Quanice G. Floyd is the co-founder and director of the Arts Administrators of Color (ACC) network, a Washington, D.C.-based service organization that advocates for “equity in the arts through collaborations, forums, and outlets that provide a voice for arts administrators and artists of color where there may not be one.”
Born and raised in New York City, Floyd taught elementary school general music, chorus, band and orchestra, before transitioning full-time to the nonprofit world. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education from Howard University and Kent State University, respectively, a second master’s degree in arts management at American University, and is currently a doctoral student at Drexel University. In 2018, Americans for the Arts named Floyd an American Express Emerging Leader, calling her “a renaissance woman who wears many capes.”
As for the organization she co-founded, since its launch in 2016, the AAC has held over 25 events, served over 1,000 arts leaders in D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan area, over 200 arts leaders nationally, and maintains a Facebook group that reaches nearly 3,000 members.
I recently caught up with Floyd on what was a sweltering afternoon in the nation’s capital (even by D.C. standards) to discuss her career trajectory, her numerous influences, and why sometimes it’s best to act now and apologize later.
What made you decide you wanted to work in the nonprofit sector?
I didn’t decide that I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector, I kind of just fell into it. I was a public school music educator for almost a decade and was working on my second master’s in arts management at American University, doing research on arts education, and I ended up realizing that I would go to a lot of arts administration conferences that oftentimes weren’t reflective of the communities they served.
There was a lot of conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion work at the time, but there were pretty much no people of color in those rooms when arts management administration decisions were being made. And so after I graduated, I decided that I wanted to support people of color in the arts and culture sector.
I ran into a colleague, Ariel Davis, who I went to Howard with, at an event in D.C., and we said to each other, “Wouldn’t it be really great for us to create a type of space for people of color in the arts?” And so we ended up creating the ACC to create space for people of color within the arts and culture sector. I was still working as a music teacher and came to realize that I wanted more systemic change for my students and that it was difficult for me to address those issues within the four walls of my classroom.
I ended up leaving teaching and ended up working at the National Guild for Community Arts Education as the director of learning and leadership development. Then, because of my work with the AAC, I was the executive director of the Arts Education in Maryland Schools Alliance, where I advocated for arts education policy. And now I’m also the executive director of the National Guild for Community Arts Education.
So all of that is to say that even though the arts management program at American University was focused on the nonprofit sector, I always thought that I would do that work as a teacher. But again, I came to the realization that there were a lot of systemic issues that need to be addressed, which is how I ended up transitioning from teaching to the nonprofit world.
Who are your biggest influences?
I have a lot of influences. The first influence is my aunt, Donna Peterson. She raised me after my mother passed away, so she’s been like my second mom. In the arts sector, there’s Denise Saunders Thompson, who is is the president and chief executive officer of the International Association of Blacks in Dance; Kaisha Johnson, who’s the co-founder of Women of Color in the Arts; my colleague and AAC co-founder Ariel Davis; and Alison McNeil, who runs the McNeil Creative Enterprises and is co-founder of Women of Color in the Arts.
There’s Alysia Lee, who’s an arts education advocate in Maryland; C. Lorenzo Evans, who’s a phenomenal nonprofit financial analyst; Sandra Bowie, who has been a major player in arts education and anti-racism work, along with Robyne Walker Murphy and Toya Lillard. Dr. Antonio C. Cuyler is someone that I look up to as well, because as someone who’s a doctoral student, I always enjoy reading his work, which blends the arts and culture with scholarly research in areas like liberation, antiracism and DEI.
So there are a lot of people and they’re all amazing. I’ve had conversations with all of them and I feel like I’m walking on the paths that they have created for me, and I’m really thankful for that.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
To apologize later. When I was teaching, I had a mentor named Ms. Evans. As a student teacher, you had to teach for a year before you would graduate and get your certification, and one of the things Ms. Evans always told me was to “apologize later,” because you have to go with what you know is best for you and your students within the context of school and teaching.
I always kept that with me, because a lot of the decisions that I make are grounded in who I am, in my experience, and my core values as a human on this planet. So if someone tries to tell me I can’t do something, I usually do it anyway, because it’s something that my intuition is saying, and it’s what people are telling me they want. I apologize later for it and I’m not regretful about it.
What makes you pessimistic about the state of philanthropy? Optimistic?
In terms of what makes me pessimistic, I would say there are still ongoing barriers to accessing funds. I’m often a part of conversations where decisions are being made in a vacuum, and I feel like there needs to be a lot more co-creation happening within the philanthropic sector.
One of the things that I often teach my students is the solidarity economy. Where does philanthropy fit in? How can we make sure that we are a part of this greater ecosystem and that we in the sector aren’t just relying on funding, also providing non-financial resources to the communities that we’re serving?
On the optimistic side of things, I do see that a lot of funders are really trying — I emphasize “trying.” One of the things that blew everything out of the water was MacKenzie Scott. She has built this culture of care and community and trust, and I see some funders trying to move toward that direction of, “Let’s not have 300 pages for our application process, or let’s not nickel and dime every single part of this project budget.”
I see some foundations moving toward breaking down some of those barriers, but those barriers are still there, because they’re based in the history of philanthropy, and I feel like there needs to be more conversation about how we can all collectively create together and reimagine what the sector looks like.
What was the last great book you read?
I read a lot of different books, and right now I’m reading Frantz Fanon’s “Black Skin, White Masks.” Then there’s a book by Clyde Taylor called “The Mask of Art.” And Cecile Shellman has an amazing book that came out earlier this year that I use for my class, and it’s called “Effective Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Practices for Museums.”
Those books have been on the top of my list, but I’m always reading things — I have a million books and I can’t wait to have a house that has a library and I can just put them all there [laughs].
What advice would you give nonprofit leaders?
I would say, lead with love, lead with trust, lead with humanity, lead from the heart, and lead from abundance, because I think we often move in a way that is the anti- of all of those things. I always try to make sure that we are spreading that love to others with everything that we do — not just seeing someone on the street saying “Hi,” but asking, “What decisions can I make every day to help someone else out there in the world?”