Last year's Conference for Community Arts Education in the Bay Area brought together staff, students, administrators, funders, policymakers, and stakeholders representing over 400 organizations from 40 states, Canada, and South Korea. Each year, the Guild is humbled by the amount of expertise, inspiration, enthusiasm, and joy that our delegates bring to the Conference experience. As a way to highlight those delegate voices, we are sharing a series of 2017 Conference Reflections.

Below, Monica Davidson, a youth speaks fellow at Writers in the Schools in Houston, TX, shares her thoughts on traditions, takeaways, togetherness, and self-care. 

What happens when you place around 700 arts educators, community activists, executive directors, and teaching artists in one space for four days in the bay? A whole lot of conversation and even more inspiration. People came from all across the country descending on the bay, some out of tradition, others looking for a “takeaway” to use back home. Then there were folks like myself excited to be in a space with like-minded individuals. I was looking for colleagues with similar values that are driven by similar passions—most importantly, exposing and empowering young people through the arts.

For the past two years I have been working as a fellow through a partnership between Youth Speaks and Writers in the Schools in Houston, TX. As a part of the culmination of our fellowship we were brought to the 80th National Guild for Community Arts Education Conference. I initially began the conference on the Creative Youth Development track and after the first day of sessions found myself being pulled into the rooms with the people I wanted to hear more from.

Below are four themes that arose for me during my time at the Conference as well as the thoughts and questions that came along with them.

Tradition

This being my first Conference, it became clear that many attendees were there out of a sense of tradition. Essentially, you attend because it’s what you’ve always done, or something your organization has always been a part of—but now what? In my view, traditions are as rewarding as new experience if you find a way to add something new. Add a new layer of tradition—something that reminds you why this became a tradition in the first place. Maybe the next layer of tradition will include being amazed, inspired, and uplifted.

Takeaway

People view takeaways as something tangible—something they can hold and replicate in their own spaces and with their local youth. Every story I heard felt like a takeaway, from a person at New Conservatory Theatre Center and the work they’re doing with LGBTQIA young people interweaving their stories with art, to the amazing performances by the students from Mosaic in Detroit and Destiny Arts Center in Oakland. Every moment opened an internal dialogue: What can we be doing differently? How do I take the best of these moments and fold them into the work we’re already doing?

Together

I am a part of a cohort of 7 fellows, placed across the country strategically to impact nonprofit management and youth development in local areas. As we gathered in this space—an eclectic group of people with multi shades and vibrant voices—we looked forward to being together. What we didn’t count on was the camaraderie we would find in the other attendees in this space. The workshops that allowed for discussions, and talkbacks, and space for questions allowed my soul and spirit to leave full. One example was Chandra Ortiz and the change in culture they are making at Massachusetts College of Art and Design—creating pathways for the people in the neighborhood, to not only obtain a degree, but to also learn how to create in their neighborhood. Creating art in the spaces that are void, giving voice to those who have been talking but we weren’t yet listening.

Self-Care

In our efforts to constantly give back to our communities and to our students and staff, we often forget to take care of ourselves. We work ourselves to the bone and almost forget that we have needs as well. Meet them. Meet your students where they are—encourage your staff, and take care of yourself. One of the last sessions “The Radical Act of Self-Care” was overflowing with people and facilitated by the incredible staff with DreamYard Project, and the session encouraged us to create, to tear papers, stretch and write. In that session I shared, and was heard, but most importantly I took care of myself. As much as we want to create space for our students to create, remember that you are also a creator.

This article originially appeared in GuildNotes, Issue 4 2017, as part of the Leadership InSight series. Members can access the full publication here.

In 2017, in partnership with Lifetime Arts, the National Guild launched the Catalyzing Creative Aging Program, a capacity building and seed grant initiative that will support 20 organizations across the country as they establish new, professionally led arts education programs for older adults. As Jonathan Herman, Guild executive director, noted, “Guild members are uniquely positioned to play a leading role in providing innovative programming for an aging population that is living longer, healthier lives.” In order to do that, community arts education leaders need the perspectives, tools, and resources that are necessary to implement arts learning for older adults focused on increasing social engagement and promoting mastery.

As Maura O’Malley, co-founder and CEO of Lifetime Arts, puts it: “Aging is something that affects every single one of us. Yet, as a society, we are not adequately prepared to address it.” According to The Center for Health Design, “the older population (aged 65 and over) will nearly double in the next four decades, rising from 43.1 million in 2012 to 83.7 million in 2050.” These demographic shifts have important implications for community health and social services— but, crucially, they also represent a new landscape for arts education. Over the last two decades, in recognition of the importance of positioning the arts as integral to positive aging, the field of creative aging has taken shape. Across the country, community arts organizations are taking note of this growing field of practice, connecting with community partners to explore arts and aging opportunities, and training their staff to work with all arts learners, regardless of age.

How can leaders approach this challenge in the coming years? To help answer this question, we spoke to Maura O’Malley about her own journey in creative aging, the cultural shifts in our understanding of positive aging, and the social transformations that need to occur for us to meet the creative needs of older adults in a meaningful way.
 
What is your background in creative aging and how have you seen the field evolve over the last decade?
 
Until about fifteen years ago, my focus was solely on arts education, working with the New York Board of Education, Young Audiences of New York, and other organizations on program design, development, and teacher training. Around 2005, however, I became a caregiver to several of my older relatives and I began to think about arts education in reference to older adults. I was able to join a committee in Westchester County that was focused on creative aging—a term that I had never heard before but knew was something I would gravitate toward. Ed Friedman, then deputy director of the Bronx Council on the Arts and now co-founder and executive director of Lifetime Arts, also happened to be a part of that committee. It turned out that, of the people on the committee, Ed and myself were the only two members that were professional arts administrators—everyone else worked in social services. Through the exchange of ideas, it soon became clear to us that there needed to be an institution that could bridge the gap between the local community based organizations (CBOs) that were working with older adults and the teaching artist community that Ed and I were connected to. So, with some local funding, we started Lifetime Arts and we are now coming into our tenth year. Our model, from the beginning, has been rooted in the strengths of arts education—sequential learning, skill-building, and professional instruction. We knew that those were the ingredients of successful arts programming for older adults.
 
Since we started—as it happens, in an extra bedroom in my house—the field has gone through crucial transformations. For the first five years, as we attended every possible convening and conference for older adult service providers, we found that the arts community was not even at  the table. There were almost no arts organizations that were actively involved in shifting the conversation around what aging services can look like. Since then, alongside Lifetime Arts, major institutions in the arts have taken note of the creative aging field and put significant resources toward shifting their programming. The National Center for Creative Aging, founded in 2001, became more active in shaping the conversation around aging services in general. Having this national advocacy organization helped those of us working in the field create a sense of shared identity and direction.
 
Another big shift has been a more significant societal recognition—through research and public awareness—that the demographic shifts we are facing need to be taken seriously. Projects such as the Age-Friendly Cities Initiative, which began looking at how cities can better serve older adults and promote positive aging. Even that term—positive aging—became a valuable framework and footing for looking at how institutions and CBOs were thinking about and treating older adults. What were they providing for them? Who were they seeing as older adults? With these questions being asked, we were better positioned to step in and say, look, there is not an age at which you stop thinking, or creating, or being. We are all in this state of aging, and we need to start there if we are ever going to see the cultural shift that is necessary to advance this work.
 
In the coming years, there will be significantly more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 5. So the question for the field is, given this reality, how are you going to adjust your programming, hiring practices, and vision to serve the whole community?
 
To what extent have you seen a cultural shift occur in relation to our understanding of aging? Does it make you hopeful for the future?
 
While we have a very long way to go, there have been enormous shifts in the way people understand and approach aging. Largely because of baby boomers (we’re not dead yet!), people’s ideas have started to change. Most importantly, over the last few years, the field literature and the public discussion is more centered on celebrating aging, rather than seeing it as a deficit. Terms like the “silver tsunami” are an indication of how the public has understood aging in the past and, with those framings becoming less popular, we can start to talk about aging in a new way. We can start to talk about how diverse the aging population is. We can start to look at its scale—in the K-12 world we are looking at a thirteen year age span but in creative aging we’re talking about a fifty year span. There is a vast cultural and experiential gap between a 65 year old and an 80 year old.
 
These kinds of challenges make creative aging a difficult task. However, with changes in the public discussion, with new resources for the field, and with new leaders stepping in to champion the work, the future does indeed look hopeful. More people are realizing the enormity of the task but also the incredible gratification that comes along with this work. As a specific example, Lifetime Arts recently received a $600,000 grant from the New York Community Trust that is a joint project of the Thriving Communities division, which supports the arts, and the Healthy Lives division, which is focused on social services. This kind of coordinated support, which will improve the City’s arts and cultural classes in 250 senior centers across the five boroughs, would never have been possible within the social context for aging that existed even ten years ago.
 
How should leaders or organizations that are stepping into this work prepare themselves? What skills and perspectives will they—and their colleagues—need in order to strengthen creative aging in their communities?
 
The first thing organizations and leaders should consider when stepping into the realm of creative aging is: who are the people in this group and what are they interested in? Contrary to what most programs provide, older adults are not only interested in passive entertainment. There can be one-off programs that provide benefit. But, in terms of healthy aging, designing learning that stresses mastery and active participation is vital.
 
We have found that training across the board is necessary in order to approach this work effectively. For teaching artists, changing from the K-12 realm to working with older adults means learning new skills, not so much in terms of content development, but in the delivery of the curriculum and the environment in which it is provided. Administrators and teaching artists also need to recognize that older adults come with 50, 60, or 70 years of life experience. This means that they will bring this life experience to the classroom—which, if treated properly, can provide immense benefit for the learning experience. But, without a sensitivity to the lived experience of older adults, program will quickly disengage their constituents and fail to expand their reach. To better understand that lived experience, engage deeply with the community of older adults—and those serving older adults—in your local area. Bring older adults into the program design process. Meet with local service providers about the needs of the local aging population and how the arts might play a role. Think about arts education as a continuum that runs throughout the lifespan. 
 
Ultimately, however, anyone delving into this work needs to consider their own biases around ageism and begin to come to terms with how they truly view older adults in our society. If serving older adults isn’t a part of your mission, think about why. Is it because of constraints that cannot be overcome or is it because you view the needs of older adults as alien or less vital than the needs of other groups? Ask yourself: why should anybody be exempted from learning? Structurally, we see that 75% of the budgets of public libraries go toward early childhood learning when, in fact, the majority of people who attend the library are older adults. These kinds of policies are rooted in ageism and, for leaders to begin to address it, they need to grapple with their own perspectives on and misunderstandings of aging.
 
Are there common themes that come up for you when thinking about barriers to strengthening creative aging in the future?
 
The most significant barrier will likely continue to be our imagination. How do we understand the needs of older adults and what do we think that they deserve? As a field, in order to broaden our imagination in this regard it will require a significant amount of work—individual investigation of our biases; ongoing conversations with older adults in the community; and broader, national conversations aimed at shifting public consciousness. Importantly, it all starts with how we understand and imagine learning. Is it something that we will continue to picture only for young people, or will that frame expand to include all learners at any stage of life?
 
80 years from now, where would you hope to see the field of creative aging?
 
In many ways, I would hope that the term “creative aging” doesn’t need to exist. Hopefully we will be at a point where it is simply creativity and learning for everybody and we don’t need to make distinctions that end up prioritizing one group over another. Of course, the work will always vary depending on the population, but I would hope to see vibrant communities of arts learners everywhere that do not tolerate isolation, particularly among older adults. And I would hope that we all understand that creative aging is not just for the benefit of older adults, it’s for the benefit of communities at large.
 
Finally, I would hope that the Guild continues to support older learners and continues to find engaging, healthy, and fun ways to help organizations move towards a broader view of what it means to provide arts education.

December 13, 2017

Twenty nonprofit arts education organizations from 14 states have been selected to participate in the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Catalyzing Creative Aging Program. This multi-phase initiative, provided in partnership with Lifetime Arts, is designed to support the establishment of new, professionally led arts education programs for older adults that increase social engagement and mastery of one or more art forms. Research shows that professionally led, arts education for older adults fosters positive aging. 

Program participants:
Broadway School of Music & the Arts, Cleveland, OH (Multi-Disciplinary)
The Carson Center, Paducah, KY (Theater)
Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education, Bronx, NY (Multi-Disciplinary)
Center of Creative Arts (COCA), St. Louis, MO 
The Music Settlement, Cleveland, OH (Music)
Community Music School of Springfield, Springfield, MA (Music)
Creative Action, Austin, TX  (Multi-Disciplinary)
Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA (Visual Arts)
Foluke Cultural Arts Center, Cleveland, OH (Multi-Disciplinary)
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ (Visual Arts)
Hartford Stage Company, Hartford, CT (Theater)
IPFW Community Arts Academy, Fort Wayne, IN (Multi-Disciplinary)
Pasadena Conservatory of Music, Pasadena, CA (Music)
Pullen Arts Center, Raleigh, NC (Visual Arts)
Rocky Ridge Music Center, Boulder, CO (Music)
Sweetwater Center for the Arts, Sewickley, PA (Multi-Disciplinary)
The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music 
  Preparatory and Community Engagement, Cincinnati, OH (Music)
University of Kentucky Arts Extension, Lexington, KY (Multi-Disciplinary)
West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology, Grand Rapids, MI (Visual Arts)
Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts, Berkeley Heights, NJ (Multi-Disciplinary)

“Through the Catalyzing Creative Aging Program, the Guild will continue its long-standing commitment to supporting and advancing lifelong learning in the arts,” said Jonathan Herman, Executive Director of the National Guild. “Guild members are uniquely positioned to play a leading role in providing innovative programming for an aging population that is living longer, healthier lives. Lifetime Arts is a nationally-recognized leader and uniquely qualified to help our members build their capacity to serve older adults.”

The program will provide training and technical assistance for eight months (Nov. 2017 – June 2018) via a series of workshops, webinars, and video consultations designed to increase each organization’s capacity to serve older adults through skill-based, participatory arts programs. 10 of the participating organizations will be selected through a separate competitive application process to receive seed grants of up to $7,000 to implement new creative aging programs in fall 2018. 

“This deep dive into creative aging training will jump start great programming across the United States,” said Maura O’Malley, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Lifetime Arts. “We are proud to partner with the National Guild to enhance its members’ capacity to develop, evaluate, and sustain successful creative aging programs and share what we learn with the field.”

The goals of the Catalyzing Creative Aging Program are to:

• increase the capacity of nonprofit community arts education providers to serve older adults;
• expand and/or deepen existing creative aging programs of high quality; and
• identify exemplary creative aging programs as models for the field.
   

Catalyzing Creative Aging is made possible with support from Aroha Philanthropies, The Moca Foundation, and The Music Man Foundation. For more information, visit www.nationalguild.org or call (212) 268-3337 ext. 10.

The National Guild for Community Arts Education strives to ensure all people have opportunities to maximize their creative potential by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and advocating for community arts education. 

Lifetime Arts works nationally to connect the people, funding, ideas and strategies necessary to increase the number and quality of professionally led instructional arts programs for older adults. By helping to develop policy, sharing best practices and providing expert training and technical assistance in the design, funding, and implementation of creative aging programs, they help organizations and individuals build livable communities for all ages.

In our Leadership InSight series, we ask arts education leaders to share advice and the experiences that have helped them become successful leaders. Margaret Perry has served as executive director of the Armstrong Community Music School in Austin, TX for over 17 years. She is also an accomplished pianist, teacher, and arts advocate. She is a member of the Austin Arts Hall of Fame and received the 2012 National Guild Service Award.
 

LEADING AS A LISTENER: FINDING NEW WAYS TO LEARN FROM AND ENGAGE OUR CONSTITUENTS

My life in arts education, thankfully, started very young. I was incredibly fortunate to be raised in a family that highly valued the arts and knew that they should be a part of our daily experience. More than that, I was fortunate to be raised by a family who said, “you’ve been given some great gifts, and now you need to give them back to your community. For the rest of your life, you need to be engaged.” So music and, for the last 17 years, the Armstrong Community Music School, has been my vehicle for doing just that.

With almost two decades of experience as an executive director, I’ve started to feel a significant change in my role in the last year—and I think the shift will only continue in the future. Now more than ever, I have to step outside of the school to engage in conversations with the community, to hear what they need from us and from arts education. The results of these conversations often have challenged both my comfort level and my knowledge base. These conversations remind me that I must continue to rethink and reevaluate how my organization speaks to our stakeholders as our political environment changes. My staff and I have found that professional development on issues of poverty, violence, and the trauma of prejudice is a critical, ongoing necessity in our daily work, and it feels more vital every day. 

Making the Space to Listen
The conversations I’ve been having with arts leaders in my community suggest that, moving forward, real organizational leadership will require a truly new level of listening and direct engagement. We must connect with different segments of our communities and have real open-hearted conversations, not just with those who support us or those who need our offerings, but also with those who don’t understand or value our work. We must connect with people who may not have directly experienced the power of engaging in the arts and bring them to the table as equal partners. 

Of course, this work is time-consuming, difficult, and at times frustrating; but how else will we weave a fabric of common community and work toward a nation that values and supports the arts? Leaders in the coming years need to recognize that having difficult conversations with your community is the way to test assumptions and inspire ideas—ideas about how to approach our work and adapt based on the people that we seek to serve. 

Some executive directors in the field might argue that, moving forward, we may have to put all of our energy into keeping the lights on, and there may not be space to step outside of the day-to-day requirements of running an effective school. But I would suggest that we have to be realistic with our goals in this area and, importantly, we have to be kind to ourselves if we don’t always achieve success. I’ve found that, rather than having hundreds of individual conversations, community members are often willing to gather in a shared space to share their thoughts on a particular issue. So you can look to the community for help; you don’t have to go it alone. 

Advocating in a New Political Context
Looking toward the future, it is likely that demand for the arts will continue to outpace the services that we can provide. Our difficulties may never go away. However, effective leaders should recognize that difficult times can be the catalyst for everyone in the arts to embrace their personal leadership. Those of us who know the healing power and energizing beauty of the arts need to personally set goals for action. 

In some cases, that action may look like community organizing, as we seek to answer questions such as: who is resisting the value of the arts in our community, and what can we do personally and professionally to bring about positive and life changing conversations that translate into action in a difficult political climate? In other cases, it may be direct political engagement that draws on your knowledge of the arts. Before I leave for the school each morning, I send emails or make phone calls to our senators and legislators on issues concerning the arts. That way I have at least accomplished that small task before the whirlwind of each day hits me.

Difficult political climates, both now and in the future, will create uncertainty, confusion, and frustration. However, it is also an extraordinary moment for us to give careful thought to our work and to find new inspiration, truth, and energy in what we do each day.

In our Leadership InSight series, we ask arts education leaders to share advice and the experiences that have helped them become successful leaders. James Miles was recently appointed executive director of Arts Corps, a social justice-based organization in Seattle, WA. He is an educator and actor and previously was director of education at Urban Arts Partnership in New York City.
 

FUELING A PASSION: ARTS EDUCATION LEADERS AS COMMUNITY CATALYSTS

I come to this work as a teaching artist with a background as a professional actor. Like many in our field, when I wasn’t acting I turned to teaching and, eventually, I was turning down acting gigs to work in arts education. By 2013, I was working at Urban Arts Partnership (UAP) on a program called Fresh Prep, which trains K-12 teachers to use a hip-hop based curriculum, positioning youth culture at the center of student learning.

This year I had the honor of stepping into the role of executive director at Arts Corps, an organization that works to have a deep impact on the creativity and leadership of young people in our region, but also to reshape our education system to include the arts and a more youth-centered approach to education. There are a number of skills that have allowed me to get to where I am today as a leader and that will help me advance Arts Corps in the coming years. To start, my work has always been rooted in collaboration. UAP’s success was dependent on identifying and developing a variety of partners to support the work (New Victory Theater, Lincoln Center, Disney) and on finding forums through which to share our success (South by Southwest, Google). I’ve also had to maximize the impact of my programs and demonstrate results while working with a relatively small budget. As nonprofit arts funding continues to decrease and our political environment remains uncertain, the ability to build a dedicated, mission-driven, and highly adaptive team will be increasingly critical. Finally, I’ve had experience and training in addressing social justice issues and have an enduring commitment to supporting students of color—central to Arts Corps’ mission and my own core values.

Becoming Embedded in the Community
As the director of a justice-oriented organization, I see future leaders in arts education finding innovative ways to be embedded in the communities that they serve.

True embeddedness requires a leader that is 1) constantly engaged with community members; and 2) providing opportunities for his or her staff to be engaged in a similar way. This means being on the ground as a leader and expanding one’s view about where the arts can play a role. The director of a community arts education organization should understand his or her community’s needs around health and safety, immigration, juvenile justice, and other pressing issues, while also developing relationships with the community members that are involved in these efforts. On a basic level, this may require a director, and, often, staff members, who can communicate with local community members in their native language(s). We have a staff member who is studying Spanish and Arabic (and also happens to be a fantastic emcee). She is an incredible asset to Arts Corp’s effort to build authentic community relationships that meet parents and students where they’re at and help make arts learning part of their everyday lives.

The ability to engage youth leaders in a sincere way is also critical to the future of our field because youth voice and leadership will be what moves our communities forward. We recently had an event that featured a young student sharing her perspective on issues of immigration enforcement. As she was talking, she was breaking down the issue in ways that left everyone in the room stunned. This experience, among many others, reinforces my belief that young people will be the ones holding our feet to the fire and creating change on issues that matter to them. Leaders of arts organizations have to be ready to step aside and make space for young people to hold positions of power. In my view, that’s the only way to ensure that our organizations are not only embedded in the community today, but also for generations to come.

Building a Committed and Innovative Staff
The next generation of leaders will have to be adept at managing a staff that, increasingly, has different expectations about 1) the distribution of power within an arts nonprofit and 2) the funda¬mental mission of arts education. It’s clear to me that the only way to attract and retain talented staff now and in the future is to not think about it as “how can this person plug into our system?” but rather as “how can my organization provide a platform for this person to do what they do best?” This frame changes the accountability structure so that I am, as a leader, responsible for making sure my staff is valued, supported, and given the freedom to constantly try new things.

In terms of mission, I’m confident that, more and more, talented teaching artists and administrators will be drawn to organizations that look beyond just their art form to think about how students can become whole, thriving individuals. The next generation recognizes that we need to be developing holistic young people that are multifaceted and, above all else, inspired. Thinking about my own path as an artist, I was not successful as an actor because I was always the best in the room. I was successful because there was a passion and an energy in my work that the arts had helped cultivate—a passion for trying new things, learning from my mistakes, and creating new opportunities. Sparking that passion in young people, by any means necessary, should be central to all of our work in the coming years.

Now in our 80th year, the National Guild is taking this opportunity to articulate new language that will form the foundation for our future as a leader in community arts education. After working closely with our board of trustees, members, and other valued stakeholders, the Guild has changed its vision, mission, and values to better reflect our belief in the power of creativity and the arts to transform individuals and communities, and our deep commitment to leadership, equity, and social and racial justice. Our 80th anniversary is a time to reflect on our remarkable past—but also a time to lay the groundwork for the next of 80 years of developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and advocating for community arts education. 
 

“Over the course of the past two years, the Guild has worked to clarify its own core values while also taking the time to articulate the change that we all hope to see in the world,” said Terry Hueneke, chair of the Guild’s board of trustees. “Maximizing creative potential, developing leaders in the field, building healthy communities, strengthening and sustaining organizations—this work, consistently approached through a lens of social and racial justice, will define the National Guild in the years to come.”

Beginning in 2015, the Guild’s staff and board began to identify increasing misalignment between our mission and vision language and the Guild’s dynamic impact in community arts education. While leadership development is at the heart of the Guild’s contribution to the field, our mission and vision language did not reflect its centrality in our work. Beyond that, while our mission spoke to the need for access, we knew that that language alone did not fully capture our commitment to racial and social justice in arts education. 
 
To begin to rearticulate our mission and vision, the Guild looked to a central philosophy of the Community Arts Education Leadership Institute (CAELI)—the importance of clarifying one’s core values before taking meaningful action. Understanding our values as an organization, particularly in regards to our voice on issues of social and racial justice, required internal discussion as well as engagement with external stakeholders that offered tools and expertise. Internal reflection included, amongst other activities, a task force composed of board and staff members that was formed to investigate how our stated values could align more closely with our programmatic commitment to equity. Engagement with external stakeholders included an anti-racism training with full board and staff led by diversity and equity consultant Dr. Derrick Gay. 
 
Through this multifaceted process we clarified our values as an organization—Leadership, Equity, Creativity, and Community—and were better equipped to articulate a mission and vision that aligned with those values. We believe that the revised vision, mission, and values statements more clearly express the ultimate impact of our work while providing a clear compass to help guide us in the future. 
 
“Over the course of 80 years, the Guild has found myriad ways to strengthen the field, but—at the core of our impact—is a commitment to maximizing the creative potential of our communities through transformative initiatives: CAELI, Creative Youth Development, Creative Aging, the Conference for Community Arts Education, timely and responsive online learning, robust national networks, and the list goes on,” says Jonathan Herman, executive director at the Guild. “Our rearticulated vision, mission, and values offer a clearer picture of who we are as an organization and the change that we will affect for years to come.”

The National Guild for Community Arts Education, on behalf of a coalition of national partners, has been awarded an NEA Collective Impact grant for $100,000. The grant will support the implementation of the National Blueprint for Creative Youth Development (CYD), a guiding document to be released in December 2017 that will map opportunities for cross-sector advancement of creative youth development and provide strategic recommendations for policy, partnership, and field-building.

The funds are part of the NEA’s second round of funding in FY 2017, which will award 1,195 grants totaling $82.06 million to support organizations in all 50 states and five U.S. jurisdictions. “The arts reflect the vision, energy, and talent of America’s artists and arts organizations,” said NEA chairman Jane Chu. “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support organizations such as the National Guild for Community Arts Education in serving their communities by providing excellent and accessible arts experiences.”

The funded project will support implementation of the National Blueprint for CYD’s strategies for achieving shared goals to increase access to arts education for youth during out-of-school time. Strategies include adopting effective business models; developing revenue sources; documenting and communicating the benefit of CYD programs for youth; using shared terminology, data, and assessment tools; and connecting programs with in-school arts education and non-arts community development initiatives. Under the leadership of the Guild as the backbone organization, the National CYD Partnership, with key stakeholders from the arts, humanities, youth development and CYD-related sectors such as community development and workforce development, will coordinate and foster participation and engagement of local and national community stakeholders through active working groups and online platforms that promote collaboration, knowledge sharing, and data collection.

Creative youth development is a recent term that unifies a longstanding community of practice that intentionally integrates the arts, humanities, and sciences with youth development principles, sparking young people’s creativity and building critical learning and life skills. In 2014, representatives of the CYD field came together to form its first-ever national policy and advocacy agenda and charged a national partnership to oversee its implementation. Current partners in the Creative Youth Development National Partnershipinclude the National Guild (which serves as a backbone organization), Americans for the Arts, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and Massachusetts Cultural Council. The partnership—which is supported by a cross-sector, 12-member national advisory committee and a 10-member steering committee of CYD practitioners—aims to expand and diversify to include 2-4 additional partners from allied sectors.

Speaking in June 2016 at an event to celebrate the National Guild's 2016 Collective Impact grant in support of creation of the CYD Blueprint, chairman Jane Chu cited the importance of the Blueprint and its capacity "to identify the gaps and locate the opportunities to develop creative arts programs that include collaborations with other sectors, and help our young people across the nation succeed. It’s important to nurture and cultivate the pipeline of children and youth to be engaged in the arts, because the arts are helping to draw out their potential to live more fully."

The National Guild’s strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency have earned it a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity evaluator. This is the first time that the National Guild has earned this top distinction.

Since 2002, using objective analysis, Charity Navigator has awarded only the most fiscally responsible organizations a 4-star rating. In 2011, Charity Navigator increased the metrics it uses in its ratings methodology, increasing its focus on governance and ethical practices as well as measures of openness. These Accountability & Transparency metrics, which account for 50 percent of a charity’s overall rating, reveal which charities operate in accordance with industry best practices and whether they are open with their donors and stakeholders. 

“The National Guild’s exceptional 4-star rating sets it apart from its peers and demonstrates its trustworthiness to the public,” said Michael Thatcher, President and CEO of Charity Navigator. “Only a quarter of charities rated by us receive this distinction. This adds the National Guild to a preeminent group of charities working to overcome our world’s most pressing challenges, and means people can trust that their donations are going to a financially responsible and ethical organization.”
 
“It’s important our donors trust that we’re using their donations wisely to advance equitable access to lifelong learning in the arts,” said Jonathan Herman, Executive Director of the National Guild. “Our 4-star rating on Charity Navigator demonstrates to our supporters our good governance and financial accountability.”

The National Guild’s rating and other information about charitable giving can be found here. More-detailed information about the National Guild’s rating is available to Charity Navigator visitors who become free registered users.

In our Leadership InSight series, we ask arts education leaders to share advice and the experiences that have helped them become successful leaders. Jessica Mele is a program officer in performing arts at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She has also served as executive director at Performing Arts Workshop in San Francisco, CA.

What led you into the field of community arts education, and how long have you been at your current position?

I've been at the Hewlett Foundation for about a year and a half now, and it’s my first time working for a charitable foundation. Before that I was executive director at Performing Arts Workshop in San Francisco for four and a half years. It was my mom that led me into arts education. She was an early childhood educator and dancer and storyteller, so when I was a kid, every learning experience was a creative learning experience. She was really thoughtful about that. And those were some of the most important learning moments of my life—being creative, making plays, making up stories and songs, and learning things through stories and songs.

So when I came to a crossroad in my professional life after college, after graduate school in education, it occurred to me that that was really the most important part of my education, and everyone deserved that kind of learning experience. That's what brought me to arts education and specifically community arts education. At the same time I moved to San Francisco and found Performing Arts Workshop, whose mission is to help young people develop critical thinking, creative expression, and learning skills through the arts. That matched up so well with my experience and values. So I found my home at Performing Arts Workshop, which is also a Guild member.

Are there specific qualities you find necessary to being a leader in community arts education that are unique or different from those qualities needed in other fields?

Oh, I don't know that they're so different from qualities needed in other fields. But I do think that in this field you need to have an orientation toward collaboration, and in order to do that you need to be a good listener and empathize and understand the needs of partner organizations or partner schools or partner community organizations. It's a very collaborative field and sometimes that doesn't make good business sense. But it does make for a stronger field, and in many cases it makes better programs for kids.

So it helps to have that kind of collaborative consensus-based approach to leadership. But in addition you need a strong sense of how to make the business model work, because it's a really tricky business model. The financials in community arts education rarely look great unless you're starting off with a lot of money. So I think those are the two things. You need to combine that kind of empathetic listening and collaborative mindset with some business common sense. Those two things can be really hard to hold at the same time.

What professional projects or training experiences that you've been a part of were impactful on your leadership development?

Let' see. CAELI [the Community Arts Education Leadership Institute] helped me stop and take a breath and be reflective of my own experience and what I bring as a leader. In particular when I first started as an executive director, I focused a lot on what I didn't have and what I didn't have in comparison with my predecessor. CAELI helped me focus on what I did bring to the table and valuing that and helping project that value when I was working with other people in the organization. 

I was also an organizer with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers years ago when I was just starting out. That work was really affirmative for me because the union was 80 percent female, very consensus-based. I was assigned to the education school and museums, and my job was essentially walking around the campus and talking to people. And doing that you learn a lot of patience and you learn how to talk to just about anyone. That was a really valuable learning experience that I took into my current field.
 

What was one piece of advice on leadership that particularly resonated with you and how have you put that into practice in your work?

There are a lot of things. But there’s something I remember Ronnie Brooks saying at CAELI that has stuck with me—and part of the reason it stuck with me is I didn't initially really understand it. She said you will be blamed for everything, for the good and the bad as an executive. You're bearing the responsibility for that. 

Her point was that you might as well just take credit for the good stuff, don't deflect compliments or positive comments about your performance because you're going to get all the bad stuff too. So you might as well appreciate and leverage the points of positive recognition you get. That has stuck with me because I had a really hard time being generous and kind to myself when I was first in that role as an executive director. 

For you personally what does it take to be a strong leader?

For me personally, an important thing to remember is if you feel like you should talk, you probably shouldn't. And when you feel afraid to talk, you probably should. A critical element of being a strong or effective leader is understanding when you need to speak up and use your voice and when you need to not do that.

And it doesn't always align with what you're feeling at the moment. There are a whole lot of other things that it takes to be a strong leader, but I lead with that one because it also embodies supporting other people to be their best selves—and helping bring people together has a lot to do with how you see yourself. Respecting yourself and what you bring to a room doesn't mean you have to take up the whole room. Taking over a room is how a lot of people expect a leader to show up, but it's not necessarily what makes an effective leader.