the arts loan fund

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation are pleased to announce the launch of the Next Gen Arts Initiative, which will provide professional development grants up to $1,000 to emerging arts administrators in California through the Center for Cultural Innovation’s Creative Capacity Fund, along with other program activities.

California arts administrators between the ages of 18 and 35 who are currently employed by a nonprofit arts organization may be eligible to apply for these new grant resources by registering online and completing a profile questionnaire by July 31, 2010. Please help us by sharing this post with  appropriate members of your staff. A link to that survey is provided here: http://surveymonkey.com/s/NextGenArts.

We would appreciate any help that you can give us in promoting the online registry and profile questionnaire to emerging arts leaders in California. The information collected from individual employees will be treated strictly confidentially, but we look forward to sharing a summary of findings more broadly with the arts field.

For further information about CCI’s Creative Capacity Fund and the Next Gen Arts Initiative, please visit: www.creativecapacityfund.org.

Are you an Emerging Arts Leader?  A Funder?  An Emerging Leader Network wondering how you will sustain or grow your network?  Maybe you’re an Executive Director concerned about the leadership development of the next generation?

Then you’ll want to tune into ARTSblog April 5-9.

ARTSblog is hosting a week-long national dialogue titled New Strategies to Support Next Generation Leaders from April 5-9. A broad selection of diverse leaders from across the country will blog about this theme—arising from a partnership between the Irvine and Hewlett Foundations to support Emerging Arts Leaders in California.

As arts administrators, we have all read reports and been involved in conversations about an impending generational shift.  Questions often arise about the readiness of emerging arts leaders to take over for current executive leaders, as we discuss “leadership gaps” and the lack of affordable professional development available.

To respond to this conversation, Americans for the Arts and the Emerging Leaders Council will host a national dialogue on New Strategies to Support Next Generation Leadership on ARTSblog.  The idea for this blog salon was developed out of a recent partnership between the Irvine and Hewlett Foundations to support Emerging Arts Leaders in California (See more about the Irvine/Hewlett partnership here).

This dialogue will leverage the voices of funders, Emerging Leader Network representatives, and leadership development advocates to discuss what is needed to sustain leadership growth, the skill sets that emerging leaders need to develop, and how funders are addressing the generational shift.

Make sure to visit the blog daily for updated postings, and comment often!