Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce that Chicago-based Joyce Foundation has renewed its support for Americans for the Arts' Professional Development Fund for Emerging Arts Leaders of Color. A total of five Joyce Fellows from the Great Lakes region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) will be selected to participate in this program.

Fellows will receive stipends of $3,000 to support their attendance at the 2010 Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit, 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference, and Arts Advocacy Day 2011. In addition, fellows will have special opportunities to meet field leaders, work alongside mentors, and receive individualized career coaching.

In order for our sector to remain healthy and vibrant, we need to ensure that we are identifying and retaining young professionals within our workforce. Further, we need to actively cultivate, expand and support talented, culturally diverse, emerging leaders. Based upon recommendations from the Emerging Leaders Council, Americans for the Arts has been working to enable more emerging leaders to fully participate in national meetings and events for their own development and so they can connect with the broader community of arts professionals from across the country. Therefore, this Professional Development Fund has been designed to target an important segment of our workforce: emerging arts leaders of color.