Our Vision
Sidra Collaborative partners with arts, culture, and humanities organizations and funders to build sustainable programs and reimagine a funding landscape that centers transparency, equity, and community.
Our Mission
At Sidra Collaborative, we partner with arts, culture, and humanities organizations to establish more transparent and impactful funding programs. We work with clients who provide funding – philanthropies and grantmakers – as well as those who seek funding – cultural organizations, scholars, and artists.
Our diverse team brings a combined 65 years of interdisciplinary expertise working in libraries, museums, archives, universities, and grantmaking organizations at the local and national levels. We understand how to work within dynamic philanthropic and cultural institutions at every stage of funding program development and implementation, especially during moments of critical need. Through long-term and project-based collaboration, we amplify the reach and impact of funding programs. Our professional development offerings support institutional and individual practitioners connecting communities with resources.
Together, we plan for successful futures to sustain and amplify our thriving cultural landscape.
Our Pledge: Sidra Collaborative & the Use of Generative AI
Sidra Collaborative advocates for the mindful, responsible, and ethical uses of new and emerging technologies.
These days, generative AI seems to have overtaken every aspect of our work — from claiming the em-dash to reportedly producing government documents. This proliferation of AI comes despite the many flaws inherent to its use, such as excessive energy consumption and detrimental environmental impacts to communities located near data centers, copyright violations, intellectual property infringements, factual hallucinations, and potential negative psychological impacts.
One of Sidra’s core values is transparency, so here is our pledge to you: we will not use generative AI to manage projects, conduct research, organize or analyze data, produce or revise writing, or generate outputs.
How this pledge helps our clients:
Our work is by people, for people. We value human connection — connection to our network of experts and our clients as well as connection to art and knowledge. We believe that these connections deepen our understanding of the world and make it a better place.
We care about your trust, and we need to be confident that everything we do is methodologically sound, well-informed, and aligned with our values. Using generative AI would dilute and degrade our commitment to excellence.
Sidra takes arts, culture, and humanities work to heart. We wouldn’t trust AI-generated content to accurately represent the importance and impact of arts, culture, and humanities that we have seen and experienced firsthand.
We believe excellent work requires human touch, skill, and expertise. We would never replace the labor of our amazing colleagues in the arts, culture, and humanities with mediocre products made by AI.
We want to model the behavior we desire to see in the world. This pledge is just one way in which we enact Sidra Collaborative’s vision to “build sustainable programs and reimagine a funding landscape that centers transparency, equity, and community.”