Art Works for San Diego Initiative

The Foundation’s Arts and Culture Working Group (ACWG) has established a broad and ambitious vision for San Diego’s arts and culture: To galvanize the San Diego community around enhanced arts and culture to ensure that the San Diego region has all the resources to become a nationally-competitive arts and culture center.

With this vision in mind, the Foundation launched Art Works for San Diego, a multi-phased regional initiative developed to demonstrate the power of art and culture to bring communities together to address community needs. This initiative is grounded in research from the 2006 pARTicipate San Diego study that emphasized the valuable role arts and culture plays in our lives. Over the next several years, Art Works for San Diego will enable the Foundation to realize the boldest vision for art-based community development through strategic grantmaking, capacity building activities, donor engagement and cultivation efforts, and increased public awareness and advocacy around issues that would benefit from San Diego Foundation leadership. Under this Initiative and with support from a generous grant from the James Irvine Foundation’s Communities Advancing the Arts Initiative, the ACWG is also studying the feasibility of establishing a permanent endowment for arts and culture at the Foundation.

THE PROCESS – PHASE ONE

In Phase One, the ACWG invited nonprofit organizations to propose projects that support the singular Art Works for San Diego goal: to use arts and culture to bring people together to address a greater community need. The ACWG was particularly interested in projects in which civic engagement is an important catalyst for cultural development and social change.  Grants of $25,000 each were awarded to eight nonprofit organizations to help further develop their project ideas, to engage the community in their planning processes and to research other models that could inform and inspire their work. To increase capacity and insure success, the Foundation has also provided the grantees as well as the larger arts and culture community, with a variety of networking and learning opportunities focusing on arts and civic engagement. At the end of Phase One, each grantee will complete a final performance report which will help the ACWG determine which projects offer the greatest promise and should be supported with implementation funding in Phase Two.

Casa Familiar
Annual Dia de los Muertos/ Day of the Dead Street Festival
$25,000
To expand the annual Dia de los Muertos festival to include the participation of more artists, both local and international, as well as businesses, schools, nonprofit organizations and other communities.

Cygnet Theatre
heART of Old Town
$25,000
To support the planning of a project that will increase the visibility and viability of Old Town as a vibrant regional cultural destination.

Escondido History Center
Creative Pathways: Activating Grape Day Park for the 21st Century
$25,000
To increase arts, cultural and recreational programming and infrastructure in the park to transform Grape Day Park into the City’s most expressive, creative outdoor public space.

La Jolla Playhouse
The Outsider Festival
$25,000
To support the planning of a regionally significant festival that will employ multiple disciplines of the performing and visual arts to encourage a community dialogue around relevant social, cultural and political issues of our times.

Mainly Mozart
The Music Inside Me
$25,000
Beginning in southeastern San Diego, this three-part project engages at-risk youth in the creation of new musical works to share with the community. The project will feature Hey, Mozart!, a music composition competition for grades K-5; Joyful Noise, a music training academy for teachers; and, My Tone, a ring tone competition for teens.

North Park Main Street
Art @ the Core: Building Community
$25,000
To support the planning of a project that will increase access to arts and culture and civic engagement through community cultural development.

The Old Globe
The Southeastern San Diego Residency Project
$25,000
To build relationships in the community, developing and implementing a wide range of intensive programs, including theatre productions in satellite venues in southeastern San Diego; collaborative education programs and technical support for school and community partners; and Globe Technical Center internships and workshops.

Playwrights Project
Telling Stories: Giving a Voice to Foster Youth
$25,000
Engage foster youth and care providers in playwriting and media programs to create live theatre and videotaped documentaries that voice the real life concerns of foster youth and encourage community involvement in improving the child welfare system.

 

2006-2007 Arts & Culture Grantees

2005-2006 Arts & Culture Grantees

2004-2005 Arts & Culture Grantees

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