“What do you mean by the word community?” is a question I’m often asked when talking about the Creative Community Fellows program. And rightfully so. The term community is so over-used that it has become a buzzword in our arts and culture circle. For us at NAS, community is rooted in commonality and belonging, yet can be experienced in many different modalities – geographic, virtual, identity-based and more. Creative Community Fellows New England supports cultural entrepreneurs working at the intersection of culture and community. When … [Read more...]
About Sunny Widmann
Language Matters
Once a year, NAS gathers 24 creative changemakers from all over the nation for a week-long residential program called Creative Community House. We spend this week living and learning alongside each other, sharing ideas and experiences and chewing on new information presented by NAS and our partners. And we also debate with each other. A lot. One of the most enlightening debates we had at last year’s Creative Community House was around language. The words some brought into conversations in hopes that they would offer clarity ended up … [Read more...]
Place, process and making your own reservation
This week, we're sharing reflections on the Summit at Sundance process and on the ideas leaders in the Chief Executive Program: Community and Culture worked on during this Summit last month. We encourage you to add your voice, questions and experiences to the conversation, and to use the information and conversations to inform action! How might we ensure the arts are a convener and participant in identifying and addressing important community issues and in community planning? When we asked Chief Executive Program: Community and Culture … [Read more...]
Values and What We Do
It’s pretty easy to identify the values of a cultural organization or initiative. Most mention them somewhere on their website, if not have an entire web section dedicated to this. We talk about values often, too. Inclusivity, equity, excellence are all frequently discussed at our conferences. Values are important to identify and certainly important to name, discuss and debate. It’s helpful for potential stakeholders to know what you stand for and for the world to know what we stand for, as a field. But I’m less interested in talking … [Read more...]
Growing the Pie Together: Fostering Giving Networks in the Arts
Over the past nine months, I’ve witnessed something truly remarkable take shape: a network of committed givers in the arts. Not a network that operates on a tit-for-tat basis, not a group that invests in others with the goal of personal gain in the long run, but individuals who are just as dedicated to advancing each other’s work as they are to advancing their own. This network is the Creative Community Fellows cohort. If you’ve ever been involved in an arts network (or, heck, any job-focused affinity group) you know this is rare. The flow … [Read more...]