Targeted expertise, with a proven record of success.

“Yona is a fabulous professional, with expertise in strategic planning, fundraising, nonprofit management, and much more. Her approach is holistic and effective. I consider myself very lucky to have been able to work with her!”

— Yael Reinharz, Founding Director, Surf Point Foundation

About Third Streaming

Culture is not separate from change. It is how change happens.

Inspired by the improvisational spirit of Third Stream music, Third Streaming moves between art, philanthropy, social impact, and cultural strategy—creating unexpected connections across disciplines, sectors, and ways of thinking.

Part advisory practice, part creative catalyst, Third Streaming works with artists, institutions, philanthropists, archives, and mission-driven initiatives navigating moments of transition, reinvention, and emergence.

The practice approaches culture as a living system—one shaped by relationships, collective imagination, storytelling, experimentation, and the social architectures that influence how we live, create, and relate to one another.

Grounded in over twenty-five years of experience across contemporary art, philanthropy, artist legacies, and nonprofit leadership, Third Streaming brings together strategic thinking, legacy stewardship, public engagement, research, fundraising, and cross-sector collaboration to support meaningful cultural and organizational transformation.

At its core is the belief that culture is not separate from change. It is how change happens.

Depending on the scope and nature of a project, Third Streaming assembles interdisciplinary teams of advisors, researchers, producers, archivists, and creative collaborators in response to each client’s specific needs.

All images above courtesy Third Streaming. Images credit Whitney Browne.

Key Achievements:

Crafting strategic initiatives with Executive and Board leadership
Designing fundraising campaigns and development plans
Leading Board retreats and self-assessments
Growing client revenues from individual, corporate, and foundation donors
Hiring, training, and mentoring staff
Developing Boards, individual giving groups, and exhibition support
Restructuring and rationalizing business activities
Planning and implementing cultivation events internationally
Teaching SVA graduate students
Researching and cultivating potential donors for project support
Managing grant pipelines and completing successful grant proposals
High-level grant program assessments and evaluations
Designing grant programs
Program development for nonprofits and foundations
Legacy Planning and Estate Management

“Life is short, art is eternal.”

— Hippocrates

Yona Backer

Cultural Strategy for Social Impact

Yona Backer’s work moves between contemporary art, philanthropy, archives, institutional strategy, and emerging models of social impact—often operating in the spaces where traditional structures, disciplines, and ways of thinking begin to break down.

Part strategist, part producer, part cultural catalyst, Backer approaches culture as a force capable of reshaping how people relate, collaborate, organize, and imagine what comes next.

Her practice combines strategic thinking with deep relational engagement, long-term vision, and an understanding of how culture shapes social narratives, collective values, and civic imagination.

Working collaboratively with clients, she helps organizations evolve in meaningful ways—clarifying purpose, strengthening alignment, communicating their work more powerfully, and building resilience in times of change.

Before spending a decade at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Backer worked across curatorial, nonprofit, and commercial sectors of the contemporary art world, developing an interdisciplinary perspective that continues to inform her approach to cultural strategy and organizational change. She later founded Third Streaming as both an experimental art space and an evolving interdisciplinary practice grounded in collaboration, improvisation, and cultural exchange.

She oversees the Alvin Baltrop Trust, where she has played a central role in expanding recognition of Baltrop’s work through exhibitions, publications, archival initiatives, institutional partnerships, and long-term stewardship. Her work with artist estates, archives, and foundations has increasingly evolved into broader questions surrounding cultural memory, narrative power, social imagination, and the future role of the arts within society.

Her collaborations span nonprofit organizations, artist-founded initiatives, archives, foundations, and interdisciplinary projects exploring the intersections of culture, ecology, technology, spirituality, and systems change.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, raised in Amsterdam, and based between Amsterdam and New York, Backer brings a globally informed and culturally hybrid perspective to her work across cultural strategy, legacy stewardship, public engagement, and social impact.

Backer holds a BA in Art History and History from Hunter College and an MA in Art History and Archaeology from Columbia University. She is also an Aspen Institute-certified specialist in the Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative (AEFI). Alongside her interdisciplinary practice, Backer teaches at the School of Visual Arts and serves on the boards of various arts and cultural organizations.

Education

Columbia University, NY
1999
Master of Arts, Art History & Archaeology (Global Arts & Non-Western Cultures)

Hunter College, NY
1995
Bachelor of Arts, Art History & History

Clients Served →

Associates

Randa Elsayed, Archive Consultant

Randa Elsayed

Archivist

Randa Elsayed (she/her) is the Founder and co-director of the Unframed Arts Collective, an Archivist at Third Streaming, a social justice advocate, and an artist looking to serve communities in need however she best can. In 2024, she was awarded the Spirit Award at Xavier Mission for her devotion to serving communities in need and also appeared as a panel speaker for events at the Artist Endowed Foundation Initiative via the Aspen Institute as well as Studio Institute to discuss her experience as a young advocate.

As a Smith Fellow, a Barbara Price Scholar, and Kenan Scholar, Randa worked hard to promote the voices of the underserved through various community oriented projects. She has had art pieces illuminating her experience as a young Arab American displayed in multiple exhibitions. A graduate of the Macaulay Honors College at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Randa earned her degree in Philosophical Perspectives in Art, Law, and Justice, with a secondary focus on Intergenerational Gender Studies. She aspires to decolonize institutional spaces as a future lawyer and nonprofit founder.

Randa hopes to break boundaries by not only telling her story through the arts but providing a safe space for others to tell their stories and find strength in unity and community.

Erin Montanez

DIGITAL ARCHIVE COORDINATOR

Erin Montanez (she/her) is the Digital Archive Coordinator at Third Streaming. She has a Master of Library Science from the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College CUNY and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Bates College.

She is also a Library Assistant in the Architecture Library at the The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York and a volunteer with XFR Collective, a non-profit focused on lowering the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media.

Erin is focused on supporting education and research through preservation activities, particularly in the context of artist archives, art libraries, research libraries, and archival and special collections. She is excited about the task of increasing the visibility of an artist as prolific as Alvin Baltrop through digital preservation strategies, digital asset management, and the development and implementation of archival discovery tools.

Diana McClure

PROJECT CONSULTANT

Diana McClure is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in New York City with extensive experience in the field of photography. She has worked with scholars, curators, technicians and researchers collaboratively through her work as a photographer, researcher, writer and educator. Her experience with archives ranges from the critical to the technical, working with private collections and artist estates as a writer and researcher.

Diana was part-time faculty in critical studies in the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts from 2016-2021. In parallel, for nearly two decades, she has written about art and culture, including publishing essays, reviews and profiles on renowned photographers such as: Chester Higgins, Jamel Shabazz, Malick Sidibé, Deborah Willis and Alvin Baltrop among others.

Diana’s contemporary art writing includes coverage of both emerging and established contemporary artists, covering a variety of mediums and social practice, and contributing essays to photobooks, catalogs and monographs. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Art21, Art in America, Art Asia Pacific, Art Basel magazine, Photograph, The Photo Review, Afropunk, Cultured, Prattfolio, the School of Visual Arts Journal and elsewhere.

Diana has exhibited artwork across the United States and her photographs are in the collections of The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture.

As a cultural producer Diana has founded, curated, and edited two online projects: Cultureserve, a finalist for a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant in the blog category; and AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought, a recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts Literary Grant, where she was a founding co-editor. Her work is informed by a Bachelor of Arts in History from Columbia University, a Master of Arts in Sociology as a recipient of the Diamond Fellowship from The New School for Social Research, and a certificate in Horticulture from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.