NASAA Executive Forum 2025

Kiley Arroyo is a respected cultural policy, collaborative learning, and justice-centered systems change expert based in the Bay Area. Over the past twenty years, she has led a diverse portfolio of initiatives in partnership with entities from the arts and culture, government, civil society, and academic sectors. This work has taken place in a combination of urban, rural, and indigenous contexts in the United States and internationally. This work is increasingly focused on amplifying non-western, and indigenous approaches to whole systems care as a means to expand the library of cultural knowledge that informs just transitional efforts. Ms. Arroyo’s career began as a teaching artist in public schools. Learning through intercultural exchange and creative processes remains central to her work with foundations, government, and cultural development actors. She has lectured at universities in the United States and abroad and published widely on the role of culture in contemporary policy issues, global migration and displacement, participatory democracy, equitable development, community wealth building, and racial justice.

For six years, Leila led ArtPlace America's National Creative Placemaking Fund -- a $86M national grantmaking initiative -- among key partnerships to advance equity in arts-based community development. In her role as a grantmaker, she consistently puts relationships first. She believes cultural self determination, neighborhood love, and transformative justice are key ingredients for collective liberation.

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