ABCNews: August 2012

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

ABC accepting only two more applications for community coaching in Fall 2012

By Leonardo Vazquez

Due to increased demand for Arts Build Communities' services, we will be accepting only two more communities as clients for community coaching from September 2012 to March 2013. New clients will be accepted on a first-come basis. Any community not selected for community coaching in the Fall will be considered for the next session, beginning March 2013.

In Atlantic Highlands, community coaching helped build an alliance among the arts and business communities

Community coaching builds the capacity of community leaders to engage in sustainable, cost-effective creative placemaking. Through a six-month period, an ABC coach challenges and supports a diverse community team as it develops a set of creative placemaking strategies. Coaches help clients go beyond just doing projects. Clients learn how they can better integrate arts-based activities with cultural, community and economic development. This helps projects have broader and deeper impacts on the quality of life and opportunities for prosperity in their communities.

ABC has worked with community teams from Atlantic Highlands, coastal Monmouth County, New Brunswick and Perth Amboy. Community coaching has helped build new alliances and generated new ideas in these communities.

In New Brunswick, community coaching is helping to build a community of arts and creative professionals

There is a flat fee of $2,500 per community for coaching that begins in September. (The fee will go up in 2013.) Eligible communities can be neighborhoods, municipalities, counties or regional communities (two or more municipalities or counties.) Eligible communities must be within 2 hours (by car) from Newark, NJ. Learn more.

Need advice on how to get started? Contact ABC Director Leonardo Vazquez by email or at 848-932-2747

ABC gets $10,000 grant from New Jersey State Council on the Arts

By Leonardo Vazquez

Arts Build Communities has been funded by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for a fourth year. ABC, which is considered a co-sponsored project of the Council, received a $10,000 grant.

"The Council's commitment to this project is strong..." Executive Director Nicholas Paleologos wrote in his letter to ABC, "and we greatly appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with [you] in carrying it out."

The Council notified ABC of the grant after its annual meeting in Trenton on July 31.

The grant represents an increase of nearly $2,700 over ABC's grant in 2011. The Council was working with the same amount of money it had last year. Being one of the few organizations to receive an increase in funding during difficult times is an honor.

The grant will be used to support ABC's programming and services to New Jersey communities and creative placemakers, including community coaching, the annual creative placemaking conference, and research on New Jersey's creative economy.

Learn more about Arts Build Communities

With ABC's help, Long Beach Island gets NEA grant for creative placemaking

By Leonardo Vazquez

The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences got a $25,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop a creative placemaking plan for the island on coastal Ocean County. Arts Build Communities helped the Foundation in its proposal by developing an outline for a planning strategy. The Foundation, Long Beach Township, ABC and other partners expect to work together to put together the plan, which will be designed to impact the entire island.

Work on the plan is expected to begin in September and continue into 2013. To develop the plan, the partners will reach out to residents and artists, explore existing conditions on the island, and identify and address opportunities and challenges for strategies that will improve the climate for creativity, enhance quality of life in the community, and promote greater prosperity on the island.

Long Beach Island is one of two communities in New Jersey to receive an Our Town grant. The other is Rahway, in Union County.

Our Town is a federally-funded program to support creative placemaking, which works to build stronger communities and local economies through the arts.