Initiatives
ONGOING INITIATIVES
Engage: A New Media Intensive
Engage: A New Media Intensive provides eleven arts organizations with the resources and technical assistance to create and disseminate a set of digital media "assets" including a mini documentary and a series of high quality photographs that advances the mission of the organization. Organizations will receive professional training to disseminate their newly created digital media assets through new media channels, such as email marketing, social networking, mobile communications platforms and photo and video sharing Web sites. The purpose of Engage is to strengthen arts organization’s ability to effectively communicate using new media as well as document the impact of the Organizational Grant Program.
Cultivate/Create Initiative
The Cultivate/Create Initiative provides arts organizations with grants of up to $10,000 to commission new works. Grant funds provided to the organization must be matched, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, by new contributions from individual donors within four months. Organizations receive a series of technical assistance workshops and coaching and peer learning sessions to help them engage and sustain relationships with individual donors, and enhance their capacity to generate renewable sources of income.
PAST INITIATIVES
Municipal Cultural Planning Initiative
In 2006/2007, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and L.A. County Quality and Productivity Commission's Productivity Investment Fund to implement an initiative to support five municipalities in create municipal cultural plans. A strong cultural plan is a valuable tool which builds community consensus, maximizes cultural assets, and resolves specific cultural/neighborhood development issues.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act National Endowment for the Arts Subgranting Program
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), signed into law on February 17, 2009, recognized the nonprofit arts industry as an important sector of the economy and, through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), dispersed funds to preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector. The Los Angeles County Arts Commission and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs each received funds from the NEA to sub-grant to arts organizations in the Los Angeles region. In October 2009, grants totaling to $420,084 to support administrative staff positions that were critical to the organization's mission and in jeopardy or had been eliminated as a result of the current economic climate were announced by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Artful Solutions: Pathways From Homelessness
In 2007/2008, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the L.A. County Quality and Productivity Commission’s Productivity Investment Fund to implement an 18-month pilot program, Artful Solutions: Pathways from Homelessness grant initiative. This initiative was the nation's first regional effort to include the arts as an important component of support services for homeless populations and to provide data that can be used in the future to help solve the challenges of homelessness. The Arts Commission awarded five pilot grants of $18,000 to arts organizations that partnered with a housing, shelter or social service agency to provide homeless individuals or families with quality arts programming.
