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

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:

• Who is engaging in the arts: We aim to increase engagement by low-income and/or ethnically diverse populations that have been traditionally underserved by arts nonprofits.
• How people engage in the arts: We aim to expand the ways Californians engage in the arts as active participants – by making or practicing art. This could include the use of digital technology to produce or curate art.
• Where people engage in the arts: We aim to advance the use of diverse, non-traditional spaces for arts engagement, especially in regions with few arts-specific venues.

Our grantmaking will reflect Irvine's continued focus on the San Joaquin Valley and Inland Empire as priority regions over other areas of the state that have greater opportunities for arts funding.

We recognize that transitions take time, and we are committed to making this transition responsibly. We will continue to make grants under our former strategy in 2012, along with our first grants under our new strategy. We are still implementing this new strategy, and will publish additional grantmaking funds and priorities on our website as they are developed.

We are deeply committed to the arts, as we have been since our founding in 1937. To many of our grantees, partners and peers, these changes are a natural evolution of our grantmaking, and bring our strategy into greater alignment with our mission to expand opportunity for the people of California.

We will continue to post information on our website as we refine our priorities and as opportunities to apply for funding under this new strategy become available.

Learn More

We encourage you to learn more about these upcoming changes, and tell us what you think.

• Read more about the new Exploring Engagement Fund or watch a webinar we held on November 7, 2011.
• Watch a webinar presentation about our new Arts strategy we delivered to our grantees and the California arts community on June 27, 2011.
• Explore our FAQ to learn more about what we will fund and how we will be making grants.
• Sign up for updates to receive more information as it becomes available.
• Find us on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation and tell us what you think.

Share Your Thoughts

Our new strategy is still a work in progress. As we continue to refine the specific funding areas and priorities, we are eager to hear from you. We know we can benefit from your ideas and suggestions. Please take a moment to share your comments in the section below. We appreciate your feedback.