Arts & Communities: Innovative partnerships
A Three-Year Pilot Initiative
Over three years, the Arts & Communities: Innovative Partnerships Initiative will seed and make more visible
fresh, dynamic and meaningful ways that arts and nonarts sectors can creatively work together to invigorate
San Francisco’s rich and diverse neighborhoods and communities. At the heart of the Initiative, we
believe that our neighborhoods and communities benefit from a more active role for the arts in shaping
our urban environments. We have seen high quality artistic work, thoughtful design and true partnerships
empower and strengthen different support structures for neighborhoods and communities. Additionally, we
aspire to share the knowledge and resources that we will gain from the Initiative process within and
beyond our own arts community, infusing various spheres of life.
The Arts & Communities Initiative will support artists, arts organizations, and immigrant service organizations
with established art programs of any medium, as they embrace the role of lead partners, and work closely with community partners, their leaderships and constituencies. Together, they can engage in innovative
creation processes– exploring artistic practice potentially outside of one’s comfort zone – in order to address pressing community needs or celebrate community assets. The discussions and activities from these partnerships will form inventive, publicly accessible, high quality art projects, and result in an ongoing stimulation of ideas and dialogue. Together, the culminating public projects will reveal the complex life of San Francisco.
Deadline Extended for Draft Narratives : August 15, 2007
Deadline: September 6, 2007
ATTENTION! Please download the corrected Arts & Communities application. (We recently resolved issues with the Organizational Budget form)
07-08 Arts & Communities Guidelines (PDF, 132 K) Application (PDF fill-in, 356 K)
A Microsoft Word version of the Application (Word, 229 K) is also available.
Please visit our Forms/Instructions site on how to use the PDF Application.
Application Workshops:
Thursday, July 19 @ 12:30pm SFAC, Suite 70*
Monday, July 23 @ 5:00pm SFAC, Suite 70*
Tuesday, July 31 4:00 - 6:00pm @ SFAC, Suite 70*
Thursday, August 2, 12:30 - 2:30pm @SFAC, Suite 70*
Changed! Monday, August 6, 5:00 - 7:00pm @ Intersection for the Arts 446 Valencia Street between15th and 16th Streets
Just Added! Wednesday, August 8, 5:00 - 7:00pm @ Alliance for California Traditional Arts/Tides Foundation, Building 1014, Lincoln and Torney Avenues
Friday, August 10, 2:00 - 4:00pm @ SFAC, Suite 70*
Tuesday, August 14, 12:30 - 2:30pm @ Chinese Culture Center 750 Kearny Street, 3rd Floor M, Hilton Hotel
Please send rsvp to lucy.lin@sfgov.org or ebony.mckinney@sfgov.org
*Held at Arts Commission, 25 Van Ness Avenue @ Oak Street, just north of Market St.
GOALS
1. To provide artists and their partners with opportunities for community dialogue, allowing them to develop new ways of actively engaging neighborhoods/communities in art making.
2. To make visible the role of artists as innovators in ways of bringing people and ideas together, as catalysts for change, and as storytellers and chroniclers of untold histories.
3. To provide artists with opportunities for artistic exploration and growth.
4. To reach into and provide opportunities to neighborhoods/communities with limited access to cultural amenities, resources and expression, and/or with little or no history of funding from SFAC.
5. To share the learning—through involvement from all participants—about partnerships working across sectors, new ways of engaging neighborhoods/communities in the arts, and the potential role of City agencies.
6. To explore ways that the arts can be systemically and institutionally integrated into non-arts sectors and policy.
STRUCTURE OF THE INITIATIVE
The Initiative will seek to fund a range of diverse projects which together represent a spectrum of artistic ideas and innovative ways of working with neighborhoods and communities.
» Partnerships: A practicing artist and/or arts organization, as the lead partner, collaborates
with a non-arts entity (a community partner) that is rooted in the neighborhood/community.
» An Engaged Creative Process Centered in a Neighborhood/Community: The partners may
choose to work with a neighborhood (as defined by geography) or with a community (as can be defined by culture, choice or special interest). The partnership will actively work together to develop appropriate and innovative ways to make visible a neighborhood/community’s unique characteristics, social assets, issues, and challenges. The process will result in an activity or work that engages the public.
» Knowledge Sharing: All grantees will work with the Arts Commission to share what they have learned from their projects with each other and their peer communities through convenings, documentation and evaluation.
GRANTS
Two types of grants are available, and applicants may apply for either, but not both. The grant will be awarded directly to the artist or arts organization who will be responsible for managing the project and the budget.
Our expectation is that successful Exploration Grants will lead to applications for Realization Grant.
EXPLORATION GRANTS
Exploration Grants provide time and resources for the exploration of ideas and for substantive planning to take place, including: research, conversations with constituencies, partnership development, and project design.
» Applicants must have identified either a San Francisco neighborhood/community or a community partner, and must be in at least the early stages of conversation about a proposed project.
»Duration of up to 9 months
»Projects can be awarded between $5,000 to $10,000.
REALIZATION GRANTS
Realization Grants support well-conceived and planned projects which demonstrate a high degree of quality in meeting the criteria for evaluation.
»Duration of up to 18 months
»Projects can be awarded up to $35,000; requests should reflect projects of appropriate scale and scope.
Grant Period
Exploration Grants: January 1, 2008 – September 30, 2008
Realization Grants: January 1, 2008 – September 30, 2009
WHO MAY APPLY
The applicant must be an artist, arts organization, or an immigrant service organization based in San Francisco. The proposed culminating public activities must take place in San Francisco. An appropriate partnering organization (community partner) is a non-arts community-based organization or group located in San Francisco; examples of partnering organizations include: neighborhood associations, tenants’ groups, social service organizations, social justice organizations, advocacy groups, health centers, Boys and Girls clubs.
Potential partnerships:
» Artist and non-arts community-based organization or group
» Arts organization and non-arts community-based organization or group
» Artist and Arts organization partnering with a non-arts community-based organization or group
» An immigrant service organization with an established arts program
» Artist and immigrant service organization