Guild Membership is “Pay What you Can”

We understand that many organizations are losing significant revenue as a result of the coronavirus, and we don't want any to lose access to Guild membership as a result. Because of this, we are making a "pay what you can" option available for ALL organizations until further notice. This is something we started at the beginning of 2020 for organizations with budgets under $300,000, but we're extending it to all members now (including new members)—regardless of which annual budget category your organization falls into. 

Especially in this time, we hope that you’re able to renew your membership or join the Guild for the first time, so that everyone at your organization can access member benefits and stay connected with our community of members across the country.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out our membership team at membership@nationalguild.org if you have any questions. We appreciate your courage in navigating very difficult decisions in this uncertain time, and thank you for being part of this community working to ensure that all people have opportunities to maximize their creative potential. 

How Wide Angle is Supporting and Highlighting Youth During Covid-19

During Covid-19, Wide Angle Youth Media, a Baltimore-based CYD organization, is highlighting the importance of paying youth as well as lifting them up as community leaders in times of crisis. The unprecedented job loss is impacting all of us in different ways, but, importantly, it is exacerbating the economic inequalities that are already present. As Wide Angle Executive Director Susan Malone points out, many of the precarious jobs that are being wiped out by the crisis are also held by our youth: "these same jobs are also a main source of income for youth – a group of voices that remains largely absent from mainstream news. Many of our students help support their families, save for needed technology like a laptop for school, or are preparing to attend college in the fall. As we text, email, call and video chat with our students, [they] report over and over that they’ve lost part-time jobs."

Wide Angle is working to continue to support youth financially in difficult times: "While other employers are forced to lay off their workers, we’re working to ensure that our students still have the opportunity to earn money. Thanks to generous supporters during our fall event and End of Year campaign, we’ll have the resources to provide end of semester stipends for high school students. Our video and design apprentices still earn hourly wages through working on client projects and gaining virtual training."

The organization is also highlighting how Baltimore young people are using their creative skills to be leaders in promoting social distancing. They created a YouTube playlist that includes examples of hosting a virtual prom, well-being tips for teens, and more.

Learn more about Wide Angle Youth Media here.

Settlement Offers Free Classes for All, Streaming on Facebook

Since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, Settlement Music School has both pivoted to distance learning for all students while also offering two free, online courses streaming through Facebook: Settlement 101 and Settlement Kids.

  • Settlement 101 brings in faculty to introduce attendees to some of the coolest aspects of making music. From improvisation, to songwriting, singing, music production, and everything in between. New sessions are live every Thursday at 6 p.m. ET on Facebook and can be rewatched at any time.
  • Settlement Kids is designed to keep kids entertained, engaged, and connected with free music and dance classes. Tune in live Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. on Facebook.

As Helen Eaton, CEO of Settlement, notes: "We know that art and music lifts our souls and can unite us all. We believe that the best thing anyone can do in a crisis is to be productive and stay engaged. Here at Settlement, we believe that the act of doing, of practicing, of reaching goals, will be what gets us through this time with our spirits intact."

Learn more here.

DreamYard Offers Free Meals to Community During Pandemic

DreamYard, a community arts center in the South Bronx, has adapted its relationship to the community in this time of crisis, opening its doors on weekdays to provide free lunches. According to Hyperallergic:

"DreamYard is keeping its front doors open a few hours each weekday, by acting as a distribution point for free lunches provided by World Central Kitchen (founded by chef José Andrés) between 1:30 and 3pm. In other words, its volunteers and employees have not suspended their commitment to serving their communities, but instead have pivoted to find other ways to fulfill their mission while all our social and economic systems contract under the pressure of the coronavirus outbreak."

Read more about DreamYard's work here.

Guild’s Program Team Grows

March 20, 2020

 

Effective in January 2020, the program team was restructured in response to our current scope of work and capacities, and vision for deepening and expanding key initiatives. In collaboration with the Guild’s Chief Program Officer Heather Ikemire, the Guild's programs and services are led by:

  • ASHLEY HARE was hired in March as Director of Leadership Development. Ashley will direct the Guild’s Leadership Institutes and Alumni Networks, including CAELI and the CAELI Alumni Network, the National Young Artists Summit and Youth Network, and Catalyzing Creative Aging. They also will direct work to build and strengthen local and regional capacity building networks.
  • IVY YOUNG joined the Guild’s team in August 2019 as Assistant Director of Learning and, effective January 1, has been promoted to Director of Conferences and Learning. She will direct the work of the national conference, our member networks, and online learning.
  • LISSETTE MARTINEZ, formerly our program coordinator, is now our Network and Learning Coordinator. She will primarily coordinate member network and regional chapter activities, online learning and resource center development, and the conference.

You can read full staff bios here.

Lewis Prize for Music Will Open Funding Applications Early

The Lewis Prize for Music awards funds to community leaders with the goal of creating "positive change by investing in young people through music." In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Lewis Prize is opening the portal for 2021 funding applications in Spring instead of late Summer. As they note:

"At The Lewis Prize for Music, we find ourselves in an important and vital position to respond as expeditiously as possible to the needs of the creative youth development music community and the young people it serves. We are compiling and reviewing resources that may assist you in remaining an anchor to the young people around you during this time.

We are doing this alongside preparations to shift the opening of the 2021 Lewis Prize awards cycle to earlier in the year. We aim to open the portal to our Letter of Interest application in the Spring instead of the late Summer, as we did during our first year."

They also encourage field members to fill out a short survey on how they can best be of service to the field.

Learn more about the 2020 Lewis Prize awardees here.

Letter to our community regarding COVID-19

March 18, 2020

 

Dear arts education community, 

During this unprecedented and uncertain time, we want you to know that we're here to help.

We see the very real and complex impact that the coronavirus outbreak is having on our communities. We also understand the risks that many of our organizations are now facing. Because of this, the Guild is urgently ramping up our efforts to support arts education providers in their response to the health crisis. We are inspired by the immediate ways we've seen our community help one another, and we're striving to amplify those efforts and create ways for our field to connect.

We're still figuring things out (as is everyone), but here's what we can share right now:

  • We urge all community arts education organizations to act in ways that mitigate public health risks: to limit in-person work, and to postpone in-person programming.
  • We are working as fast as we can to respond to the urgent requests we're receiving for support. We're responding to the need for virtual peer gathering and learning spaces for arts educators who are courageously solving challenging problems in real time.
  • We're building a knowledge base of relevant resources drawn from our members and others, on topics such as crisis management; supporting youth, families, and teaching artists; equitable access to emergency relief funds; distance learning; and more.
  • We have closed our offices to work remotely, and we are re-evaluating upcoming Guild programming in light of the situation. We’re still very much available, so don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

 

In this time, we hold our core values of leadership, community, creativity, and equity as more important than ever. We believe in the power of the arts and collective action to help sustain our communities, and we're committed to supporting those who make that possible. Thank you for your important work.

We'll continue to be in touch with more updates. If you're not signed up for our email list and would like to join, you can do so here: https://nationalguild.org/forms/join-our-email-list

Wishing health, safety, and peace of mind to all, 

The National Guild Staff

Members Elect New Leaders to Guild Board of Trustees

At the National Guild’s Annual Meeting—held at the Conference for Community Arts Education on November 1st—members elected four new field leaders to the Guild board of trustees. The Guild is proud to welcome the following individuals to our board:

Sofia Fojas, Director, Visual and Performing Arts at Elk Grove Unified School District; Elk Grove, CA

Sofia Fojas is in her 25th year as a K-12 educator. She was a classroom musicteacher and high school music director for 20 years. For the past five years she worked in San Francisco Unified School District’s Visual and Performing Arts Department as Supervisor for Cultural Equity and Social Justice in the Arts She was the founding director of the SFUSD Mariachi Program in 2014. Ms. Fojas recently accepted the position of Director of Visual and Performing Arts for the Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento County.
 
SoYoung Lee, Executive Director, Rocky Ridge Music Center, Boulder, CO

SoYoung Lee serves as the Executive Director of the Rocky Ridge Music Center. She led the development of a bold strategic plan that includes the expansion of the summer residential program to include year-round, meaningful collaborations with community music schools in Denver and Boulder, and a concert hall sited on a 17-acre campus just steps from the Rocky Mountain National Park.
 
Nina Stillman, Chicago, IL

Prior to her retirement from the active practice of law as of October 2015, Ms. Stillman concentrated her practice on employment and occupational safety and health law matters. Ms. Stillman is the Immediate Past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Merit School of Music, where she had been a Trustee and Life Trustee since 2000. She has been a member of Northwestern University School of Law’s Law Board, Smith College’s President’s Council, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago’s Board of Directors, the University Club of Chicago’s Board of Directors and Northwestern University’s Council of 100.
 
Lecolion Washington, Executive Director, Community Music Center of Boston, Boston, MA

After over 20 years as a performing musician, 15 years as a music professor, and 10 years as an arts administrator, Lecolion Washington has established himself as a leader for the next generation of arts entrepreneurs; and he has been a staunch advocate for the relevance of music as an agent for social change. Lecolion is the Executive Director of Community Music Center of Boston. Prior to moving to Boston, Lecolion was the Co-Founder/Executive Director of the PRIZM Ensemble in Memphis from 2009-2017, and he was the founder of the PRIZM International Chamber Music Festival.

You can read full bios and learn more about the Guild Board of Trustees here.

Photo above: (Left to right) Sofia Fojas, SoYoung Lee, Nina Stillman, and Lecolion Washington

Guild Developing Plan to Become an Anti-Racist Organization

March 13, 2020

For a membership organization supporting arts and cultural education, there is an urgency to address our own internal bias, privilege, and role in perpetuating systemic racism in our daily practices, policies, and language, and to begin the process of replacing them with equitable policies, practices, and programming.

In Spring 2019, the Guild applied and was awarded funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to conduct a racial equity-based strategic planning process focused on internal structures, practices, and policies. Through an 18-month visioning and planning process (July 2019 – December 2020), Guild staff and board seek to build an equitable organizational culture and shift power within the Guild to better serve and be accountable to leaders and communities of color. 

In January 2020, the Guild contracted the Equity Literacy Institute to conduct a racial equity audit of the organization, and to support the visioning and planning through facilitation and training. As a result of this work, the Guild will develop a clear vision and plan for becoming an anti-racist organization.

We will continue to update the field and our members as we move forward with this vital work.

Resources Related to the Coronavirus

Note: This post was created as an initial response to the COVID-19 crisis, and is no longer being updated. 

 

March 5, 2020

During this time when information about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is rapidly emerging and changing, the National Guild would like to echo the calls from our community to take good care of ourselves and each other, and reject xenophobia and racism.

Here is a compilation of resources that we've come across that organizations might find helpful.

 

 

 

  • Arts Ready is compiling information on their homepage (https://www.artsready.org/) on topics that include preparing for a potential temporary closure, preparing your facility, supporting staff and volunteers, communicating with audiences and stakeholders, and more.

 

 

  • NYC Arts in Education Roundtable hosted a Zoom meeting on March 10th to create a digital space for arts administrators to share strategies to overcome challenges associated with the coronavirus in order to best support our programs, organizations, and teaching artists. You can watch the recording and view the transcript here.

 

  • COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resources is an aggregated list of free resources, opportunities, and financial relief options available to artists of all disciplines. Check out the website here and also watch a recent webinar that covers many of the same resources.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wishing safety and health to all,

The National Guild Staff