The East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) makes grants to artists and artist-centered nonprofits to assure that East Bay’s multi-cultural, multi-racial artists have the resources they need to advance their community-based practices, tackle social issues, and give back to local audiences. The foundation’s arts grantmaking of close to $250,000 is drawn from three donor-supported funds that, despite separate awards processes, work synergistically to advance art that grows out of and impacts the East Bay community. The Macpherson Fund for Small Arts Organizations, an endowed fund,...

Animating Democracy invited museum studies scholar Selma Holo to write an article from ideas and themes she found compelling at the Animating Democracy Learning Exchange held in Seattle in May 2002. Her article responds to the arts-based civic dialogue work of the three museums participating in the Animating Democracy Lab--the Andy Warhol Museum, the Jewish Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington--comparing it to other museums whose efforts have intersected with the sphere of civic ideas and issues.

This paper synthesizes key insights from MicroFest: USA—part festival, part learning exchange—orchestrated in 2012–2013 by the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) to take a fresh look at the roles of art, culture, and artists in creating healthy vibrant communities. MicroFest shone a light on a spectrum of cultural production, including ensemble theaters, that is traditionally under the radar in official or conventional creative placemaking strategies, but that constitutes a critical part of the cultural ecosystem. This paper draws from the experiences and dialogues of...

In this paper, Lyz Crane draws on the work of practitioners and researchers to characterize the field of arts-based community development in which arts and culture can help achieve place based change related to the physical, social, and economic dimensions of place.  From the premise that the existence of arts is considered a powerful end in itself, Crane then outlines the variety of ways that the actors and activities involved in arts and community development work can relate to and interact with each other to create sustainable communities.  Looking at the cultural ecology of...

In his essay, Erik Takeshita, Program Officer for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in the Twin Cities, explores the experience of MicroFest: New Orleans and observes that art requires four characteristics to have a positive, sustainable impact on community: Residents and communities are the agents of change, not the targets of change….Art is at the center….Place matters….Art works across sectors and is collaborative. Based on a panel held in the St. Claude neighborhood, he examines common issues in community development: the role of race in community...

Arte es Vida is an ongoing program of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center in San Antonio. Supported by Animating Democracy from 2001 to 2003, Arte es Vida addresses issues of cultural equity and democracy, examining “the role of artistic and cultural expression in a society that inherits the deep wounds, economic and political disparities, and continuing practices of injustice that are the legacy of cultural domination in the United States.” It explores cultural grounding—the concept that a strong sense of selfhood and identity, as rooted in creative expression and...