Catalyst Grantee Profile: Latinitas

Latinitas

Interview with Latinitas‘s Marketing & Development Director, Victoria Garza.

Organization Mission: To empower all girls to innovate using media and technology.

Population Served: Predominantly young Latinas ages 9-18 in Austin and El Paso, although we have held workshops and conferences throughout the state of Texas

Founding Year: 2002

Organization Website: www.latinitasmagazine.org

Interview

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work.
Latinitas’ mission is to empower all girls to innovate using media and technology. We have been doing this since 2001 through afterschool clubs in Title 1 schools, workshops in public libraries and public housing, and weekend conferences held at technology companies, colleges, and other locations. We also have an online magazine for young Latinas written and curated by Latinas.
Latinitas is reaching girls others aren’t and succeeding where others haven’t. 93% of Latinitas alumni are graduating high school and 81% attend college in light of having the highest drop out rates. 100% of our girls enrolled in Latinitas’ afterschool clubs are living at or below the poverty level and 36% are English learners; yet, we are graduating 50% more STEM majors than the national average for girls and 33% of Latinitas program grads are exploring digital media or communications. Our alumni are turning up at our local news stations, on film crews, and at technology companies such as Bumble – which has a headquarters here in Austin, Texas – combining their love of female empowerment, digital media, and technology.
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem.
At a time when many parents are wondering what age to give their child a smartphone or tablet, we are still dealing with issues of internet access for many of the families we serve. We see the digital divide widening with the wealth gap, essentially leaving the poor – many of them minorities – behind in an increasingly digital world.
How and why did you first start working for this organization?
I first got involved with Latinitas back in 2004, first as a volunteer and then as a board member. I strongly believed in the mission of Latinitas and I wished an organization such as this had existed when I was a kid. Since gaining experience working in both the media and technology industries and witnessing first-hand the lack of diversity in both, it made me even more passionate about the organization’s work and when I was offered a position with the organization in 2015, I jumped at the opportunity.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years?
We are currently headquartered in Austin, Texas, with a pilot chapter in El Paso, Texas. Over the next few years we are planning on expanding our programs, starting with other Texas cities. As a matter of fact, we have partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of McAllen to bring our signature Game Chica conference to South Texas as a first step. So in the future, I see my work focusing more on meeting new partners and looking for new corporate sponsors in the cities we are looking to expand to.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why?

Focus on media literacy training to engage population served with current representation in magazines, TV, and movies of Latinx population, women of color, and Latinas, specifically, in order to understand their valuable position as game changers as well as identify why and how that representation exists and adapt ways they can take action to combat misrepresentation and stereotypes as future media industry leaders.
Focus on technology training to engage population with the latest equipment and platforms to increase their interest in STEM-related careers and further their knowledge of applications that can be used across a spectrum of topics including filmmaking, computer science, health and wellness, fashion design, social justice, etc. with the goal of steering their interests towards the technology industry.
Focus on having population served acknowledge and embrace their identity, gender, and culture to evolve personally and professionally with the goal of bringing their unique perspective to the media and technology industries as a means to diversify innovation.

What are the three most important skills you value in your staff members? Why?
Passion, curiosity, and a good work ethic. Passion is important because I find people who care, are enthusiastic about their job and will go the extra mile. Curiosity because I believe that helps drive innovation. People who ask a lot of questions tend to find better ways of doing things and can help identify new opportunities. Lastly, a good work ethic is important because even if they have the passion and the curiosity, what good are they if they aren’t there when you need them or don’t do what you need them to?
How has technology influenced your field and/or the way your organization works?
As technology changes, so does our program curriculum. We want to help the girls we serve stay up-to-date with the latest technology as part of their digital education. We want them to be aware of everything out there and the jobs they can get in these changing fields.
What are some key achievements your organization has accomplished over the last year and how were you able to attain this success?

We were the beneficiary of a fully stocked computer lab from General Motors and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
We were 1 of just 5 recipients of Mozilla foundation funds.
We were just 1 of 2 recipients of Google’s Community Leaders program that matches college students and Google professionals with a community project at a nonprofit.
We were 1 of 28 recipients worldwide of Google’s RISE award.
We reached out 15th year and celebrated with a Quinceañera, hosting our city and state’s officials, school district leaders, and honored champions.
We had our first-ever Game Chica Conference where 60 girls mostly of Latinx decent learned how to code a video game and met with mentors from the industry.
We held our Startup Chica entrepreneurial conference for girls at Austin’s premier startup incubator, Capital Factory.
We started a mentor program to connect program alumni in college with women in working in the media and tech industries.
We increased parent outreach in the form of their own workshops in financial literacy, using technology to learn English and app design, and entrepreneurial learning, as well as improved organizing parents through our Facebook platform.
We invested and moved to new larger office space.

What’s next for your organization? What are you looking forward to?
We are working to expand our programs beyond Austin and El Paso, Texas, starting with a weekend Game Chica Conference in South Texas this summer in partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of McAllen.

Press

Community Impact Newspaper: “Male leaders pledge support to Austin nonprofit Latinitas in wake of #MeToo movement” (June 2018).
The Austin Chronicle: “Documentary uses virtual reality to explore east Austin gentrification” (May 2018).
My Statesman: “Latinitas celebrates 15 years of media, tech training for girls, teens” (May 2017).
KXAN: “Innovators Talk Tech for Minority Youth at SXSW” (March 2018).
Venture Beat: “Mozilla awards final grants from its $1.2 million Community Gigabit Fund” (April 2018).
Telemundo Austin: “Organizan fiesta “Chica Power” estilo kermés a beneficio de la organización Latinitas” (June 2018).
Univision Austin: “El alcalde de Austin y líderes locales se unen para empoderar a jóvenes del grupo Latinitas” (June 2018).

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Re-Imagining Migration

Re-Imagining Migration

Interview with Re-Imagining Migration‘s Director, Adam Strom.

Organization Mission: To ensure that all young people grow up understanding migration as a fundamental characteristic of the human condition, in order to develop the knowledge, empathy and mindsets that sustain inclusive and welcoming communities.

Population Served: Educators in and out of formal school settings.

Founding Year: 2017

Organization Website: www.reimaginingmigration.org

Interview

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work.
We live in an era of mass migration. Young people – whether they are part of an arriving or receiving culture – strive to form their identities as learners, community members and change-makers in the context of this global phenomenon. We are catalyzing a community of educational leaders and social organizations around making migration a part of their curriculum and culture (in both formal and informal learning settings) so that all students can feel supported in their social, emotional, academic, and civic growth.
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem.

In the U.S., 26% of children under the age of 18 and 33% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 32, have an immigrant parent. These children come into school eager to learn and finding ways to facilitate their successful inclusion into our societies is both a demographic and a democratic imperative. Despite the rapid growth in the number of children and youth from immigrant families and the difficult circumstances they face, most adults that serve them are ill-prepared to address their needs. At the same time, xenophobia, myths, and prejudices about migrants and migration have a profoundly negative effect on civil conversation and hinder the ability immigrant origin children and youth to thrive and meet their full potential. Moreover, inside and outside of classrooms, misunderstandings about newcomers are often used to sew division, undermining social and economic prospects for us all.
Given the rapid growth in the number of children and youth from immigrant families and the difficult circumstances they face, neither ignoring the situation nor addressing it with ad hoc solutions is an option. We offer educators a new perspective on migration, recognizing it as one of our most basic human experiences and we are developing a promising practices network of networks to bring this work to schools, informal educational settings, and social change organizations. In the end, we believe the best way to ensure our shared prosperity is an approach to education that fosters the academic, social, and emotional needs of immigrant-origin and their peers.
How and why did you first start working for this organization?
The how and the why is a great question. I am sure that each of my co-founders, Carola Suarez-Orozco and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco would answer that question in a slightly different manner. Below is my answer.
I believe that migration is our shared story as humans. It is my families story, my great grandparents were immigrants on both sides of my parents family. My wife’s mother is an immigrant from Ecuador. As an educator, I’ve inspired by the immigrant-origin students I’ve had the honor of working with.
At the same time, backlash and skepticism against newcomers is predictable. This is a real problem for a number of reasons. On a human level, young people are shaped by the environments in which they live. My partners have studied the impact of prejudice on immigrant youth, they take it in with the air they breathe and it impacts how they see themselves and how they believe they are perceived by others. That, of course, impacts their academic, social, and economic prospects. I’ve also seen how anti-immigrant attitudes impact non-immigrants, some of them act out an the prejudice in the air, others witness their friends being targeted. A new study out of UCLA confirms that the polarized political environment is hindering the social and emotional lives and academic performance of youth across the spectrum. Political scientists will tell you how bad this is for democracy, and economists have demonstrated the positive impacts of immigration again and again.
Migration is our past, present, and future and we need to do a better job as a society understanding this. At the same time, it is clear that to do that, we need to do a better job preparing the adults who work with immigrant-origin youth and their peers, to serve the increasingly diverse communities that they serve.
When Carola and Marcelo approached me to help them take the amazing research they have catalyzed and help bring it to educators in the US and around the world, I had to join them. I’ve been inspired by their work for years. It is clear that in this current moment, right now, we need to reach as many adults who serve youth as possible with professional learning and evidence based practices that they can bring to their work.
What current trends are you seeing in your field of work?
For too often, there has been a disconnect between people who work on issues of immigration and those that work with young people. We need to bridge that gap. Immigrant-origin youth are in schools, in after school programs, attending religious institutions, visiting museums, enrolled in music, dance, and sports programs. We cannot afford to treat them as other. They are us.
I believe people are beginning to understand that. At the same time, most of the educational focus on immigration has been on language issues. We need to think about the whole child and the entire educational ecosystem. To do that, we are trying to break down the boundaries between formal and informal education, between historians and social scientists, between anthropologists and psychologists. What I have seen, is that once people understand what we are up to, they are quite excited by the work.
At the same time, we live in a challenging funding cycle. The link between immigration and education is a difficult approach than many philanthropists are used to. In the current climate many people are focusing on acute solutions to immigration, we believe that is important but we must invest in the future and to scale that work, we need to educate the educators as fast as we can.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years?
I am very eager to see the work that we are seeding in our network grow. This summer, we are gathering an amazing group of organizations and educators, with the goal of developing a wide range of pilot projects. Think of each of them as evidence action labs that we can study, refine and mine for best practices that can be broadly applied and disseminated.
It is my hope that as the organization grows, we develop an even more reciprocal relationship between those that we serve and the staff. I am eager to learn and grow with the network of networks that we are developing.
It is my hope, that we will help to build a field and that thinking about immigration and immigrant-origin youth becomes less of an afterthought and more of a priority. If that happens, much of our work will be focused on translating research into action and sharing an evidence-based framework that will be widely adapted and adopted. That will move us from always been as the center of the work, to a truly networked approach.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why?
1) Helping people develop the skills to inquire about stories of migration, to do that they will need to learn some of the histories and patterns of migration and recognize how their own perspectives shaped they way they think and act in relation to issues migration. 2) Give educators the skills to reflect on evaluate their own approaches to education about migration and working with immigrant-origin youth and their peers and 3) Providing educators to the skills to take action and apply best practices in the work that they do.
What are the three most important skills you value in your staff members? Why?
1) We all need to be able to learn and recognize our own biases, 2) the skills to be able to work with people with different points of views and a variety of cultural and political perspectives, and 3) I wish I could just list a range of SEL skills here. Seriously, beyond the technical skills we all need to do our work, are the SEL skills that are necessary to work at a mission driven organization with passionate people.
How has technology influenced your field and/or the way your organization works?
It is all about our ability to share information with others and with members of our team. We are a lean organization that relies on the web and social media. That impacts how we develop content and share our stories. I say that with an awareness that both the web and social media have not always proven to be positive environments for serious discussions that challenge biases. I’ve been part of a MacArthur funded network exploring youth political participation in the digital age, and while I see a lot to be inspired by, it is clear that there is a lot that is toxic in the digital space.
On a positive note, I work out of Boston and my colleagues work out of LA (and we all travel too much). Without the access and tools of technology, I don’t know how we would ever be able to work together.
What are some key achievements your organization has accomplished over the last year and how were you able to attain this success?
I am so proud of what we have accomplished in less than a year of work. We’ve developed three major educational resources. Last month we completed a culturally responsive guide for understanding immigrant-origin youth for the New York Department of Education, this winter we produced Immigration and Integration: Jewish Immigrants Letters from the Bintel Brief. It is a great project. We use letters that are full of the dilemmas Jewish immigrants to the US faced at the turn 20^th century to provide a window into the past and a mirror for reflecting on issues of migration and acculturation today. We also produced Moving Stories, a migration story telling app. It is free on google play and the apple store. Moving Stories provides a platform to capture stories of migration, whether in this generation and the past. Each of these projects are tools that we are sharing with our network to see how they are able to adapt and shame them in their work.
That said, the most important thing we have done to date, is to plan for our August gathering of fellows and network partners for this summer at UCLA. The proof of our success will be in the work that we have inspired and the number of youth our partners reach.
Have there been any recent obstacles? If so, how were you and your staff able to overcome them?
While you might expect obstacles, we see need, that said, we’ve just begun our work. We could possibly hit obstacles if we are not able to raise the funds in a timely basis.
What’s next for your organization? What are you looking forward to?
I am really looking forward to the August gathering I mentioned earlier. We are planning so many exciting and innovative pilot projects that I cannot wait to see the network come together.
What do you wish others knew about the organization or the populations you serve?
I’ve spoken too much about our work, let me tell you about the immigrants and immigrant-youth. Despite the political rhetoric, immigrants today are integrating as fast or faster than in the past. Of course, that success is put at risk by xenophobia. That said, over the long run, immigration is a good news story. It is what we have done as humans for at least 170,000 years, and it is what we will do in the future. We just need to do a better job creating welcoming communities that understand migration and the strengths and challenges faced by immigrant-origin youth so we can all reach our potential.

Press

EDWeek: “Immigrant Students Are Internalizing Stereotypes. Educators Can Help” (Sept. 2017).
Kappanonline.org: “A lesson in civility: The negativity immigrant students hear” (Dec. 2017).
Jewish Philnathropy: “Their Story is Our Story: Re-Imagining Migration” (March 2018).
Brookline Hub: “Re-Imagining Migration: Making A Difference Through Education” (Feb. 2018).
Not in Our Town: “A Conversation With Adam Strom About Language and Immigration” (Feb. 2018).

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Nerdy Media

Nerdy Media

Interview with Nerdy Media‘s Executive Director, La Toia Brown.

Organization Mission: Nerdy Media’s missions is to empower individuals with the know-how to not only take advantage of opportunity, but to create it for themselves.

Population Served: Our focus is on improving opportunities for those who need it most right here at home on Chicago’s South Side.

Founding Year: 2015

Organization Website: http://nerdymedia.org/

Interview

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work.
Nerdy Media is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that designs job readiness through media programming for Chicago’s youth, strengthening 21st century skill development and developing real-world experience.
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem.

A 2014 University of Illinois at Chicago study reported that 88% of Chicago’s black teens (16-19) and 85% of its Hispanic teens are jobless. Linking this data with a 2011 survey of thousands of employers found that 96% of employers value a growth mindset over any particular skill in their employees, Nerdy Media shifts job readiness programming to include a growth mindset.
How and why did you first start working for this organization?
After spending time with Chicago’s teens in a traditional classroom, I founded Nerdy Media, a 501c3 nonprofit, to address Chicago’s youth unemployment in a new way. Nerdy Media is the culmination of my educational and professional experiences. But it’s not just a chance for me to develop professionally; it’s an investment in Chicago’s underserved communities. It’s equipping our teens and young adults with the know-how to not only take advantage of opportunity, but to create it for themselves.
What current trends are you seeing in your field of work?
For many, access to job readiness programs and youth services are out of reach at the age of 21. Many job readiness programming culminates in real-world experience: the entry-level job. Without context, it’s easy to understand why youth interpret this experience as the last hurdle to the program, the last box to check before turning 21. Nerdy Media realizes that mentoring and support is important even for Chicago’s young adults.
Organizations are starting to realize that once youth age out of programming there is an opportunity for continued support as they navigate the emotional, social, and economic landscape of life after high school.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years?
Within the next five years, we feel that an increase of dedicated social service resources will support youth leadership and mentoring. Nerdy Media is a small organization that realizes the importance of data and use this to inform our programming. Within the next five years we plan to share this data, hopefully contributing to research and communities exploring disconnected youth.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why?
Nerdy Media’s programming aims to equip Chicago’s youth with a Growth mindset, 21st century skills, and real-world experience.
A 2011 survey of thousands of employers found that 96% of employers value a growth mindset over any particular skill in their employees. Coined by psychologist Carol Dweck and popularized in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, a growth mindset is the belief that our most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. In other words, our abilities aren’t fixed, and our futures aren’t determined by inherent traits. Brains and talent are just the starting point, the place from which we grow. Nerdy Media’s programming also incorporates 21st century skill development. This combination of relevant skills strengthens youth’s ability to devise effective solutions to real-world problems. Our programming draws heavily from the solution fluency model, define, discover, dream, design, deliver, debrief.
It’s important Nerdy Media’s youth are equipped with real-world experience. You can gain a great deal of knowledge from books and school, but certain lessons can only be learned one-on-one, through direct experience. Our programming is designed to strengthen resumes and connect learning to the real world.
What are the three most important skills you value in your staff members? Why?
Nerdy Media is a start up operated primarily by Executive Director, La Toia Brown. Brand Manager, Dave LaTulippe greatly contributes graphic design and additional support. With a small staff and resources, Nerdy Media’s staff contributes the organization’s success to strategic planning, flexibility, and creativity.
Strategic planning is an often overlook yet essential for any business. Having a clear vision enables Nerdy Media to forecast for sustainability. Developing a solid long-term plan is helpful, however there always will be unexpected circumstances. Flexibility is going through trial and error and identifying opportunities to improve. As a startup organization, creativity is a helpful skill that enables Nerdy Media to stretch resources.
How has technology influenced your field and/or the way your organization works?
Media greatly influences our work. Technology is a huge part of Nerdy Media’s operations and programming. Our business model is heavily influenced by the “Lean Startup” methodology and implement technology to streamline operations. We develop project-based programming incorporating technology into the curriculum and outcome.
What are some key achievements your organization has accomplished over the last year and how were you able to attain this success?
Nerdy Media was established September 2015 and has really started to develop a foundation for social impact within the past two years. With funding from the Chicago Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities, Nerdy Media invites local organizations, stakeholders, family, and friends, to an event that explores what happens when Chicagoans work together for safe and peaceful communities.
During the summer of 2017, the Chicago Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities awarded grants to 121 community-based organizations to develop activities that would build community cohesion and promote safety and peace in 17 Chicago neighborhoods.
Nerdy Media was among five local youth media organizations selected to document the work of the grant recipients. The result is #SafeandPeacfulChi, a six-part youth-produced web series intended to share the stories that are often untold by traditional media. Nerdy Media adapted the project into job readiness programming designed to strengthen 21st Century skills and develop real-world experience. Youth were introduced to advanced video production equipment, storytelling structure, content marketing, and event planning.
The project concluded with Nerdy Media’s first event, showcasing the videos followed by a youth-led brief discussion.
Have there been any recent obstacles? If so, how were you and your staff able to overcome them?
In 2015 when I decided to transition from teacher to social entrepreneur, launching Nerdy Media I have relied on the growth mindset. We are constantly refining our business model and stretching limited resources. Youth engagement has been easy and due to limited resources, we are only able to accommodate a small number of youth participation. One of our biggest obstacles are acquiring funding to expand our impact. Rather than seek funding during our first years of operation, Nerdy Media focused efforts on developing scalable programming. We didn’t want funding to become a barrier for social impact. This approach has help us develop strategic planning for a financial sustainable organization, even if this means starting small.
What’s next for your organization? What are you looking forward to?
Nerdy Media is looking forward to the July 2018 launch of On Me, a podcast that offers an inside look at Chicago’s youth culture – told & produced by those living it. The first season is a collection of personal stories where six young adults navigate the emotional, social, and economic landscape of life after high school.
The Chicago Learning Exchange at The Chicago Community Trust (the Fund) awarded Nerdy Media funding to create dynamic new learning opportunities using LRNG: CHI, a digital learning and badging platform. Nerdy Media is currently developing two playlist designed to help learners produce a podcast. The digital curriculum was developed throughout a six-week media production program created by Nerdy Media’s Executive Director, La Toia Brown, and her team. Through narrative therapy, writing, storytelling, audio & video production, branding, and marketing, guiding six young creatives through the ins and outs of producing and launching a podcast.
What do you wish others knew about the organization or the populations you serve?
Nerdy Media is an innovative origination taking a 21st century approach to programming and job readiness. Our brand story illustrates an organic approach to connecting Chicago’s young adults to sustainable opportunities and promoting youth leadership.
Further developing community partnerships and programming support is essential for scaling our programming. We would like to extend an invitation to contact us and learn more about Nerdy Media and get involved. Youth will find our programming an opportunity too develop relevant skills.Organizations will find that our programming offers professional-quality media production and youth employment. Foundations will find supporting Nerdy Media is an investment for authentic, innovative, and data driven programming equipping Chicago’s youth with real-world experience.
Our local community will find meaningful community engagement through hands-on volunteer opportunities and unique media-driven events.
Nerdy Media is honored to be a 2018 SCE Catalyst Grantee. This generous donation has supported programming including: a cultural enrichment event at the Steppenwolf, the development and facilitation of a four-part career planning learning series, and updating equipment for youth-produced media productions.
We greatly appreciate this recognition and look forward to innovating digital, social, and emotional programming, empowering Chicago’s youth to thrive in the 21st century.

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Ardea Arts (BOUNCE: The Basketball Opera)

Ardea Arts (BOUNCE: The Basketball Opera)

Interview with Ardea Arts’ Founding Artistic & Executive Director, Grethe Barrett Holby.

Organization Mission: Ardea Arts creates and produces provocative new works of opera and music-theater to entertain, challenge and inspire today’s diverse global community, uplift the human spirit, and encourage new ways of seeing our world.

Population Served: Veteran art lovers to new audiences of all ages, especially engaging underserved and un-served multi-generational audiences.

Founding Year: 2006

Organization Website: www.ardeaarts.com

Interview

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work.
Incorporated in 2006, Ardea Arts is an incubator of new American opera and music-theater for new audiences and veteran arts-lovers alike. Ardea commissions, develops, and co-produces, fostering the creative progress and forming partnerships to bring the work to wider audiences, engaging with the community in both the process and performance of the work.
Since 2014, our work has focused on BOUNCE: The Basketball Opera. BOUNCE tackles key social issues by bringing together two presumably separate cultures: High Art and Sports. Music, poetry, and basketball combine to tell a story that we hope will contribute to social awareness, spark cross-cultural action, and become a partner to change. BOUNCE is the latest in a long series of socially responsive interventions by Ardea Arts and its precursor, Family Opera Initiative.
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem.
The Problem: A vast majority of Americans perceive opera as an elite, antiquated, white, non-American art form. The fact is that Opera was first created as a revolutionary theatrical form for social commentary. It had a huge impact on undermining the status quo and precipitating change. Then, by the time of Mozart, opera arias had become the popular music of the time in Europe. But this music is not the music of mainstream America.
Our Approach: American opera should be equally as radical as it once was. It should dive into the issues facing our nation today, with the music and poetry of today. We make opera to explore and tell our stories – all our stories – with the full palette of American music, from Hip Hop to R&B, Gospel, Rap, Jazz, American song, and opera.
BOUNCE brings together two powerful American cultures that rarely “the twain shall meet. But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”
We believe BOUNCE has the power to become an important driver of authentic conversation across cultures about social issues we are all facing as a nation today: gun violence, the school-to-prison pipeline, the inequality of our current social justice, and how one’s decisions impact the course of our lives.
It is my deepest belief that the Arts should be accessible to all people; that there is a power in Art that can break down barriers and bring us authentically together; that Art allows us to express ourselves in ways other than words, engaging our senses at their fullest. In so doing, Art binds us together in a way nothing else can, naturally generating openness and empathy. And without both of these, there is no justice, and there is no progress.
I realize a lot of people today are talking about social justice. It is through BOUNCE that I personally have been changed, as has the entire cast and team of BOUNCE, and many of the people we have interacted and worked closely with through our community engagement programs.
Something I have come to realize over the thirty-five years I have been involved with making and directing new work, is that the joy of this process is that it is ultimately “a mission of exploration. If we see something of interest along the way, we stop and investigate.” This is actually a quote from NASA about the journey of the rover “Curiosity” on the Martian surface. If we stop and investigate, and we’re open to what we see, it is amazing what we will find. We will come face-to-face with the unknown, and it becomes something we know, or will come to know.
How and why did you first start working for this organization?
I am the founder of Ardea Arts and its precursors: Family Opera Initiative (1995), and American Opera Projects/AOP (1988). I did not come from Opera. I came from dance, theater and architecture arriving in New York with degrees from M.I.T. I landed in the 70’s avant-garde, soon an originating cast member of “Einstein on the Beach,” performing in the iconic opera houses of Europe with two performances at the Metropolitan Opera House in NY. Einstein
was a year of my life. I assisted set designers designing for opera; soon assistant designer on the premiere of Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha.” I was the resident choreographer of the Houston Grand Opera/HGO ‘82-‘83, then choreographer for Leonard Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place,” at HGO, LaScala (Milan) and Kennedy Center ’83-84. So, I virtually fell into opera- especially new opera.
While directing Faust, Traviata, Hoffmann, etc., I founded AOP to bring my contemporaries into opera, with the slogan: New Composers/New Audiences/New Opera. Then I started having children and my circle of friends expanded past my artistic circle. I found that most well-heeled, educated people in NYC had no interest in opera. I understood. Neither had I. I was led in through the back door. Where is “The Nutcracker” for opera? – a work that brings in millions of people across America, who then bring their families and friends of all ages, from 3 to 103. The Nutcracker not only entertains multiple generations together in the same audience, but also has tens of thousands of children around the world performing in productions side by side with the best dancers in the world. Those children are touched and changed forever, as are their parents, relatives and friends who attend and assist in the process of getting these children to rehearsals, helping out backstage, etc. So, I set out to make a Nutcracker for Opera, on that model, under a program I started – Family Opera Initiative/FOI. Eventually, I took FOI out of AOP, and in 2006 brought it under a new not-for-profit – Ardea Arts.
BOUNCE is a number of artistic generations down the line. I have learned a lot about incorporating the community into the progress and performance of the work; about working with many different ages and different types of people. I have strived to always bring diversity into my casting and my staff. Perhaps this has just been my inclination, it was never premeditated. As the curator and/or producing director, I was drawn to stories with important issues told from very personal stories. Note – I am not a writer nor composer. I am the creative director and stage director. I collaborate closely with my creative team, am part of the team, but these works are made by the team.
A board member recently wrote that I “have been tackling difficult issues through the arts since 1988” developing and producing music-theater works for youth, family and “un-served” audiences with community involvement in the process and performance of the work. I was only doing what was important to me; sometimes ideas generated by my team mates, but also and perhaps more importantly, ideas spurred by experiences and issues of my three children as they were and are negotiating a very different world than I grew up in.
What current trends are you seeing in your field of work?
Now is an exciting time for Opera. Indie-opera and new opera of all kinds are flourishing across America. It is a hot-bed of experimentation. Another new aspect is that many of these works are receiving multiple performances across America. There is now a new, young and excited audience for opera. You can see them all whenever a new work is being performed. I am proud to have been at the forefront of this movement with the founding of American Opera Projects back in 1988.
However, this new audience is still primarily white, well educated, and presumably steeped in the arts, with the means to pay for the tickets.
Ardea Arts seeks to change the paradigm by bringing our work to where the audience already is, and engaging members of the local community into the process and performance of the work. For example, BOUNCE. Basketball courts have become today’s “Town Square.” The entire community gathers there. BOUNCE is created to be performed on public basketball courts, wherever they may be.
However, we have learned that you don’t take over someone’s basketball court without local buy-in. As often as possible, local basketball players are the basketball players in the show; and community leaders, celebrities and artists can perform in a number of guest roles. Active participation in the arts is key. And telling stories in music that is American – from jazz to hip hop & rap, from R&B to musical theater to gospel, all the way to opera – is key to us.
Larger opera companies like Houston Grand Opera and Chicago Lyric are going out into their diverse communities, assisting in the creation of works that come more fully from their own stories, with their own music. This has been especially successful in recent immigrant communities. And some of these have generated powerful new works now being performed around the country. For example, Jose Pepe Martinez and Leonard Foglia’s Curzar las Cara de la Luna, the world’s first mariachi opera, from HGO.
Another important trend is the conscious inclusion of women composers and librettists who are now receiving the support and opportunities they deserve. This is largely due to the work and financial incentives now in place through Opera America.
Note: Ben Krzywosz founded Nautilus Music-Theatre in 1986. We met later. I suppose we can be called the progenitors of this current movement. AOP began in 1987, receiving its 501c3 in 1988.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years?
If we can get BOUNCE on courts and in venues around the country, we will be on a journey of discovery past all expectations and predictions. I look forward to that.
And if that happens, I am confident that our next work, The Three Astronauts will also find producers and its audience and we will be thrust into the sciences and space travel. The Three Astronauts is an important new piece bringing the Arts and Science together. Arts + STEM = STEAM. The STEAM initiative has been around since 2011, but I have not seen the Arts truly integrated into the equation except in one place: MIT. As an alum, I can say that MIT is the most creative place I have ever experienced. Known the world over for its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, creativity is at the core of this vibrant community, and Art a fundamental tenet.
But, The Three Astronauts is more than just science. “3A” is about a journey past boundaries
and the exploration of reaching over our differences to create alliances and friendships with the unknown. Three creative teams, one from China, one from Russia, and one from the United States, have been working together to make this piece. Working across cultures takes on a bigger challenge and hopefully will make our own differences here in the United States feel manageable. (www.thethreeastronauts.com)
I am proud we are described as “busting boundaries” and “a step beyond,” and “a visionary often ahead of her time.” But what I hope will change is that our work will be recognized as of THIS time, now; that our work will be experienced around the country and beyond, initiate meaningful dialogue, make a difference, and help to create real change.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why?
1) Engagement in the arts, 2) acknowledging and valuing their own potential for creativity and creative thinking, and 3) opening the possibility that they can dream, and should be open to taking an opportunity if and when it is offered to them. Then amazing things can happen. We also focus on fostering pratical skills, including: Musical terminology, singing, rapping, making beats with basketball, working together to create or perform a duet with rap and basketball, supporting their fellow students, getting up in front of their peers to perform.
What are the three most important skills you value in your staff members? Why?
We are quite a small organization, so what we value most is, 1) proactivity, 2) a can-do attitude with a willingness to wear many hats, and 3) passion – for the work and the project at hand. On a more practical level, I seek staff who can write well, have major media skills, and are good collaborators.
How has technology influenced your field and/or the way your organization works?
Technology has made it easier to share the work among our staff, and also with our audience. In performances, we have initiated technological innovations into the performance itself. For instance, in BOUNCE we are experimenting with incorporating media streamed live to audience phones during the show. For “The Three Astronauts,” we worked with high-school students at LaGuardia Arts High School (NYC) who created an app that interfaces with STEM issues in the script through Art. Artists all, their videos are absolutely amazing.
Plans include encouraging the audience to tweet STEM and other questions they have about the journey to Mars and the Martian landing and visit during the performance, to be answered after the show by space scientists and astronauts, or directly answered back on twitter to be shared by anyone following the conversation. Some information will be accessible on interactive screens in the lobby, available before and after the performance, and during intermission. This information will build, as we respond to the questions that are asked by the audience members.
What are some key achievements your organization has accomplished over the last year and how were you able to attain this success?
Over the last year, we completed and co-produced the premiere of BOUNCE The Basketball Opera in Lexington KY in partnership with University of Kentucky Opera Theatre (UKOT). We are very proud of this partnership, how we handled it, and the success both of us achieved by working closely together.
We are particularly proud of our community engagement activities tied to our performances in Lexington KY. Our community ambassadors were our basketball players, who came from the same communities we went back into. Completing the “Bounce Team” were our basketball choreographer – a pro-player originally from Lexington, our rapper/story-teller, and our lead singer/actor – both professional from New York City. The basketball players were paid through a grant from Opera American for building new audiences. We built a team of people who had extraordinary chemistry – who loved BOUNCE, its story, its message, and what it stands for. We went into the schools – lower, middle and high schools – in challenged neighborhoods, and succeeded past all expectations. (see video links).
And somehow, over the past thirteen months, in addition to our work with BOUNCE, we rehearsed and performed the concert orchestra premiere of Animal Tales in partnership with the Garden State Philharmonic; and we licensed Fireworks to Hunter College Opera Theatre (HOT) for three performances. Major accomplishments.
Have there been any recent obstacles? If so, how were you and your staff able to overcome them?
Yes – a constant obstacle is raising funds to support our work. We find it a struggle to maintain donor engagement and excitement over the time it takes to develop a new work. Our staff is not large enough to do both effectively, at the same time.
We have not overcome this obstacle. And with the new tax code, it may only get more difficult. However, we believe that BOUNCE and all of our new works are important ambassadors and tools for change in many different arenas, and we keep forging forward.
What’s next for your organization? What are you looking forward to?
We are working to get BOUNCE on courts across the country, working with community partners including theaters, schools and community groups and organizers in each location.
To set this in motion, our plan is to perform on four of the most iconic courts in the country: Holcombe Rucker Park in Harlem, New York City; King-Drew in Compton, Los Angeles; Jackson Park Cages in Southside, Chicago; and MacGregor Park in Downtown, Houston. We are focusing on these key courts and communities where we feel BOUNCE will have the greatest impact, and greatest exposure in order to spread the word. We are working now to set this tour in motion, fundraising, and reaching out to partner organizations. We hope to include a few sit-down performances in these cities where we can also concentrate on community engagement while recouping our expenses.
What do you wish others knew about the organization or the populations you serve?
Ardea Arts has a library of important and wonderful new works available for performance, works that reach out to multigenerational audiences, works with community impact. Many of these works involve children’s choruses and/or audience or community participation. More importantly, we love to partner, we are good to work with, and we would love to meet you and discuss how we might work together for everyone’s benefit, towards our mutual goals.

Press

The New York Times: 6 Visionary Artists Reshaping Their Craft (April 2017).
National Endowmen for the Arts: Spotlight on BOUNCE: The Basketball Opera (June 2016).
TimeOut New York: Bounce: The Basketball Opera” Feature (May 2016).
The New Yorker: “Bounce: The Basketball Opera” Explore Feature & Review (May 2016).
i-D: “‘Bounce’, a basketball opera tackling America’s gun problem” (June 2016).
KY Forward: “Put some bounce in your opera (or opera in your bounce with ‘Bounce: The Basketball Opera'” (Nov. 2017).
Lexington Herald-Leader: “Went downton on basketball night and an opera broke out” (Nov. 2017).

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Root & Rebound

Root & Rebound

Interview with Root & Rebound‘s Founder & Executive Director, Katherine Katcher.

Organization Vision: Root & Rebound envisions a world where a criminal record is not a life sentence and where people with past involvement in the justice system (anyone with a prior arrest or conviction, whether as juvenile or an adult) have access to opportunities in education, employment, family reunification, and all areas of community life.
Organization Mission: Root & Rebound’s mission is to increase access to justice and opportunity for people in reentry from prison and jail, and to educate and empower those who support them, fundamentally advancing and strengthening the reentry infrastructure across the state of California and nationally.
Population Served: The one in three Americans with a criminal record — from juveniles who are in the midst of justice-involvement to adults who have served decades behind bars.
Founding Year: 2013
Location: Oakland, CA
Organization Website: http://www.rootandrebound.org/

Interview

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work.
Root & Rebound utilizes a three-pronged model that combines legal education and dissemination of information (Our Roadmap to Reentry legal guide, supplemental toolkits, and accompanying training curriculums) with direct services (Our Legal Reentry Hotline and prison letter-writing program), both of which, in combination, facilitate and inform the third prong, systems reform (partnerships and information-sharing with stakeholders, policymakers and reformers/activists).
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem.
Right now, one in three Americans has a criminal record and they face over 48,000 legal barriers to everyday life. On top of that, there is only one lawyer for every 10,000 Americans who can’t afford representation. Yet every year, 750,000 individuals are released from prison and millions of people cycle in and out of county jails. With vast numbers of people living with a criminal record and impacted by the criminal justice system, the traditional legal aid model of one lawyer to one client means too many people in need go unserved.
Root & Rebound’s model brings legal advocacy to scale for people who face the greatest civil legal barriers and stigma. We do this through a three-part model of education, advocacy, and reform.
How and why did you end up working for this organization?
My passion and work to create opportunity for all people is deeply rooted in my family’s history; people who came to this country seeking a better life and, through opportunity and hard work, were able to improve their circumstances over generations—fulfilling the true “American Dream.” Our story has shaped my strong belief that all people should have equal access to opportunity, social mobility, and the chance to achieve a better life for themselves and their families. From a young age in my hometown of Miami, Florida, I witnessed firsthand the way in which racism, discrimination, and bias have harmed so many. This upbringing shaped my calling to create solutions that could break systemic barriers that prevent access to equal justice and opportunity for countless Americans. I chose to work in the post-justice system and reentry space because I believe these are the most marginalized men and women in our society; they, their families, and their communities have been devastated by mass incarceration.
What kind of trends do you see in your area of work?
On a policy level, we see a general move towards criminal justice reform, but we still don’t see funding available to support people with records. We have high numbers of people being released, but when people are arrested, convicted, or serve time in prison and jail, they need support and resources. We can’t just only focus on policy reform — a comprehensive solution requires both policy reform and direct services and there shouldn’t be a choice between the two. I have seen that legal advocates on the ground are often times the only reason that any policy changes actually have teeth–we need implementation and enforcement to make sure real change happens. Specifically, in California, legislative changes such as Prop 47, Prop 57, Prop 64, AB 109 and others have the potential to transform the criminal justice landscape across the state, and, if implemented with care, will contribute to a historic reduction in statewide incarceration rates. The problem, and the gap Root & Rebound seeks to fill across all program areas, is that very few groups are taking on the implementation of these policies once they are passed by the legislature.
In urban communities, we are expanding work to strengthen the capacity of parents and caregivers to navigate family court systems (probate court, dependency court, family court, foster/adoption processes, CPS, ICE detention) by hosting quarterly Family Law Clinics and providing family law services for parents with records where previously none existed. We are also expanding trainings for a wide range of stakeholders including employers, landlords, nonprofits, and government agencies to promote knowledge of reentry legal barriers and how to overcome them.
We see a large need in rural communities, where there is often the greatest need, where there is a dearth of social services or access to attorneys and this is where Root & Rebound is pushing the envelope in providing reentry legal support for these communities. Within these communities, we see an increasing number of vulnerable people and their children caught in the tangling web of the immigration and criminal justice systems, terrified by ICE raids and the aggressively xenophobic rhetoric of this administration, with no one to turn to for legal advice and support. To counter this alarming trend, Root & Rebound is increasing its work for those at the nexus of immigration and criminal justice reform.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years?
As we expand within the state of California, growing 2 offices this year, and also nationally, we will start navigating larger regulatory frameworks and the broader structural problems affecting the populations we serve. With increased funding in California, we will be able to have more targeted efforts, growing our programs in tribal communities in Northern California and with women of color impacted by incarceration in the Central Valley. Nationally, we hope to engage in partnerships with high-impact social service organizations and law schools and to place a high-impact attorneys to serve the organization, its members, and the wider community. Lastly, we hope that as more state institutions begin to see the light about the ineffectiveness of mass incarceration and the need for more infrastructure on the reentry side, we hope to bring more unlikely partners to the table to expand access to employment, education, and housing for formerly incarcerated people across the country, through Fair Chance Housing, Fair Chance Hiring, and Higher Education and Reentry Initiatives with employers, landlords, and higher education institutions as well as corrections staff, social service providers, and community advocates.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why?
I would say that the three most important skills we hope to inspire in those that seek our support are self-advocacy, self-confidence, and hope. As a small group of lawyers serving anyone reentering or with a criminal record who seeks our support, we have the potential to have the greatest impact if we can transfer legal knowledge to our clients in a way that makes them feel empowered to advocate for themselves. We want to support self-confidence in our clients by laying out the next steps they should take and providing them with the full range of tools at our disposal to ensure their success. Lastly, communities of color and low-income communities have faced generations of discrimination, over-policing, and disenfranchisement and so we hope that access to attorneys to speak to about their challenges will allow them to feel seen and heard and valued, and most importantly will help grow a sense of optimism about the opportunities that could open to them and their families with legal support.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in your staff? Why?
Building an organization has allowed me to create a dynamic work culture in which we all bring our passion and energy to dismantling systems of incarceration and inequity and I’m honored to be on that journey with our diverse and creative team. At Root & Rebound, each member of staff is considered and treated as a key builder of the organization. My focus has been on building conscious leadership approaches to strengthen team dynamics, increasing resilience in challenging times, and fostering creativity and tenacity in getting the work done and creating wide-scale impact.
How has technology influenced the way your organization works?
As an organization, we leverage technology wherever possible to push out our resources to as many people as possible across the state and country. We create reentry resources that fill information-gaps, educate individuals on their rights, and provide navigation techniques for the legal and practical barriers. We bring this critical information to life via our website, interactive online training platform with digestible videos and factsheets on reentry legal barriers, and recently-launched HTML wiki-style searchable legal reentry guide. The Roadmap Wiki-site is a major step for us to expand digital access to legal education on barriers in reentry and reach an even larger audience and is paving the way for our movement towards online access.
Do you have any key mentors or people who deeply influenced who you are or what you do? Tell me about them.
All of the working mothers on my team! Working with a team of women professionals with young children, like me, helps me on days where I feel that the whole “balance” thing is out of whack. These are women I can laugh and cry with about trying to do it all! My parents, my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and my great grandparents—some of whom I never met but whose commitment I carry on: a commitment to working hard but ALWAYS being grateful for what we have and looking out for others—that has been the single thread that runs through a hundred years of my family’s life. These values were passed down through family stories and by my parents’ examples, and allowed me at a young age to turn my attention and focus to why people have less than me—why well-being on this planet is determined in large part by where and to whom you are born. That should not be. From a young age, I knew that was wrong and wanted to use my life to undo as much of that as possible.
If we talk one year from now, reflecting on what a great year it’s been, what did you/the organization achieve?
We will be reflecting on possibly our organization’s biggest year, in which we expanded our reach and impact to two new cities in California and hopefully built strong national partnerships that are laying the groundwork for scaling across the country. This is the year that Root & Rebound really came into its own as a national organization—out of “childhood” and into “young adulthood,” with all the growing pains, challenges, and enormous opportunities that come with that.
What’s next for you in your work? What are you looking forward to?
Here in California, we are growing our presence and deepening the direct services we deliver to communities that lack access to justice. We are building out offices in the Central Valley and LA area, growing our work with tribal communities, and increasing our reach inside prisons and jails.
We are also expanding our model out to states with less of a reentry infrastructure and high need. Along those lines, I’m looking forward to the kind of partnerships that Remy De La Peza, our new Director of National Initiatives, can help us to create with organizations and advocates already on the ground in communities across the country where Root & Rebound could have significant impact.
What do you wish others knew about the organization?
Our organization goes far beyond legal or reentry services—we work to address mass incarceration on a broad scale and dismantle intergenerational cycles of poverty and criminalization. We are working on the greatest human rights issues of our time. If you care about violence prevention, employment access, reducing poverty, women’s rights—then the intersection here is crucial. I promise you, this is your issue.

Press

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Thistle Farms

Thistle Farms

Interview with Thistle Farms‘ Development Director, Heather Davis.

Organization Mission: Thistle Farms’ vision is to heal, empower, and employ women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction. We do this by providing safe and supportive housing, the opportunity for economic independence, and a strong community of advocates and partners. We believe that in the end, love is the most powerful force for change in the world.
Population Served: Adult women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, addiction, and the violence of life on the streets.
Founding Year: 1997
Location: Nashville, TN
Organization Website: https://thistlefarms.org/

Interview

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work.
Thistle Farms is a sanctuary of healing for women survivors of abuse, addiction, trafficking and prostitution. Founded by the Rev. Becca Stevens, Thistle Farms began in 1997 as a residential program called Magdalene. In an effort to offer residents and graduates both economic support and job training, Thistle Farms’ social enterprises began in 2001, and have since grown into becoming the largest social enterprise employing women survivors in the country. Residents experience transformative, sustainable change through two years of rent-free housing, physical and mental health treatment, case-management, education, training, and employment opportunities. Thistle Farms currently employs 37 residents and graduates who work across all areas of the social enterprises. Our handmade, natural home and body products are sold online, at sales events, and in 450+ retail outlets nationwide. Over the past 12 months, the residents and graduates working at Thistle Farms have earned more than $1,150,000 collectively. Thistle Farms’ social enterprises include Home & Body, The Cafe at Thistle Farms, and Thistle Farms Global. Thistle Farms also supports a National Education & Outreach Initiative consisting of 50 sister and affiliate organizations across the country that are implementing Thistle Farms’ model.
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem.
Thistle Farms residents have been allowed to fall through the cracks of broken systems and communities, so we believe it will take a loving community to offer healing. Residents range in age from 19-60 and most experienced sexual abuse beginning between ages 7-11 and alcohol/drug abuse by 15. Survivors have experienced an average of 10 months in incarceration and spent, on average, one decade in trafficking and prostitution. Thistle Farms’ ‘housing first’ model interrupts these cycles of poverty, abuse, addiction, and homelessness to provide a holistic path toward healing that includes committed advocacy for individuals, case management, health care, employment, support for education, and steps toward financial independence- all free of charge.
How and why did you end up working for this organization?
In 1997, Rev. Becca Stevens opened Thistle Farms’ first recovery home under the name Magdalene. She invited five women survivors to live there, rent-free, for two years. Her goal was to create a community where women could heal from years of trafficking, addiction, prostitution, and the violence of life on the streets. Soon after the first group entered the program it was clear that, though they were making great strides in their recovery, the women had no way to become economically independent. So, Becca and the residents began making candles in a church basement and, in 2001, Thistle Farms was born.
What kind of trends do you see in your area of work?
There are a number of trends affecting our area of work. On the therapeutic/residential side of the organization, we are seeing more and more women impacted by co-occurring disorders (addiction challenges + mental health issues) requiring a more intensive level of treatment and staff expertise. The shrinking availability of affordable housing is impacting every single woman completing our program and looking to get started on her own. On the business side of the organization, we recognize the need to reach new audiences and drive a richer ecommerce experience.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years?
With 50 sister organizations modeling our residential program and products available on store shelves in every state, we are quickly growing from a local/regional organization to a national brand. This will only continue.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why?
Healthy engagement and communication skills; making positive choices; controlling negative thoughts.
How has technology influenced the way your organization works?
It has primarily influenced the way we market our organization and sell our products, especially the growing impact of influencers and user generated content.
If we talk one year from now, reflecting on what a great year it’s been, what did you/the organization achieve?
We were able to celebrate 7 women successfully graduating from our program employed and able to move into their first apartment. In addition, we will have grown online sales by 25%.
What’s next for you in your work? What are you looking forward to?
We are exploring a new line of aromatherapy products as well as becoming more active in the development of affordable housing for women.
What do you wish others knew about the organization?
That we have created a national network offering more than 168 beds for women survivors of trafficking and addiction.

Press

Tennesean Article on the Thistle Farms Cafe (April 2018)
Today Show Segment (March 2018)
CNN Hero Feature (Feburary 2017)
CNN Article on “The Welcome Project” (May 2017)

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Symphony for a Broken Orchestra

Temple Contemporary: Symphony for a Broken Orchestra

Organization Mission: To creatively re-imagine the social function of art
Population Served: students, greater Philadelphia community, Temple University community
Founding Year: 2011 (Temple Contemporary)
Organization Website: www.templecontemporary.org; www.symphonyforabrokenorchestra.org

Please provide a brief overview of the organization’s work. Temple Contemporary’s mission is to creatively re-imagine the social function of art. We believe in democratic leadership as the most appropriate way to produce an artistic program that inclusively responds to pressing issues of local and national significance. Embodying this democratic ethos, our program development is guided by a forty-member advisory council representing a broad spectrum of Philadelphia stakeholders, including neighboring high-school students of color, Temple University students and faculty, as well as civic/cultural leaders representing a range of skills (nurses, farmers, philosophers, artists, community activists, historians, etc.). To each annual meeting every adviser brings one question of local relevance and international significance to which they do not know the answer. After all of the questions are discussed, the council votes for the questions/issues deemed to reflect Philadelphia’s greatest cultural needs.
This process puts Temple Contemporary into a position of public service to address contemporary questions of urgency and simultaneously necessitates a fundamental philosophical shift for the organization: from a single curatorial/authorial voice to one that recognizes social engagement and debate as the determining factor of our programming. This re-ordering of conventional gallery values foregrounds curatorial accountability, reciprocity, and exchange, as the basis of TC’s social life, and by extension, our social values.
In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem. Symphony for a Broken Orchestra came about as we realized how marginalized arts education, specifically music education, has become within the School District of Philadelphia. To give you an idea of how dire things have become, in 2007 the budget for arts programs was $1.3 million; in 2015 it was $50,000. Symphony for a Broken Orchestra was not an attempt to fix this problem, but rather an attempt to highlight this issue by raising awareness. We worked with the Philadelphia School District who agreed to allow us to borrow many of their broken instruments (over 900), which were up until this point, being stored in closets and storerooms hoping the budget would someday allow these instruments to be fixed. Composer David Lang created a composition based on the sounds that these instruments made in their broken state. Over 350 musicians from all over Philadelphia played this piece using the same instruments for two live performances. The next day, three instrument repair companies came and took the instruments away, where they are now being fixed and will be retuned to the School District in the fall of 2018.
Another part of this project is the website, where each of the instruments had their own portrait, coupled with the sound it made in its broken state. Individuals could “adopt” these instruments for a fee, insuring repairs could be made in perpetuity. We recognize the instruments will need repairs again, so the additional funds raised will go towards those future repairs. To date, we have raised over $200,000 in addition to the original money raised for the project.
How and why did you end up starting/working for this organization? As the Assistant Director, I was excited to come to Temple Contemporary to be a part of the newly formed model that Rob Blackson was initiating for our programming
What kind of trends do you see in your area of work? I see many more projects that are looking for ways to work collaboratively with other creative disciplines as well as under-served communities
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years? I think we will continue to think creatively about questions that are relevant within our society.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why? Making connections, giving a view into a wider context, highlighting issues
How has technology influenced the way your organization works? Not a whole lot has changed. We use social media about the same, but we are still most interested in human connections.
If we talk one year from now, reflecting on what a great year it’s been, what did you/the organization achieve? We successfully completed the first phase of the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra and are in the process of the second phase to fix/replace these instruments and return them back to the School District
Please click this link to access a list of recent media/press: http://symphonyforabrokenorchestra.org/press/

Catalyst Grantee Profile: Guitars Over Guns

Guitars Over Guns

Interview with Guitar’s Over Guns Regional Director, Andrew DeMuro.

Organization Vision: Guitars Over Guns Organization (GOGO) believes all young people should have the opportunity to reach their full potential through the transformative nature of music, mentorship, and performance.

Organization Mission: GOGO is committed to curbing youth violence through providing students with productive options for creative expression – namely, music education, performance, and mentoring. GOGO’s mentors are professional musicians who use music as a vehicle to support the holistic development of young people, while providing a stable relationship with a caring adult. During the 2016 – 2017 school year, GOGO’s team of 35 mentors served nearly 650 students across 16 school- and community-based sites in Miami and Chicago.
Population Served: GOGO targets youth between ages 11-16 who may not otherwise have an opportunity to take part in the artistic process at school or at home. 98% of GOGO participants live at or below the federal poverty level, as defined by the US Department of Health & Human Services 2017 Poverty Guidelines. GOGO was inspired in part by the unfortunate reality that arts education is being slashed from school budgets, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color.
Founding Year: 2008

Interview

In a few sentences, please describe the problem you are working to solve and your approach to solving this problem. Three quarters of Chicago’s of violent crime incidents take place outside of school hours. GOGO views this violence as an attempt to combat the pain borne out of broken homes, insufficient options for productive after-school programs, and the feeling of not being heard. Our unique approach aims to develop a community that is both inclusive and bound by the power of music. Through high-quality instruction, community-based performance opportunities, and meaningful relationships with professional musicians and peers, Guitars Over Guns exposes youth to the value of their own choices and the weight of their own voices.
How and why did you end up working for this organization? For most of my adult life, I’ve straddled myself between two important, seemingly unrelated industries: music and education. As an undergrad at the University of Miami, I logged over 700 hours in Miami’s low-income schools & communities while also finding time to sing in the University’s top Jazz and R&B Vocal Ensembles. I moved to Chicago in 2012 to join Teach For America, and was employed at an all-boys charter high school on the city’s West Side. While teaching, I founded and directed our charter network’s first extracurricular choir, which twice earned superior ratings at Illinois state music competitions. I joined the GOGO family in 2015 in hopes of combining my two passions, and became a founding mentor and site director at Evergreen Academy on Chicago’s Southside. The following year, I was honored with the unique opportunity to represent ‘Team Adam’ on Season 11 of NBC’s ‘The Voice’. Following my time on the show, I immediately returned home to take on a new role as Chicago’s founding Regional Director for Guitars Over Guns, in charge of managing the experiences of our four sites, 11 mentors, and nearly 350 students. In my current role, I hope to continue striking that balance between my two purposes.
What kind of trends do you see in your area of work? As curricular music and arts programs seem to shrink, I notice more empirical data surfacing to show the value – socially, emotionally, and neurologically – of a well-rounded, arts-based school experience. While emotions manifest in a host of different ways – from laughter to tears; from giving a hug to throwing a chair – music is a language our brains process almost universally in an effort to make sense of the world. For youth, especially those dealing with the stress of living in poverty, the ability to identify and use music as a tool in this way can be monumental to their holistic development.
Along with the importance of the arts, I also notice a fundamental shift in attention to the habits and mindsets that build great learners beyond a simple test score – particularly, social-emotional learning and development. As musicians who understand the roles effective communication, creative problem-solving, and perfect practice play in achieving success in our world, Guitars Over Guns mentors are positioned uniquely to improve student metrics like school attendance, positive behavior and social interactions, GPA and test scores, by teaching habits and mindsets that transfer across different worlds. During the 2016-17 school year, 88% of GOGO participants grew in these metrics.
What do you think will change most about your work over the next 5 years? Over the next five years, we plan to expand our footprint in each of our flagship cities by engaging and training high caliber leaders in the artistic community who are prepared to put their skillsets to work in our GOGO programs. We also plan to continue refining our curricular methods to break new ground in evidence-based practice. Considering our Chicago programs will see its first two classes of high school graduates in five years’ time, I hope the focus of our work will shift toward supporting and preparing our alumni base to take ownership of our organization on every level. By implementing the GOGO ‘Alumni Band,’ which allows our program’s current graduates to earn community service hours through training and serving as peer mentors to our current students, we are building a feeder pattern which empowers our students as the primary change agents in their own schools and communities.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in the population you serve? Why? Our most effective GOGO programs encourage positive social-emotional skill, without forcing a change in people. First, GOGO students learn the importance of vulnerability by building a safe space that respects their own unique abilities. We then zoom out to teach students that empathy, or the ability to consider others before acting, is the source of all positive social interactions. Teamwork and effective communication become everyday points of practice in our ensembles, private lessons, and genre-focused programs alike. Finally, we allow for students to take initiative and practice creative problem-solving by expanding habits from the GOGO stage to the community at large. By cementing these habits as mindsets, our students understand the power and impact of their creative voices, and the data is compelling: 85% of participants have shown improved academic outcomes, stronger attendance, and less severe behavior infractions; 82% reported using GOGO strategies to face challenges in school or at home; 100% agreed that GOGO provides opportunities to build confidence and take healthy risks.
What are the three most important skills you focus on developing in your staff? Why? As a staff made up entirely of creatives, we understand the monumental importance of creating a space to learn and grow that is truly mentor-led, celebrating successes and milestones along the way. We encourage our mentors to ‘make practice public’ by growing comfortable with the discomfort of sharing their work with peers in a live setting. Our ‘Mentor Exchange’ initiative allows for cross-program, peer-to-peer observations and feedback conversations among colleagues. We continue to grow in evidence-based practice by using data to inform programming decisions. Twice annually, students and school partners take authentic program quality surveys which help mentors to analyze and adjust their practice to meet the needs of their dynamic population.
Finally, if our mentors cannot be themselves or ‘embrace their weird’ in the workplace, it becomes difficult to expect the same of our students. We hope to maintain an environment that evolves, but also stays authentic to our soldiers in this work – we want to be a caring adult community that completely accepts its members for who they are. Modeling that sense of love and belonging is contagious, and builds similar habits for our students to adopt and own themselves.
How has technology influenced the way your organization works? Like in the music industry itself, technology in the GOGO classroom evolves along with the artists who utilize it – namely, our students. We utilize the communication platforms they are using – typically Facebook messenger & WhatsApp – to stay in touch outside of regular program hours. Our most effective programs give youth access to the state-of-the-art digital media and education needed to succeed in the current industry. At our Haven Studio in Chicago, GOGO mentees are versed in peer-to-peer writing, studio engineering, and production, using programs like ProTools, FruityLoops, and Abelton to polish musical creations. 80% of our in-school program sites have recorded original music in professional studio environments, and completed student-led music video projects to address issues such as self-esteem, police brutality, mourning and loss. We also use technology in our reporting and data collection, and to share best practices between mentors in Miami and Chicago. In the coming year, we hope to build collaborative structures for students from our sister cities to virtually connect, make music with and learn from one another!
Do you have any key mentors or people who deeply influenced who you are or what you do? Tell me about them. As an educator and a leader, I draw influence from Mr. Jack Hart, my mentor teacher during my student teaching experience at Booker T. Washington Senior High School in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami. A 20-year veteran in one of the nation’s most under-resourced schools, Mr. Hart taught me the power in listening twice before speaking once, in beginning each day with a positive interaction, and most importantly, in eating my vegetables. When it comes to staying on the cutting edge of social-emotional learning innovations and evidence-based practice, GOGO certainly looks to the SCE as a leader in the industry, and we hope to mirror their practices in our organization’s leadership and approach.
If we talk one year from now, reflecting on what a great year it’s been, what did you/the organization achieve? Next year at this time, I want to be able to walk into a SCE workshop for non-profit professionals and leaders and have everyone in the room know of our work. I understand that in order to increase visibility we must also increase our reach; therefore, we will work hard in the coming year to recruit the highest quality talent to build two new school programs to reach 50 additional students in our target communities. Finally, given that we will be one year closer to our first class of GOGO high school graduates in Chicago, I am also hoping to increase membership in our Alumni Band and Peer Mentor groups to ensure that our alumni begin to own our collective identity.
What’s next for you in your work? What are you looking forward to? In the early months of 2018, we are preparing for a year-long relationship with Edelman Marketing & Communications and Social Venture Partners of Miami, building our GOGO alumni base as competent musicians and peer mentors in both cities, and actively recruiting new musicians to serve as mentors for our growing family. There are so many ways to invest in the work that we do, but in my opinion, no way is more valuable than making a genuine, face-to-face impact on our young people. To anyone who is considering becoming a mentor for Guitars Over Guns, please understand: our youth are in need of your time and talents; you will be valued and supported in this incredibly important work, and it will change your life. Please contact andrew@guitarsoverguns.org to learn more about our programs and the many ways to get involved.
What do you wish others knew about the organization? Despite its name, Guitars Over Guns is not a politically charged organization. The purpose of the ‘Guitars Over Guns’ name is to signify our core belief that every student holds the power to choose their sound, and that the choices they make have the potential to profoundly impact their lives. By encouraging our youth to actively engage in the music-making process, GOGO mentors teach kids to take risks, build confidence, and practice positive decision-making skills on stage and in life.

Press

Windy City Live Feature (February 2016)
Steve Harvey Show Segment (February 2017)
‘How Guitars Over Guns Organization Gives At-Risk Kids Hope’, People Magazine (September 2016)
‘Can Art Help End Violence? Guitars Over Guns Lets Students ‘Find Their Sound’ & Choose a Better Path in Life’, Chicago Sun-Times (November 2017)
‘Go Innovate – Guitars Over Guns’ Haven Studio’ (July 2017)

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