about us

Emerging Leader Council: Member Bios

Ebony McKinney
Director
Emerging Arts Professionals/SFBA
San Francisco, California
E-mail: nextgenerationsf@gmail.com

Ebony McKinney

Ebony McKinney is currently the director of the Emerging Arts Professionals/SFBA, a network focused on empowerment, leadership, and growth of next generation arts and culture workers in the San Francisco Bay Area through knowledge sharing, learning opportunities, and partnerships. She currently serves on the Citizen's Advisory Committee at Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Ebony has served on the selection panel for the Joyce Foundations Emerging Leaders of Color Fellowship for the past two years. Prior to spearheading EAP/SFBA, McKinney was program associate for the Cultural Equity Grant Program of the San Francisco Arts Commission (2006-2009), which is charged with supporting small and midsized arts organizations under-represented communities and individual artists. Ebony also worked at Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco’s oldest alternative arts space, as fiscal sponsorship coordinator. In her hometown of Pittsburgh, she sat on the board of The Sprout Fund, managed programming and outreach at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, and acted as an aide to a local councilman. An intrepid traveler, Ebony has backpacked through South Africa, worked with NGOs in Botswana, and most recently traveled to Beirut, Cairo, and London to explore arts, development, and cultural leadership activities.