#KeepMakingArt: A Campaign to Inspire Hope and Connection

Our field – the folks who’s work sit at the intersection of arts and culture, youth and community development, and social justice – has seen unprecedented losses of income, identity, and hope. However, overwhelming evidence shows the power of arts and culture to lift spirits, inspire change, and unify communities. Since the onset of COVID-19, artists and cultural organizations have been creatively responding - physically and online - to support young people, families, and communities alike.

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Our Community Responds: How Funders Can Support Arts Education Despite COVID-19

Funders should think about shifting available funding to benefit the most financially vulnerable members of the arts education community: teaching artists, independent contractors, and freelance educators and artists by providing direct-to-individual, one-time grants, and broadening the structures and criteria for grants which support – financially and through wraparound services – their ability to fill their unique role in the ecosystem.

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How do you write a strategic plan in a quickly changing field? Adaptive Impact Planning

Planning inherently leads to consideration of the mission’s relationship to programming and development. But creating an Adaptive Impact Plan, specifically, gives arts organizations a tool to respond to change and to make decisions without performing a full strategic assessment any time they are presented with a new possibility and without compromising its mission and vision.

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Addressing Cultural Equity in Arts Leadership

These studies are particularly timely for arts educators, arts administrators, and youth arts leaders. Given that the studies focus on barriers to access, and levers for the change, it provides a field-level perspective on pathways into the industry. Two community findings reports were released by ACI. Phase I, Examining Cultural Equity in the Arts, was published in January 2018. Phase II, Moves Toward Equity: Perspectives from Arts Leaders of Color, was published in September 2019. Both reports are downloadable on ACI’s website.

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