities. ⁴¹

In 2008, Rodriguez became president of the Cultural Engagement Lab in 2008, a left-of-center artists’ collaborative focused on supporting progressive political campaigns, especially those trying to reach Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Indigenous, and young people. ²³ In 2011 Rodriguez co-founded CultureStrike, which is a left-of-center arts organization focused on migrant rights. ⁴² Rodriguez is a member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, which is a group of artists whose art focuses on political and environmental activism ⁴² and a board member of environmentalist advocacy group Solutions Project. ⁴³

As of 2025, Aisha Goss was the chief executive officer of the Center for Cultural Power. She joined the group in January 2022 as the group’s chief development officer. She stepped into the role of the group’s chief executive officer in March 2025. She began her career working in development at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association. Before joining the Center for Cultural Power she was the deputy director of the Secular Coalition for America. ⁴⁴

As of 2025, Jeff Chang was the chairman of the board. He was a co-founder of CultureStrike which later became a part of the Center for Cultural Power. He developed the May 19^th Project, led the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy, and helped write the Cultural New Deal. ⁴⁵

Financials

According to the Center for Cultural Power’s 2023 tax returns, the group had $6,070,622 in revenue, $14,774,356 in expenses, and $12,238,650 in net assets. The group received $882,106 in government grants. ⁴⁶

In 2023, the Center for Cultural Power paid then-president Favianna Rodriguez $230,052 in total compensation. Overall, the group spent $6,184,450 on salaries and benefits for its employees. ⁴⁶

In 2023, the group awarded grants of $125,000 to NEO Philanthropy, which served as the fiscal sponsor for the Art Change Us project. The group also gave $100,000 to the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom. The group gave $250,000 to Allied Media Projects which served as the fiscal sponsor for the Undocumented Filmmakers Project, the Detroit Narrative Agency Project, and the Comfrey Films Project. The group also gave smaller amounts of money to mostly non-white and LGBT art projects and theater troupes. ⁴⁶