CHICAGO

City of big shoulders

and bigger ideas

2024 gia conference

SEE YOU IN CHICAGO. LET’S GO!

OCTOBER 6 - 9, 2024

Grantmakers in the Arts welcomes you to Chicago for the 2024 GIA Annual Conference, City of Big Shoulders and Bigger Ideas! Join GIA members and allies in the heart of the Windy City, where collaboration meets innovation, and community leads together. Inspired by the vibrant tapestry of Chicago's neighborhoods and the city's rich history of partnership between artists, communities, philanthropy, and culture, this year's conference aims to delve deep into the transformative power of connection, creativity, and collective action. As major struggles face local and global communities, we take this opportunity to gather to amplify the role of arts in our communities, in our politics, in our future-making. Against this backdrop, Chicago's diverse communities and legacy of activism provide grounding from which to explore emergent themes of advocacy and resilience, artists as agents of change, and renewed ways of organizing. 

Join us October 6-9 to dive deep into the city’s cultural ecosystem, immersing ourselves in Chicago’s neighborhoods and institutions, learn from working artists and grassroots organizing, fostering connections with fellow collaborators, co-conspirators, and changemakers, and illuminate the intersections of culture, creativity, and social change.

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS WHOLE 

“BIG SHOULDERS”

THING?

we’re so glad you asked.

Carl Sandburg’s poem, Chicago, was published in Poetry in 1914 (Poetry Foundation) renaming - in a way - the Windy City after another kind of identity. One of storm and husk and brawl, of labor and energy requiring big shoulders (and big ideas).

Chicago

BY CARL SANDBURG

Hog Butcher for the World,

   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

   Stormy, husky, brawling,

   City of the Big Shoulders:

2024

GIA

CONFERENCE

tuesday

october 8

sunday

october 6

SCHEDULE

monday

october 7

wednesday

october 9

see you at the

SWISSÔTEL

The conference will be held at The Swissotel, located conveniently in The Loop overlooking Lake Michigan, the Chicago River, Millennium Park, and Michigan Mile.

​We encourage you to visit the FAQ page under "Where is the conference hotel and how can I make reservations?" for more information.

thank

you to our

sponsors

Anonymous Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation •

illinois art council polk bros. foundation

The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation