As a long-time re-granting organization, Silicon Valley Creates knows how critically important money is to our arts and culture ecosystem. Organizations will also prioritize funding before any other form of support.

But when Arts Council Silicon Valley, a 30-year old United Arts Fund, merged with 1stACT Silicon Valley, a community catalyst, to form Silicon Valley Creates just over a year ago, we opted to take a new approach to how we strengthen our creative ecosystem–which was one of four main goals in our strategic plan.

So we developed a framework (pdf) of what we believe to be the key elements to a sustainable artist or arts organization in Silicon Valley.

We then aligned every thing we did to that framework, while featuring these five areas:

1. Focus on what would be most meaningful to our ecosystem;
2. Better equip our creative community for long-term success;
3. Leverage our time, partnerships, and expertise to match our financial investment;
4. Broaden and deepen our individual artist and creative entrepreneur support;
5. Increase the number of touch points.

Focus on what would be most meaningful to our ecosystem

In order to provide meaningful support you have to ask…so we surveyed our ecosystem. Besides money, what do you need to be successful? What topics and focus areas will help propel you forward? What kinds of convening opportunities are you looking for?

Then we surveyed the nonprofit arts boards to see what areas were in alignment and where thoughts and ideas differ.

What we learned from both our ecosystem and arts boards was very much aligned. Marketing and engaging next generation audiences, board development, and exploring new funding models were high priorities across the board. This provided our jumping off point.

Better equip our creative community for long-term success

We believe the best way to set up our ecosystem for long-term success is to provide training and support and connect those to funding sources. So, with the support of Applied Materials and the City of San Jose, we are hosting three conferences and connecting new grants programs and layers of support to each one.

In January, we will deliver Engage(dot)Next 2.0, a full day conference focused on strategies to connect and engage with younger audiences. Following the conference, folks can apply for funds to execute and experiment with new ideas and strategies inspired from the conference. We are also co-creating a new 5-part social media master series and will underwrite a cohort of our conference attendees to participate and are asking participants to blog their experiences…so we can share informed knowledge with the larger community.

We are also hosting a full-day board development conference with the follow-up opportunity to apply for board/staff retreats. Additionally, we are hosting a half-day conference all around product relevance connecting Silicon Valley corporate high-tech young professionals to arts experiences and getting a first hand understanding whether or not our local creative products resonate with this audience. There is a follow-up grants program connected to this as well as research.

Leverage our time, partnerships and expertise to match our financial investment

This year, we are introducing what we call the ‘frosting fund’, which actually isn’t a fund at all but additional layers of support to everyone who receives funding from us. Included in this frosting (non) fund, is:

• 2 hours of professional coaching
• Google AdWord grant on our web calendaring platform, LiveSV.com
• Free Microsoft software, gifted to us from Microsoft
• Office hours to meet with folks from the SV Creates team and other partners to help with grantwriting, marketing, etc.

Broaden and deepen our individual artist and creative entrepreneur support

In Silicon Valley, creative entrepreneurs and individual artists are a growing part of our cultural fabric. As a result, we have crafted new grants programs and broadened the eligibility on other programs to enable more of our creative individuals to apply for and receive our support, in addition to our nonprofit arts community.

Increase the number of touch points

We know everybody is busy. But what we have also learned is that people will prioritize events and activities they deem valuable. That is why this year, we have created a new monthly brown bag series aimed at increasing opportunities for convening and learning. We are also tripling the number of conferences and workshops we are hosting and we are broadening partnerships to support other professional development and convening efforts. You cannot put a value on building relationships, and we are staunch supporters of providing those platforms for face-to-face connectivity.

We understand this is a work in progress and building capacity does not happen overnight. But, we are excited to be taking what we feel like is a major step forward for our organization, and more importantly, for our creative community. After all, who wants to live in a place devoid of creative experiences? Anyone? Bueller?