Reflecting on 2025 and Envisioning Hope for the New Year

Dear NALAC Friends, Family, and Community,

As this year comes to close, we are filled with gratitude and reflection. This message marks not only the end of an impactful year for our organization, but also my first opportunity to write to you as the new CEO & President of NALAC. It is an honor to step into this role, and I do so with an unwavering commitment to our arts and culture field.

On behalf of the NALAC team, I would like to share some successes and highlights from the year. NALAC has continued to show up for artists and arts organizations, investing resources, building leadership, and advocating for the creative work that sustains our communities. The accomplishments of our staff, board, partners, grantees, and alumni remind us of what is possible when we move together.

In 2025, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the NALAC Leadership Institute (NLI) , honoring a legacy of leadership development that has shaped the field of arts and culture for a quarter-century. This year’s cohort joins a growing alum network of more than 700 arts leaders nationwide.

Through the NALAC Fund for the Arts: National Arts Partners grants, supported by The Wallace Foundation’s Advancing Well-Being in the Arts initiative, we delivered $525,000 to Latinx/é arts organizations across the US, including Puerto Rico. Through our Catalyst for Change  fellowship awards, in partnership with the Surdna Foundation , a total of $200,000 was awarded to artists whose work is intended to catalyze community-based and artist-produced visions for creative solutions to social injustices.

We hosted the 2025 Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) intensive in San Antonio, Texas, welcoming fellows from across the country for professional development, cultural exchange, and community building among artists, culture bearers, and arts leaders.

Finally, we continued our commitment to research and advocacy by completing the National Latinx/é Arts & Culture Survey and report. This work offers a view of the Latinx/é arts and culture landscape, providing data to better understand the sector’s strengths and needs. The report, to be released in early 2026, will serve as an essential tool to amplify the voices of Latinx/é artists and arts organizations across the United States and Puerto Rico.

We wish to extend our deepest gratitude to our incredible partners, funders, and individual donors who continue to see the value of our work. Their belief and investment in NALAC make it possible to strengthen the Latinx/é arts and culture ecosystem, support artists and cultural workers, and advance lasting impact across the field.

Special thanks to:

• California Community Foundation
• Joyce Foundation
• San Antonio Area Foundation
• Surdna Foundation
• Terra Foundation for American Art
• Texas Commission on the Arts
• The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• The Ford Foundation
• The Tequila Don Julio Fund
• The Wallace Foundation

As we close 2025, we reflect on the importance of the arts. Art can be a haven; it can ground us and offer moments of connection, especially during times of uncertainty. Art can help us imagine alternatives and reconnect us to humanity. The work we do is essential in protecting cultural memory, amplifying voices, and ensuring that arts and cultures will continue to thrive for generations to come.

Looking forward to 2026, we share this poem by author and NALAC board member Lucas Rivera, in the spirit of hope and solidarity. Together, we will continue to build, create and expand the arts and culture field. May the coming year bring you moments of art-filled joy and well-being.

“We Exist: Born from the Seeds of Art”
By Lucas Rivera

In this nation,
we exist in all the colors of our history,
living murals
painted with dances that spark movements.

We don’t kneel before anyone,
but still,
we rise —
in diverse collections,
jumping borders,
languages ​​that whisper to us
the stories of those who paved the way.

We exist in all the colors of our history,
each a unique pigment,
a perfect shade
of memory and truth.

Raising voices, raising melodies,
with desire, with flavor,
with that deep-rooted fire
that never goes out.

We are diverse, but united,
tethered by the root of our Latinidad,
by the art that sustains us,
by the culture that carries us
when the world rejects us.

We exist in all the colors of our history,
colors that break barriers,
that open doors,
that build bridges of hope
while we sow justice.

We are Nalaqueros,
creators, dreamers,
descendants of storytellers and fighters —

And everything we do,
we do with soul,
with the heart
of a single NALAC.