Arts Host Applications Now Open! 

2022 PROGRAM TIMELINE

• Arts Host Application Opens
• Arts Host Virtual Information Session
• Final Application Deadline
• Candidate Interviews
• Candidates Informed of Status
• Arts Host Orientation
• Program

• December 3, 2021 12:00 p.m. ET
• December 17, 2021 3:00 p.m. ET — View Recording Here
• January 14, 2022 11:59 p.m. ET 
• no later than February 25, 2022
• no later than March 18, 2022
• May 24, 2022 3:00 p.m. ET
  June 6–August 11, 2022

Arts Host Information

Arts organizations are looking for high-performing interns who bring needed skills, learn quickly, and offer new ideas. Americans for the Arts partners with local arts coordinating agencies to centrally vet interns to fit the needs of local host and screens arts host organizations for substantive projects and a supportive learning environment.

Through the DIAL internship, together, we create a more healthy, vibrant, and equitable arts ecosystems by strengthening career trajectories of interns, advancing the work of local arts organizations, expanding support for the arts from the business sector, and driving cultural equity in the arts management field.

Program Overview

The Diversity and Inclusion in Arts Leadership Internship program is designed to influence equity in the arts leadership field, providing college students who have a career interest in arts and community (social) change with a hands-on introduction to working in the non-profit arts sector. For 29 years, the program has placed roughly 300 students who have contributed over 100,000 hours to over 121 nonprofits during its lifetime. With a unique focus on creating more healthy, vibrant, and equitable arts ecosystems, intern participants are connected to an emerging arts community and a cohort of nonprofit arts organizational leaders, private sector mentors, and other cultural change agents (practitioners). Together, they commit to continuous learning and advancing a more equitable arts ecosystem. 

Arts management interns are carefully chosen from a competitive nationwide pool of students by Americans for the Arts staff and local arts coordinating agencies and granted paid, ten-week internships at local arts organizations across the country.

Your organization provides DIAL interns working towards careers in arts and culture management with an intensive, hands-on introduction to multidisciplinary arts nonprofits in local communities. Undergraduates from backgrounds underrepresented in arts leadership are matched with energetic arts hosts andmentors to guide students’ personal and professional growth throughout the summer. The overseeing local arts coordinating agency drives program curation, summer communication, and hand-on staffing.

Core Components

The 10-week summer internship includes:

• Work placement at a hosting arts organization
• Summer stipend
• Mandatory professional development for arts hosts
• Weekly group site visits to intern arts host sites, professional development workshops, and more
• The support of a mentor for the intern
• Access to robust alumni network

Schedule

Each arts organization hosts an intern for 10 weeks. Interns work 26 hours per week. Specific daily work schedules will be set by individual host organizations, but interns should generally expect to work Monday through Friday. New this year are more robust learning opportunities for interns, arts host and mentors so, while one day per week is reserved for interns to learn more about the field through professional development, site visits, and facilitated discussions, arts host supervisors are required to attend ten hours of program orientations, professional development workshops on topics of access, equity, and inclusion as well as opening and closing ceremonies.

Benefits for Local Arts Organizations

Arts organizations benefit from the experience in three significant ways:

1. Interns complete valuable projects for their host arts organizations. The staff of host arts organizations consistently remark upon the interns’ talent and work ethic; they also report on the enormous value of the work the interns complete. Many of the projects that interns undertake advance key organizational needs and provide the staff with greater capacity to achieve their goals. Hosts participate in the personal and career development of young leaders who reflect and represent a diverse society. Nearly half of the alumni of the Diversity in Arts Leadership internship program pursue full-time careers in the arts.
2. Hosts have the opportunity to guide interns while providing them with hands-on job experience and an introduction to numerous contacts and career opportunities. Interns who pursue careers in business will have developed an appreciation for the arts and may continue to support the arts through patronage, fiscal support, mentorship, volunteerism, and board service.
3. Receive ten hours of in-person and online leadership training throughout the ten weeks that helps supervisors lead for cultural equity.

Local Arts Coordinating Agencies

• New York City: Americans for the Arts - NYC Office
• New Jersey: New Jersey State Council on the Arts
• Nashville: Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission
• Boston: Arts Connect International
• Sarasota/Manatee: Community Foundation of Sarasota County Inc. // Cross College Alliance
• Wake County – Raleigh: United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County

Mentoring

One of the strengths of the program is its dual mentorship component, providing interns with both an arts and a mentor. Usually, the intern’s supervisor serves as his/her arts mentor and is expected to provide guidance not only on the project to be completed but also on the field of arts management in general. Mentors are volunteers representing a variety of careers and backgrounds who meet regularly with their interns to guide and advise them throughout the internship. Mentors provide an insight into the private sector, often providing workplace tours and networking opportunities, and demonstrate the many ways that individuals from the business sector can support the arts. Interns are required to be in contact with their mentor atleast once per week however, communicating or meeting up with their mentors should not impact their working schedule.

Other Activities

• Opening and Closing Ceremonies: All interns and their host organization supervisors are required to participate in an opening ceremony at the start of the program and a closing ceremony at the end.
• DIALogues: During the internship, interns will spend their Fridays spending time at site visits, proefssional development, and have facilitated reflection time. Arts hosts will also be supported throughout the summer with training sessions around cultural equity topics.

Evaluations

Arts hosts will be expected to meet regularly with interns to define, review, and evaluate project and personal goals. Arts host organizations, interns, and mentors will each be required to complete mid-point check-in with staff as well as a final evaluation survey distributed by staff to assess the program.

Stipend

Each intern receives a $4,500 stipend. Americans for the Arts and the local arts coordinating agency share the stipend cost with the host arts organizations. Arts organizations pay interns directly.

Preferences

As this program seeks to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field of arts management, preference is given to students from backgrounds underrepresented in arts management.

Statements and Policies

Americans for the Arts and upholds the following policies and will hold arts hosts to the same standards:

• Statement on Cultural Equity: To support a full creative life for all, Americans for the Arts commits to championing policies and practices of cultural equity that empower a just, inclusive, equitable nation.
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act: Americans for the Arts will reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with a disability so that they can perform the essential functions of a job, with or without an accommodation, unless doing so causes a direct threat to these individuals or others in the workplace and the threat cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation, and/or if the accommodation creates an undue hardship to Americans for the Arts. This policy governs all aspects of employment, including recruitment, selection, job assignment, compensation, discipline, termination, and access to benefits and training.
• Workplace Harassment: Americans for the Arts is committed to providing a work environment that is free of discrimination and harassment. Actions, words, jokes, or comments based on an individual's sex, race, color, national origin, age, religion, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, genetic predisposition, marital status, or any other legally protected characteristic will not be tolerated. Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.