As Communications Officer, Ray Delgado oversees various communications initiativ
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Oct 01, 2011
Arts participation is being redefined as people increasingly choose to engage with art in new, more active and expressive ways. This compelling trend carries profound implications, and fresh opportunities, for a nonprofit arts sector exploring how to adapt to demographic and technological changes.
Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation is a new study commissioned by The James Irvine Foundation and conducted by WolfBrown. It draws insights from more than 100 nonprofit arts groups and other experts in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The report presents a new model for understanding levels of arts engagement as well as case studies of participatory arts in practice. It also addresses many of the concerns that arts organizations may have in supporting participatory arts practices and provides inspiration and ideas for exploring this growing trend.
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Oct 01, 2011
To say Josephine Ramirez hit the ground running when she joined the Irvine Foundation would be an understatement. Hired as Arts program director in January 2010, Josephine was immediately tasked with refining Irvine’s Arts grantmaking strategy to respond to major shifts affecting California’s arts sector.
Along with her Arts program colleagues, Josephine spent the better part of her first year surveying the broader arts field, talking to grantees and field leaders, and analyzing the major issues that arts organizations were grappling with. As their work developed, Josephine and her Arts team focused on the concept of promoting engagement as the most effective way of helping arts nonprofits adapt to a challenging environment and provide more enriching arts experiences for Californians.
The idea is one that Josephine has had a lot of experience with. As vice president for programming at the Music Center in Los Angeles, she helped create the center’s Active Arts program, which has drawn thousands of Angelenos with outdoor, participatory arts events over the last eight years and helped boost the civic vitality of downtown Los Angeles.
Prior to the Music Center, Josephine served as a research associate at the Getty Research Institute investigating the connection between art-making and civic participation. And as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, she explored the relationship between nonprofessional art-making and individual and community vitality.
Irvine Quarterly recently talked with Josephine about Irvine’s new grantmaking strategy in the Arts, the ongoing work of developing new grantmaking funds as part of the new strategy and where she sees the arts field going in the years ahead.
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Sep 21, 2011
Avid Participation, Abundant Arts Organizations and Dramatic Regional Differences are Hallmarks of the State
San Francisco — California has 11,000 arts and culture nonprofits, a number that places the state ahead of most nations in the world. Californians are more likely to participate than other Americans — but arts involvement and nonprofit organizations are unevenly spread across California’s geographic and demographic communities.
New findings generated by Markusen Economic Research and commissioned by The James Irvine Foundation offer fresh illustrations of the California nonprofit arts sector and the people who take part in it. Released today, Arts, Culture and Californians draws highlights from the research.
This new research illustrates that arts and culture plays a significant role in the daily lives of Californians. The state is noteworthy for the avid participation of its people, the diversity and abundance of its arts organizations and the varied regional characteristics of its arts sector. California’s regions reflect distinctive populations, participation rates, numbers and types of arts and culture organizations, and levels of arts funding.
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Sep 15, 2011
Groups Receive $2 Million in Investments from Widely Influential Private-Public Collaboration to Revitalize America's Cities and Towns
San Francisco– In an innovative development that is affecting the Bay Area as well as some two dozen other cities and towns across the nation, five leading arts organizations have received more than $2 million in grants from an unprecedented new private-public collaboration, ArtPlace (www.artplaceamerica.org).
Announced for the first time on September 15, ArtPlace is an initiative of 11 of America’s top foundations working in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts and seven federal agencies. Its aim is to drive revitalization across the country by putting the arts at the center of economic development. ArtPlace has now announced its first round of grants, investing $11.5 million in 34 locally initiated projects in cities from Honolulu to Miami. Each project supported by ArtPlace has been selected for developing a new model of helping towns and cities thrive by strategically integrating artists and arts organizations into key local efforts in transportation, housing, community development, job creation and more.
Among the groups funded in the Bay Area are San Francisco-based Intersection for the Arts ($777,000) and the Creative Work Fund ($183,000); the San Jose-based ZER01: The Art & Technology Network ($500,000) and 1st ACT Silicon Valley ($500,000); and the Berkeley-based Berkeley Repertory Theatre ($750,000).
As Arts Program Director, Josephine is leading the implementation of a new grant
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Jul 01, 2011
Beginning next year, Irvine will evolve its approach to supporting the arts in California. Our new strategy is designed to help arts organizations adapt and thrive amid major demographic and technological shifts affecting the sector. Watch the video below for an introduction to our new Arts program grantmaking strategy.
The Foundation remains deeply committed to the arts throughout California. We have spent the past year surveying the arts landscape, gathering input from grantees and other experts and reviewing the latest research. It has become clear to us that the arts sector in California is undergoing major shifts, due largely to demographic and technological changes, and that these shifts pose long-term challenges and opportunities to nonprofit arts organizations. Our new grantmaking strategy is designed to help these organizations adapt and thrive.
New Goal
Exploring Engagement Fund
We are pleased to announce the first grantmaking fund under the new strategy, the Exploring Engagement Fund, an open competitive fund for California-based nonprofit arts organizations that have an annual operating budget between $100,000 and $5 million. Please read more about the application process,eligibility requirements and frequently asked questions. Additionally, you can watch a webinar that we held for our grantees and grantseekers about the fund on Nov. 7, 2011.
Our new goal is to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians — the kind that embraces and advances the diverse ways that we experience the arts, and that strengthens our ability to thrive together in a dynamic and complex social environment.
Our principal partners for achieving this will be arts organizations. We will support new and current grantee partners who want to increase their ability to engage Californians in the arts. Specifically, we seek to increase arts engagement in three ways:
As Communications Officer, Ray Delgado oversees various communications initiativ
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Apr 01, 2011
As audiences continue to decline for many arts organizations, a growing number of nonprofits are exploring the idea of community engagement as a way to attract new patrons and thrive in a changing economy.
Fortunately for Los Angeles' Cornerstone Theater, the concept is hardly new. Founded nearly 25 years ago, Cornerstone has long been producing plays that tell the stories of California communities, from Eureka to the Imperial Valley, by involving community members in the creative process. It's a successful model that is getting increased attention from other arts organizations.
"There are certainly more and more companies and artists taking this approach, from many different perspectives, in theater and other disciplines," said Artistic Director Michael John Garcés. A changing economic paradigm, he notes, is only one factor in spurring more mainstream theaters to reconsider their practice. The other is a desire to engage audiences at a more authentic level.
"I hope that you will begin to see it across the board, as people realize that it is healthier and leads to deeper relationships with audience — not to simply consider them 'audience.' We have to find better economic models for the structures of our companies, as the current, outdated ones aren't working. I think that the future is in engagement."
Most Cornerstone productions are community collaborations. Company artists immerse themselves in the specific communities where they're developing plays, creating a performance that combines professional actors with local residents. By working closely with these communities, they develop works that are informed by local issues, such as race, class, faith, poverty, human rights or social justice.
(Currently, for example, Cornerstone is collaborating with the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts on The Unrequited (Between Two Worlds), which opens in May.)
The resulting plays — either new works or adaptations of classics — are then performed in a local venue — sometimes in a theater, but more often in a nontraditional venue like a school auditorium. Admission is on a pay-what-you-can basis, exposing many attendees to an art form they may never have seen before.
Jim is Irvine’s CEO. A native Californian, he is passionate about the Foundation
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Nov 10, 2010
On November 10, 2010, Irvine CEO Jim Canales moderated a panel discussion about the 2010 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region. The panel included National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman and Ann Markusen, an economist and leading national arts researcher at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
The Otis report found that the creative economy is the second largest business sector in Los Angeles County, bringing 835,000 direct and indirect jobs to the region, and generating $113 billion in sales in Los Angeles and $14 billion in Orange County. The Nov. 10 event included a presentation of the findings by Nancy Sidhu, chief economist of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., which prepared the report, and opening remarks by Samuel Hoi, president of the Otis College of Art and Design, which commissioned the report.
As Communications Officer, Ray Delgado oversees various communications initiativ
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Feb 01, 2010
San Francisco, CA — The James Irvine Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation are providing more than $700,000 in grants to organizations that are cultivating the next generation of arts leaders in California through professional development, networking and mentorships. Hewlett’s Board of Directors approved $400,000 in grants in support of such efforts in November, and Irvine’s Board of Directors approved $340,000 in grants last month, with additional funding possible.
Research conducted by both foundations found that the arts sector faces critical leadership challenges during the next 10 to 15 years as the “baby boom” generation of arts leaders enters retirement age. Although there is a good supply of midcareer arts managers who are able to fill the roles, most arts organizations lack the resources for training and other kinds of professional development that will better prepare these promising young leaders to become effective nonprofit executives, the research found.
To help address this issue, Irvine and Hewlett are supporting several professional networks of emerging arts leaders that are providing their members with seminars, workshops, networking opportunities and other forms of professional development. Both Hewlett and Irvine provided grants to the San Francisco Bay Area Emerging Arts Professionals (through fiscal sponsor Intersection for the Arts) and GenArts Silicon Valley (through fiscal sponsor 1stACT Silicon Valley), as well as the Center for Cultural Innovation ’s Creative Capacity Fund, which offers arts professionals direct support for professional development. Irvine also provided a grant to the San Diego Foundation for its San Diego Emerging Leaders of Arts and Culture program.
A native Californian, Daniel Silverman leads the Foundation’s communications wor
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Jan 14, 2010
San Francisco — The James Irvine Foundation today announced the appointment of Josephine Ramirez as Program Director for the Arts. Ramirez will join Irvine from the Los Angeles Music Center and brings more than two decades of substantive experience in the arts to this leadership role.
Since its founding in 1937, the Irvine Foundation has been a major supporter of the arts in California. Today, Irvine is one of the largest arts funders in the state, with more than $19 million in grants in 2009. The goal of Irvine’s Arts program is to promote a vibrant and inclusive artistic and cultural environment in California.
“Josephine has been successful in a variety of leadership roles in the arts sector, from arts education to grantmaking to the development of cultural policy,” said Jim Canales, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Irvine Foundation. “She has a stellar reputation for inclusiveness and strategic thinking, and a deep commitment to diversity and cultural engagement, all attributes that will serve to further the aspirations of Irvine’s Arts program.”
Jim is Irvine’s CEO. A native Californian, he is passionate about the Foundation
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Jan 01, 2010
Dear Friends,
The New Year always brings with it an orientation toward the future, as we set new goals and start the year with a fresh perspective. In this context, I wanted to report on an exciting partnership we are engaged in with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation focused on cultivating the next generation of arts leaders in California.
Research commissioned by each of our foundations recently found that the arts sector faces a critical leadership transition during the next 10 to 15 years as the current “baby boom” generation of arts leaders enters retirement age. The good news is that there is no shortage of smart, engaged and dedicated midcareer professionals available to fill these roles. Many of them began their careers as practicing artists and have now been drawn into managerial roles. The challenge we found is that most arts organizations lack the resources for training and other kinds of professional development that will better prepare these promising young leaders to become effective nonprofit executives.
The recession has only made this problem worse. As organizations downsize, resources for professional development and travel are often among the first areas to be cut. Meanwhile, the need for training is only greater during an economic downturn, as employees are called upon to assume additional responsibilities and leadership is spread across the organization. These sacrifices might be manageable in the short term but they can hurt an organization’s long-term ability to retain and cultivate the talented young professionals who will lead them into the future.
