In 1999 with a significant grant from Ford, Americans for the Arts launched the Animating Democracy Initiative to foster artistic activity that encouraged civic dialogue on important contemporary issues. At the center of the Initiative, the Animating Democracy Lab provided grants and advisory support to 36 cultural organizations across the country to implement projects that experimented with or deepened existing approaches to arts- and humanities-based civic dialogue. Investigation through these diverse projects, individually and collectively, aimed to advance field learning about the philosophical, practical, and social dimensions of this work. As part of the Lab design, project leaders came together in Learning Exchanges to share and build knowledge and extend their learning to the broader field.

Animating Democracy Lab Grantees 2000-2004

DANCE

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Takoma Park, MD

Urban Bush Women, Brooklyn, New York, NY

Boise Arts Council, Boise, ID

HUMANITIES

Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York City, New York

INTERDISCIPLINARY

Center for Cultural Exchange, Portland, Maine

Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice, San Antonio, TX

Out North Contemporary Art House, Anchorage, Alaska

New WORLD Theater, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

Northern Lakes Center for the Arts, Amery, WI

Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC

LITERATURE

City Lore, New York City, New York

MEDIA ARTS

Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, Providence, RI
for filmmaker Katrina Browne (Traces of the Trade)

Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities, South Hadley, MA
for filmmaker Larry Hott, Florentine Films (Imagining Robert)

MUSIC

American Composers Orchestra, New York, NY

Brooklyn Philharmonic, Brooklyn, NY

San Francisco Opera, San Francisco, CA

Wintergreen Performing Arts, Inc., Wintergreen, VA

PUBLIC ART

Hawai’i Alliance for Arts Education, Honolulu, HI

Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), Venice, CA

Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota

THEATER

Children’s Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN

Cornerstone Theater Company, Los Angeles, CA

Council for the Arts of Greater Lima (with Sojourn Theatre), Lima, OH

Dell ‘Arte, Blue Lake, California

Flint Youth Theatre, Flint, MI

Junebug Productions, Inc. New Orleans, LA

The Kitchen, New York, NY

LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department), Los Angeles, CA

Perseverance Theatre, Douglas, AK

San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Diego, CA

Working Theater (with Marty Pottenger), New York, NY

VISUAL ARTS

The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA

Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA

The Jewish Museum, New York City, NY

Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA), San Jose, CA

In 2003, the National Exchange on Art and Civic Dialogue was convened in Flint. Supported by The Ford Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Ruth Mott Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, this national conference shared the learnings and findings of the initial four years of Animating Democracy. Over 200 artists, cultural and civic leaders, and community organizers attended from across the United States as well as from Japan, Paraguay, and Australia. The Exchange offered a multifaceted exploration of the philosophical, practical, and aesthetic aspects of arts and humanities activity that intended to stimulate civic dialogue on important contemporary issues. Grace Lee Boggs was the featured keynote speaker. It was cited by Linda Frye Burnham as "one of the signal arts events of the last decade" in her Community Arts Network article, "Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About."

Animating Democracy’s early books examined the role of artists and cultural institutions as catalysts, conveners, and initiators of civic dialogue and engagement efforts around important civic issues. They highlight best practices and outcomes from projects implemented by 36 cultural organizations that participated in Animating Democracy from 2000 to 2004, as well as challenges and complexities in this work. The series offered valuable insights gleaned from the work and voices of pioneering artists, innovative cultural leaders, and committed civic partners.

• Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy contributes to deepening understanding of the artistic, civic, and organizational dimensions of the work; dialogue approaches; common challenges; as well as the principles, theory, and practices that underpin effective work.


• Art and Civic Dialogue Series:
  • 

    Cultural Perspectives in Civic Dialogue: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

    

    Museums and Civic Dialogue: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

    

    Art, Dialogue, Action, Activism: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

    

    History as Catalyst for Civic Dialogue: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

    

    Dialogue in Artistic Practice: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

• Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art and Civic Dialogue is a collection of essays that explore art, civic dialogue, and reflective critical writing. Twelve essays focus on three compelling and very different projects supported by Animating Democracy that employed the unique capacities of theater, visual art, and historic preservation to stimulate people to talk together in new ways about issues that matter in their communities.

Over 20 years, Animating Democracy published numerous reports, papers, case studies and blogs exploring aspects of arts for change work. See publications tab for the full set of links.

In 2014, Animating Democracy launched the Evaluation Learning Lab (ELL) in collaboration with the Art x Culture x Social Justice Network, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation with a goal to promote evaluation that embodies values and practices congruent with arts and social justice work—equity, inclusion, understanding context, and the role of arts and culture.

Evaluating socially and civically engaged art requires that we replace an oversimplified paradigm of success and failure with a more realistic view that acknowledges the iterative and long-term nature of movement building and social transformation and includes incremental as well as cumulative measures of success. And it requires disrupting evaluation practices that undermine or distort the connections among art, culture, and social change.

ELL engaged arts practitioners, evaluators, and funders to build practical knowledge and resources for measuring social impact and evaluating artistic/aesthetic dimensions. Over 18 months, ELL participants met to discuss topics such as:

• Identifying and adapting evolving assessment practices from social justice and other fields;
• Equalizing power relationships; 
• Ensuring cultural competence in evaluation;
• Elevating qualitative evidence and narrative discussion in tandem with quantitative measures; and 
• Articulating criteria for artistic, as well as civic and social, efficacy.

Check out these resources that grew out of the work of the Evaluation Learning Lab:

• Dispatches from the Evaluation Learning Lab Blog Salon (October, 2015): 10 lab participants shared their thoughts, questions, experiences, and suggestions for crafting successful evaluation, as well as reports on their development of the new frameworks.
• Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change framework
• A Values Guide to Evaluating Arts & Social Change Work

ELL Participants:

Kiley Arroyo, Executive Director, Cultural Strategies Council

Andrea Assaf, Founding Artistic Director, Art2Action

John Borstel, Senior Advisor, Humanities, Dance Exchange

Denise Brown, Executive Director, Leeway Foundation

Chris Dwyer, Senior Vice President, RMC Research

Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Development Director, Push Buffalo

James Kass, Founder & Executive Director, Youth Speaks

Lisa Yun Lee, Director, School of Art & Art History, University of Illinois @ Chicago

Jose Serrano-McClain, Community Organizer, Queens Museum

Keryl McCord, Director of Operations, Alternate ROOTS

Stephanie McKee, Artistic Director, Junebug Productions

Wendy Morris, Director, Creative Leadership - Intermedia Arts

Judy Nemzoff, Program Director, Community Investments - San Francisco Arts Commission

Lisa Marie Pickens, Independent Evaluation Consultant

Erin Potts, CEO, Revolutions Per Minute

Nick Slie, Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director, Mondo Bizarro

Jessica Solomon, Director, Art in Praxis

Mark Valdez, Theater Artist, former ED of Network of Ensemble Theaters

Risë Wilson, Director of Philanthropy, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

The Exemplar Program aimed to foster a holistic and integrated approach to organizational health, institutional growth, civic engagement, and aesthetic investigation. It provided two years of support (2005-2007), totaling $150,000 to each of 12 small to midsized arts and cultural organizations nationwide. The organizations were recognized for outstanding cultural work in their communities and in the field, based on their participation in the Animating Democracy program of Americans for the Arts and the Working Capital Fund. These organizations, many ALANNA and BIPOC-led and serving, reflected the shifting demographics of their communities. They used artistic and cultural expression as the primary catalyst for engagement around civic, social, and community issues. 

Supported by the Ford Foundation, the two-year Exemplar Program was implemented in collaboration with Diane Espaldon at LarsonAllen Public Service Group of Minneapolis, MN, which also managed the Working Capital Fund.

Animating Democracy, in its first phase, supported cultural organizations to develop artistic activity that encourages civic dialogue and engagement on important contemporary issues. The program has stimulated field-wide, cross-disciplinary exploration of the philosophical, practical, and aesthetic aspects of arts- and humanities-based civic engagement activity. The Working Capital Fund helped midsized African-American, Latino, Native American, and Asian-American arts groups build sustainable organizations that support their artistic and community missions. The program has contributed to field-wide thinking about the capacity and capital development requirements of midsized and culturally specific nonprofit organizations.

Exemplar Program grants supported operations and programs to sustain and advance outstanding work. Additional resources enabled grantees to define special initiatives outside of their regular work that would build organizational knowledge and/or capacity or enhance approaches to creative, civic engagement, or organizational work in the long term. The Exemplar Program also supported the learning interests of Exemplar participants and facilitated collective and collaborative learning that included and benefited the broader field.

Community-Based Arts Organizations: A New Center of Gravity by Ron Chew detailed how, despite chronic undercapitalization, resourceful committed leaders within these small and midsized group organizations successfully encoded true diversity, equity and inclusion into their core values, mission, practice, and programs.

In 2007, with support from the W.K. Kellogg and Nathan Cummings Foundations, the Impact Initiative began work to position artists and the arts as valid and viable contributors to civic engagement and social change. Learning Labs promoted knowledge building, exchange and learning among practitioners, researchers, evaluators, funders and other stakeholders about arts for change outcomes and impact. Identification of relevant indicators and methods supported credible and useful evaluation; and training and consultation built the capacity of practitioners to assess and report social/civic outcomes.

Practical resources aggregated and featured in the IMPACT section of the Animating Democracy website included: A Place to Start with key terms and concrete options for beginning an evaluation plan; Evaluation in Action with stories and examples that describe how real arts projects have been evaluated, and annotated evaluation resources, tools, and frameworks. In 2017 Animating Democracy published CONTINUUM OF IMPACT: A Guide to Defining Social and Civic Outcomes and Indicators to help artists and community partners articulate intended outcomes and indicators and collect evidence of what difference their creative work makes and how.

Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change is a framework, published in 2017, featuring 11 attributes of excellence defined by artists and their allies that can be observed across a spectrum of community-engaged arts and culture.

The framework aims to: elevate aesthetics, address inequity resulting from historical domination of Euro-American aesthetic standards, expand criteria for assessing civically and socially engaged art, and promote deeper appreciation for the rigor required for such work. It includes reflective questions to guide consideration of each attribute and illuminating examples of arts/culture projects. Five Companion guides written by peers help Artists, Funders, Evaluators, Educators, and Curators draw upon and adapt aspects of the framework for their work.

Dissemination and activation of the framework was supported by Hemera Foundation. Between 2017 and 2018 over 1,400 people were directly reached through 37 workshops and conference presentations across the country. There were activations of the framework among: funders (The MAP Fund, Arts in Society/Redline Contemporary Art Center, Native Arts & Cultures Foundation); Local Arts Agencies (San Francisco Arts Commission, Oregon Arts Council, Los Angeles County Dept of Arts & Culture, Office of Public Art/Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council), artists (Complex Movements), and others. The Aesthetics framework was a focus of two Blog Salons and case study documentation.

Beginning in 2011, this initiative highlighted the spectrum of ways the arts are activated to engage people and make change. A refreshed Animating Democracy website was launched featuring a database of artists, cultural and community organizations that foster civic engagement and social change through the arts and a collection of trend papers by field practitioners, leaders, and journalists characterizing arts for change work in particular segments of the arts and social justice fields.

Trend or Tipping Point: Arts & Social Change Grantmaking – This 2010 report assembled a first-time portrait of arts funders, social change funders, and others supporting civic engagement and social change through arts and cultural strategies. This work was supported by George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the Nathan Cummings, Lambent, Surdna, and CrossCurrents Foundations.

Municipal-Artist Partnership Guide (MAP) - Animating Democracy and A Blade of Grass created this practical digital resource to help artists and city leadership, as well as organizations supporting their efforts, establish strong collaborations that benefit their communities. The MAP Guide responded to growing interest in engaging artists’ creative thinking and skills in municipal government work toward achieving internal and community goals. It addressed common questions about how to structure and navigate partnerships across different ways of working and to evaluate those partnerships. The guide draws upon the experience of scores of programs across the country to capture principles and best practices. It contains partnership profiles of exemplary programs, tools, sample documents, and other resources that help prospective partners get started and establish effective relationships. MAP was supported by an NEA Our Town grant and funding from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. Visit https://municipal-artist.org to use this free resource.

Working Guide Trend Papers on Arts for Change, a collection of writings by field practitioners, leaders, and journalists characterizing arts for change work in particular segments of the arts and social justice fields.

Titles and affiliations at the time of participation with Animating Democracy

PROJECT LIAISONS 2000-2004

Caron Atlas, Independent consultant

Valerie Cassel, Curator, Houston Museum of Contemporary Art

Kim Chan, VP, Programs, Association of Performing Arts Presenters

Kathie deNobriga, Independent consultant

Abel Lopez, Associate Producing Director, GALA Hispanic Theatre

Martha McCoy, Executive Director, Study Circles Resource Center

Jeanne Pearlman, Senior Program Officer, The Pittsburgh Foundation

Patricia Romney, President, Romney Associates

Michael Warr, Producing Director, Dance Africa Chicago

Wayne Winborne, VP, Business Diversity Outreach, Prudential Insurance Co. of America, former Director of Program and Policy Research, National Conference for Community & Justice

Sue Wood, Independent consultant, former Executive Director, Flint Youth Theatre

Cheryl Yuen, Independent consultant

ANIMATING DEMOCRACY NATIONAL ADVISORS 1997-2005

Kim Chan, VP, Programs, Association of Performing Arts Presenters

Anna Deavere Smith, theater artist; director, Institute for Art & Civic Dialogue

Amina Dickerson, Kraft Foods, Inc.

Jennifer Dowley, Director, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation

Sondra Farganis, Director, Vera List Center for Art & Politics, New School University

Zelda Fichandler, Chair, Graduate Acting Program, New York University

Kathy Halbreich, Director, Walker Art Center

Abel Lopez, Associate Producing Director, GALA Hispanic Theatre

Martha McCoy, Executive Director, Study Circles Resource Center

Amalia Mesa Bains, Director, Visual/Public Art Institute, California State University

Cristine Vincent, Ford Foundation Program Officer, Arts Media & Culture

Lynne Stern, Interim Ford Foundation Program Officer, Arts Media & Culture

Roberta Uno, Ford Foundation Program Officer, Arts Media & Culture

ARTS & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IMPACT INITIATIVE 2005-2009

Core Consultants

Maribel Alvarez, research social scientist, Southwest Center, University of Arizona, Tucson

Suzanne Callahan, Founder, Callahan Consulting For the Arts, LLC

Chris Dwyer, Senior Vice President, RMC Research

Maria Rosario Jackson, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute

Susan Seifert, Director, Social Impact of the Arts Project, UPenn.

Mark Stern, Professor, Social Welfare and History & Co-Director, Urban Studies, UPenn 

Working Group members:

Kelly J. Barsdate, Chief Program and Planning Officer, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

Roberto Bedoya, Director, Tucson Pima Arts Council

Claudine K. Brown, Director, Arts and Culture Program, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Denise Brown, Executive Director, Leeway Foundation

Dudley Cocke, Artistic Director, Roadside Theater

Rha Goddess, artist, Divine Dime Entertainment

Marian Godfrey, Managing Director, Culture and Civic Initiatives, The Pew Charitable Trusts

Leia Maahs, Community Arts Development Coordinator, Tucson Pima Arts Council

John Malpede, Founder and Artistic Director, LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Dept.)

Eulynn Shiu, Research and Evaluation Manager, Americans for the Arts

Marc Vogl, Program Officer, Performing Arts Program, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

EVALUATION LEARNING LAB 2015-2017

Kiley Arroyo, Executive Director, Cultural Strategies Council

Andrea Assaf, Founding Artistic Director, Art2Action

John Borstel, Senior Advisor, Humanities, Dance Exchange

Denise Brown, Executive Director, Leeway Foundation

Chris Dwyer, Senior Vice President, RMC Research

Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Development Director, Push Buffalo

James Kass, Founder & Executive Director, Youth Speaks

Lisa Yun Lee, Director, School of Art & Art History, University of Illinois @ Chicago

Jose Serrano-McClain, Community Organizer, Queens Museum

Keryl McCord, Director of Operations, Alternate ROOTS

Stephanie McKee, Artistic Director, Junebug Productions

Wendy Morris, Director, Creative Leadership, Intermedia Arts

Judy Nemzoff, Program Director, Community Investments, San Francisco Arts Commission

Lisa Marie Pickens, Independent Consultant

Erin Potts, CEO, Revolutions Per Minute

Nick Slie, Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director, Mondo Bizarro

Jessica Solomon, Director, Art in Praxis

Mark Valdez, Theater Artist, former Executive Director, Network of Ensemble Theaters

Risë Wilson, Director of Philanthropy, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

FUNDER EXCHANGE ON EVALUATING ARTS & SOCIAL CHANGE, New York, NY 2013

Funders

Maurine Knighton, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Brandi Stewart, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Michelle Coffey, Lambent Foundation

Jane Kimondo, Crossroads Fund

Eddie Torres, Rockefeller Foundation

Sheila Leddy, Fledgling Fund

Maria Rosario Jackson, Kresge Foundation

Angel Ysaguirre, Chicago Office of Cultural Affairs, formerly with Boeing

Angie Wang, Asian Women’s Giving Circle

Adey Fisseha, Unbound Philanthropy

Chris Peters, Seventh Generation Fund

Javier Torres, Boston Foundation

Lauren Embrey, Embrey Family Foundation

Anita Contini, Bloomberg Philanthropies

Jess Garz, Surdna Foundation

Evaluators & Researchers

Chris Dwyer, RMC Research

Kevin Chin, J.W. McConnell Family Foundation

Lisa Marie Pickens, Independent Evaluation Consultant, former Board Member and Chair, Evaluation Tool Working Group of the Crossroads Fund

Maribel Alvarez, anthropologist, Assoc. Research Prof. & Associate Research Social Scientist, Southwest Center, University of Arizona

Kelly Barsdate, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

Steven Shewfelt, Office of Research & Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts

Lisa Yancey, consultant, evaluator for Nathan Cummings Foundation

Practitioners, Field Leaders

Carlton Turner, Alternate ROOTS

Sara Ansell, Porch Light Initiative, Mural Arts Program, Philadelphia

Ellen Schneider, Active Voice Lab for Story & Strategy

Favianna Rodriquez, artist; member of the Culture Group

Erin Potts, Air Traffic Control; the Culture Group

Betsy Richards, Opportunity Agenda

EVALUATORS CIRCLE, Philadelphia, PA, 2014

Arnold Aprill, Arts and Learning Consultant

Denise Brown, Executive Director, Leeway Foundation

Barbary Cook Managing Director, Dragonfly Partners LLC

M. Christine Dwyer, Senior Vice President, RMC Research

Dr. Rita Fierro, Consultant, Fierro Consulting

Conny Graft, Independent consultant

Lisa Yun Lee, Director of the School of Art & Art History, University of Illinois, visiting curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

Lisa Marie Pickens, Independent consultant, Board member with the Crossroads Fund

Susan Seifert, Director and co-founder of the Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP), University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice

Dr. Kamella Tate, Director of Research and Evaluation at the Music Center/Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County

EVALUATORS CIRCLE, Los Angeles, CA, 2015

Wendy Hsu, researcher, strategist, educator, ethnographer; former ACLS public fellow with the City of Los Angeles Dept. of Cultural Affairs

Sofia Klatzker, executive director, Arts for LA

Susannah Laramee Kidd, research analyst and ACLS public fellow, Los Angeles County Arts Commission

Bronwyn Mauldin, director of research & evaluation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission

Angie Kim, executive director, Center for Cultural Innovation

Kamella Tate, KTA/LLC

 

Patti Topete, director of programs, Levitt Pavilions

Matty Wilder, senior program officer, Herb Alpert Foundation

Sharon Yazowski, executive director, Levitt Pavilions

Courtney Malloy, director of research, Vital Research

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES: A FUNDERS FORUM, 2003, Flint, MI

Karen Aldridge-Eason, Foundation Liaison, Office of MI Governor Jennifer Granholm

Caron Atlas, Animating Democracy Liaison, Brooklyn, NY

Sara Becker, President, The Leeway Foundation, Philadelphia, PA

Tom Borrup, Principal, Community & Cultural Development, Minneapolis, MN

John Bracey, Director of Programs, Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs, Lansing, MI

Helen Brunner, Freedom of Expression/Arts, Albert A. List Foundation, Inc., Washington, DC

Ron Butler, Executive Director, United Way of Genesee County, Flint, MI

Alice Hart, Vice President for Programs, Community Foundation of Greater Flint, Flint, MI

Barbara Hill, President & CEO, Michigan Women's Foundation, Livonia, MI

Judith Jennings, Director, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville, KY

Sharnita C. Johnson, Program Officer, Ruth Mott Foundation, Flint, MI

Daniel Kertzner, Program Manager, Local Cultural Councils, MA Cultural Council, Boston, MA

Steve Laux, Program Officer, Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs, Lansing, MI

Deborah Mikula, Exec. Director, Michigan Assoc. of Community Arts Agencies, Ann Arbor MI

Maryanne Mott, Trustee, Ruth Mott Foundation, Flint, MI

Victor Papale, President, Community Foundation of Greater Flint, Flint, MI

Susan Pool, Director & C.O.O., Ruth Mott Foundation, Flint, MI

Martha Richards, Executive Director, The Fund for Women Artists, Florence, MA

Kimberly Roberson, Program Officer, C.S. Mott Foundation, Flint, MI

Benjamin Strout, Exec. Director, Arts Development, Australia Council, Strawberry Hills, Australia

Herman Warsh, Trustee, Ruth Mott Foundation, Flint, MI

Vanessa Whang, Director, Multidisciplinary & Presenting Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC

Monica Williams, Metlife Foundation, Brooklyn, NY

Wayne Winborne, Prudential Insurance Company of America, Brooklyn, NY

Sue Wood, Consultant, Theatre, Arts Education and Community Cultural Planning, Flint, MI