the agenda
How
$3 million for the arts
could change everything in Akron for the better
The Knight Arts Challenge opens August 10 If you’ve lost track of the ways the Knight Foundation is funding change in Akron, you’re forgiven. Just after giving $3 million to Akron’s anchor arts institutions—and on the heels of their Cities Challenge, which awarded Chris Horne’s Unbox Akron project and Better Block’s Akron Air BNB hostel in North Hill—Knight is launching the Arts Challenge here with a $3 million pledge spread out over three years. On August 10, Akron joins Miami, Philadelphia, Miami and St. Paul as the only Knight cities with an arts challenge. There will be three public, community Q&A sessions to help you get a better grasp, but why wait for the basics when we can help you now?
The Akron Arts Challenge runs through September 14 and follows three basic rules: #1) It’s an idea about the arts. #2) It’s an idea that takes place in or benefits Akron. #3) You can match the amount you get from Knight with funding from somewhere else. In other words, it’s a matching grant for arts projects in Akron. Pretty simple stuff. You don’t have to be an artist. You don’t have to be a nonprofit. You don’t even have to live in Akron, as
long as your project does and you can get it done from afar.
to the next round, they’ll ask for a more detailed proposal. Winners will be announced in 2016.
So what’s your idea going to be? Have you noticed there’s a gap in the local arts scene that you think you can fill? Maybe you’ve got the arts equivalent of the better mousetrap. You know how to give a neighborhood a facelift or use the arts to answer a big social problem. The idea you submit can be as big or as small as you like.
Seriously now, if Chris Horne can get his idea funded, so can you. You’re wayyyy smarter and cooler than that guy so get on it!
The Knight Foundation wants “the best and most innovative ideas out of local organizations and individuals seeking to engage and enrich the community through the arts.” So get creative. Join a team. Brainstorm with your buddies. If your project is funded, you’ll have about a year to get matching funds. That means, if they give you $5000, you have to find another $5000 inside of a year. That could be a grant from another foundation, sponsorship by a business, a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, or one helluva bake sale. Here’s how you submit your idea: Respond to their 150-word application between August 10 and September 14. This step only has to give the readers a sense of what you’d do and how you’d do it. Don’t sweat lots of details. If you make it
Akron Arts Challenge community town hall events
Akron Urban League 440 Vernon Odom Blvd., Akron Aug. 24 at 5:30 pm Mustard Seed Café 867 W. Market St., Akron Aug. 25 at 5:30 pm Akron Art Museum 1 S. High St., Akron Aug. 26 at 5:30 pm
Spark your imagination
with these previous Arts Challenge winners Center City Jazz Festival..........................$15,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To increase audiences for jazz by expanding the Center City Jazz Festival to include additional events and venues.
CITYWIDE:
Hamilton Ink Spot....................................$50,000 ST. PAUL >> To expand this cooperative that provides daily classes and a mentorship program for the hand printing of original artwork. Hot Topics Artist Series............................$20,000 MIAMI >> To share the work of dynamic, national visual artists by hosting "Hot Topic," an ongoing lecture series.
A Host of People......................................$20,000 DETROIT >> To celebrate the do-it-yourself movement in both food and the arts by creating a site-responsive theater piece performed in community gardens around the city.
A Collective Exhibition............................$13,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To promote visual arts collaboration and capture the energy of the city's arts district by enabling many collectives to produce a multivenue, one-month exhibit.
Animated Architecture............................$20,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To support an innovative form of 3D storytelling by creating a series of outdoor video art events screened on local buildings.
Creative Incubator.................................$120,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To promote economic stability for the city's cultural community by offering support New Works Fund....................................$300,000 to emerging creative businesses with pre-seed MIAMI >> To contribute to ballet's future by funding, mentorships programs and workshops. commissioning and presenting creations from the finest established and new artists.
Artist-Designed Bike Racks......................$50,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To create more public art and enliven city streets by hosting a competition for artists to design new bike racks. Beyond Sustenance..................................$50,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To support 'Beyond Sustenance' - a series of exhibits, programs and workshops exploring connections within African American culture and culinary arts. Broadside Press........................................$20,000 DETROIT >> To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Broadside Press, a Detroit-based publisher for many leading African-American writers, by helping digitize its works.
AKRON MUSIC, ART & CULTURE
MOCAD Teen Council.............................$120,000 DETROIT >> To give teens a stake in the arts by creating a teen council at MOCAD that will produce programs, events and materials for their peers and adults.
Nuestro Pueblo San Pablo Productions...$50,000 ST. PAUL >> To showcase Latino East Siders through a fictional radio novela/variety show, broadcast on the new Dayton's Bluff FM station.
Detroit Children's Book Fair ($750,000) DETROIT >> To use the arts to foster an interest in reading by weaving interactive cultural experiences throughout the museum’s Children’s Book Fair. In Progress................................................$50,000 ST. PAUL >> To build understanding of the long invisible, yet vibrant North End community through digital storytelling by local youth and adults.
Springboard for the Arts.......................$500,000 ST. PAUL >> To establish the Springboard Fund, to support the creation of a series of toolkits that
will enable communities to support artists and to develop a network of artist-supportive programs across Knight's resident communities. Sweat Records........................................$150,000 MIAMI >> To strengthen a local resource by expanding community programming and creating an online site exclusively for buying local music and art. The Department of Making + Doing: A Civic Prototyping Lab.........................$100,000 PHILADELPHIA >> To bring the city’s art and tech communities together through a new alliance and facility that will provide hands-on programming, plus a civic prototyping lab addressing community issues. WorkHorse Coffee Bar...............................$5,000 ST. PAUL >> To engage the commuting public through an intimate streetscape gallery in a vintage fire-hose cabinet near the new Green Line.
Write A House........................................$100,000 DETROIT >> To bring new vitality to the literary arts in Detroit by expanding 'Write a House,' which awards renovated homes to writers based on the quality of their work.
AUGUST 2015 • VOL 1 • ISSUE #11 /
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