'Inside Philanthropy' Analyzes Doris Duke's Bet on the Arts to Counter Islamophobia
When Doris Duke first took up philanthropy as a young heiress and socialite in the 1930s and 1940s, Americans worried about a very different set of foreign adversaries than they do today. Now, through its Building Bridges grants program, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) is committed to finding common ground between American Muslims and non-Muslims through the arts.
More precisely, the four-year-old program is a project of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (DDFIA), a subsidiary of the bigger foundation. Every year, the Building Bridges program awards about $1 million to $3 million to creative projects that showcase Islamic culture and societies in a positive light. Announced recently, DDFIA’s 2016-2017 Building Bridges grants disbursed over $1.7 million to 11 organizations, with a focus on museum-based projects...