SFAC’s major programs are Community Investments (including a funding program that supports eleven grant categories for individual artists and organizations, arts education, and seven cultural centers; and an Artist Vendor Licensing Program); and Urban Infrastructure, including the award-winning Public Art Program, SFAC Galleries, Civic Design Review (an oversight body for all public development projects) and the Civic Art Collection which manages, conserves and maintains approximately 4,500 artworks owned by the City.

The Monuments and Memorials Advisory Committee is a priority initiative launched in 2021 that will impact the Public Art Program and the Civic Art Collection moving forward. It is a mayoral directive and charges SFAC to administer a partnership with the Human Rights Commission and the Recreation and Parks Department that convenes community members to create criteria and guidelines by which to determine the fate of historic monuments in the collection and the basis for commissioning public art memorials in the future.

The SFAC implements programs and policies that demonstrate cultural and racial equity values across all agency functions. We continue to develop as a local, national and international leader and resource for advancing racial equity practices in arts and culture services—both for the community and for the agency’s own infrastructure. In January 2019, SFAC became the first City & County of San Francisco agency to have passed a racial equity statement and plan.