Organizational leaders spoke with the Guild about their perspectives on student learning assessment in community arts settings—current practice, areas for improvement, and the importance of creating a culture of evaluation.
It may seem, in tough economic times, that people keep their focus on critical social needs and don’t value the arts. Not so, says Julie Simpson, an arts education consultant, philanthropic advisor, and former executive director of Urban Gateways, a large community arts education provider in Chicago. Most people consider the arts “a key factor in what they call healthy community,” Simpson maintains. “But needs such as foreclosures, jobs, health, food deserts, and crime will trump the arts.” Nevertheless, people welcome the arts when they’re infused in other initiatives that address those needs. According to Simpson, “We’re living in a new environment that demands cross-sector partnerships. There’s an opportunity here that actually ratchets up the value of the arts.”
In this resource, Linda Vallejo of A to Z Grantwriting shares tips for diversifying your organization's funding base.
Involving parents as learners and advocates in community arts education can enhance student participation, cultivate greater demand for the arts, and increase community support for arts learning. In September, we spoke with Gigi Antoni, President/CEO of Big Thought (Dallas, TX), about her organization’s efforts to empower and unite children and their communities through education, arts and cultural partnerships that engage parents as key assets. In addition to providing arts learning experiences, Big Thought is a managing partner of Thriving Minds (formerly the Dallas Arts Learning Initiative), a groundbreaking systemic endeavor which provides children
and families with an extensive web of creative learning opportunities. Through Big Thought, parents take lessons and classes, participate actively in program planning and implementation, and lead advocacy efforts. In this interview, Ms. Antoni discusses how parent engagement is central to community arts education, explains her own successes and challenges, and offers advice for how other community arts education providers can motivate parents to get involved on multiple levels in a sustainable way.
The weighty words often used to describe mission, values, and vision — foundation, cornerstone, pillars — announce their significance. But creative leadership can transform these guiding principles from noble statements into active tools for effective governance. Every community arts education organization has a mission statement to describe why it exists and what it does to meet those needs. Many articulate values, the deeply held beliefs that guide everything they do, and vision, to convey how the community will change when the organization succeeds at its mission. Organizational consultant Kay Sprinkel Grace describes mission as “the compass — the true north for the organization” and vision as the inspiration and the destination.
Engaging alumni—as mentors, donors, ambassadors, board members, etc., takes work but can yield significant benefits for your organization. To learn about how to effectively involve alumni, we asked Guild members who have developed alumni engagement programs to share their experiences and advice.
In ““Remind Me…Why are We Doing This?” Ten Conversations You Should Have Before Launching an Evaluation” (GuildNotes Fall 2011), Dennie Palmer Wolf wrote about getting an evaluation launched and headed off in a productive direction. This article takes up where the first article left off, looking at the “mid-life” of evaluations — the time when bumps, wrinkles, and surprises often emerge. In the summer issue, I will be writing about the process of bringing an evaluation home — especially harvesting and acting on the results.
Engaging volunteers has rewarding outcomes for a community arts education organization. Involving people from your community who are passionate about arts education helps advance your mission. Through the robust volunteer-staff partnerships that develop, you can multiply your impact on students and families. And volunteers can help you reach new audiences and strengthen community connections. But beyond their day-to-day contributions, volunteers have potential that organizations tend to overlook. Volunteerism expert Susan J. Ellis speculates that in an ideal world, “rather than appreciating volunteers mainly as hands (with a heart), everyone would realize that the availability of so many more people with different skills and perspectives enlarges the organization’s brain.”
A helpful list for determining when and how to pursue partnerships.