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How Businesses Can Recruit and Retain Talent through the Arts
For more than 50 years, Americans for the Arts has been dedicated to building broad public support, strong leadership, and increased resources for arts and arts education. The pARTnership Movement, which was launched in 2012 by Americans for the Arts’ Business Committee for the Arts, bridges the gap between the businesses world and the arts world, and helps businesses understand that partnering with the arts can have real strategic value.
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Dream It! Do It!
At The Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts in downtown Los Angeles (known as Grand Arts High School) we have produced an original music video – Dream It! Do It! –directed and choreographed by Emmy, Golden Globe, NAACP Image, Drama Desk, Astaire and Olivier Award winner Debbie Allen.  Read more to watch/read more about this inspiring video! 
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The Case for Culture in the Promise Zone: Connecting Federal Initiatives with Place-Based Culture
Philadelphia is known for a lot of things: Rocky, Will Smith, dedicated sports fans, cheesesteaks… We’re also a city where: Approximately 3 out of every 10 residents are eligible for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 18% did not graduate high school 7.8% are unemployed (well above the national, state, and regional levels) We have the 6th highest homicide rate among nation’s 10 largest cities  (Pew State of the City 2015)
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Where the Cultural Life Flowers, the Community as a Whole Prospers and Grows
What makes a “healthy, vibrant, equitable community” healthy, vibrant, or equitable? As time marches on, what challenges will be presented to that community—to the millions of different communities that exist and overlap in every part of our lives? And how can the arts be a part of pushing past those challenges, empowering change, and creating a brighter future?
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The arts mean business in Iowa
Ask an outsider what they know about Iowa, and they may say one of three things, CORN ... HOGS ... and FARMLAND. Yes, Iowa is known for its agricultural bounty. But visit the world-famous Art Institute of Chicago, and you’ll undoubtedly run into “American Gothic,” a painting universally recognized as a cultural icon — created by Grant Wood, an Iowan. The explosion in the numbers of artists and arts activities in the 1940s and 1950s left a legacy that continues today, and what may come as a surprise is that in Iowa, the arts serve as an economic driver that attracts companies, creates jobs and grows local and state revenue. Without a doubt, the arts mean business in Iowa.
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Transforming the Field
“To fundamentally transform the field in order to meet a fundamentally changing nation and time, we need to fundamentally change who is in the field ” This was the prompt I was given, earlier this year, when I was asked to speak at the Americans for the Arts Convention. It so happens that I spend a lot of time thinking about transforming the arts and culture field; on the account of the fact that I work for Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit technology organization that helps artists with the business side of the creative work, where transforming the status quo of the field is part and parcel of everything that we do.
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Happy Anniversary to the Arts & Business Council of New York, the Colorado Business Committee
The Private Sector Network of Americans for the Arts, which includes organizations like Arts & Business Councils and Business Committees for the Arts, works to promote the message that business sector support for the arts is integral to the success and longevity of the arts. This support is also essential in building communities in which the business sector can thrive. This post is one of two that highlights five such organizations that are celebrating monumental anniversaries in 2015 and have spent decades building these vital arts and business partnerships.
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Teaching Artists in the Post-Silo Era
A number of trends discussed at the 2015 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention resonated with my personal experience as a teaching artist. One trend arose frequently, in a number of different contexts: we all need to consider it since it is clearly top of mind in our field, and prominent in our experimenting with change.  Different presenters used different words to describe this trend, but the gist is: the longtime silos of practice and identity within the greater arts field are coming down. We have stayed within them too long, and now necessity and good strategy are bringing them down.  
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The Art of Athletics
Anyone that is in my presence for more than ten minutes will probably pick up that I am passionate about two things outside of my family: Sports (particularly football and basketball) and artistic expression (particularly music and film). I’ve often debated with various friends whether or not sports could be considered art, and opinions have varied.
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It’s Never Too Late for PTSD Awareness
Some may not have known, but Saturday, June 27th was National Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day. In 2010, Congress named June 27th PTSD Awareness Day. They later declared the entire month of June 2014, National Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month.
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Plastered in Paducah
I first learned about Paducah, KY eleven years ago when I started working at Americans for the Arts. Where is Paducah, you ask? Well, it’s a town of about 25,000 people nestled where the Ohio and Tennessee rivers converge, approximately 140 miles north of Nashville in the western sliver of Kentucky. But don't let this quaint town fool you, as it packs a huge arts punch. 

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