As part of its recently released Blueprint for Collective Action for the Arts initiative, Cincinnati-based United Arts Fund, ArtsWave, has announced its’ new strategy will allocate funding based on five community goals.

These goals include: to attract talent and position Cincinnati as a competitive region; to promote diversity and cross cultural understanding; to strengthen the vivacity of neighborhood communities; to broaden arts engagement opportunities for children in the region; and to draw young adults under the age of 40 into the folds of the arts community, deepening appreciation and interaction for the community.

This new approach will first identify community needs and then strategically focus grants where the needs align with these aforementioned goals.

As opposed to seeing proposals from organizations and thinking “'what do the arts need?', the strategy emphasizes the question, ‘what does the community need?’” said Alecia Kintner, ArtsWave’s CEO.

The hope is that this method, taking effect in the 2016 grants cycle, will sustain long term impact. In order to facilitate this conceptual transformation, ArtsWave will introduce two new online features.

First, the launch of new website in September, CincyArtsGuide.com acts as a resource for locals to find regional arts programming and up-to-date events. In October, ArtsWave will release a geo-mapping feature that provides a layout of each neighborhoods’ arts education network with sorting filters to view various demographics and economic groups as well.

The chief impact strategy manager for ArtsWave, Tara Townsend, describes the intent of these new web features, “to see […] the integral role that arts and culture plays in our region in a highly visual and interactive way.”