Americans for the Arts

Americans for the Arts is the nation’s nonprofit advocacy organization working to advance the arts in the United States. It provides an annual convening, monitors arts-related federal legislation, and supports a small network of state arts education advocacy groups. Its arts education program strengthens public- and private-sector decision makers’ understanding of the value of arts education; researches and develops strategies to inform federal education policy; and, through its network of state partners, builds field preparedness for promoting and implementing arts education policy. This grant to Americans for the Arts will support its arts education program and advances the Performing Arts Program’s Youth strategy through its Policy and Advocacy substrategy.

Americans for the Arts (AFTA) is the nation’s leading nonprofit advocacy organization working to advance the arts in the United States. The largest annual event of its kind, the Americans for the Arts Convention attracts more than 1,000 arts leaders and allied professionals from around the country. This year, the Convention will be held in San Francisco and will present special programming in surrounding cities. The Program currently supports AFTA’s multi-year arts education initiative. Support of the 2017 Americans for the Arts Convention will complement the Foundation’s field building regionally and nationally. The event will also provide California's arts practitioners with access to the highest caliber of professional dialogue and education about current trends, issues, needs, and opportunities in the field.

Americans for the Arts is the nation’s leading nonprofit advocacy organization working to advance the arts in the United States. The organization’s multi-year arts education initiative focuses on updating public- and private-sector decision makers’ perspectives on the value of arts education, researching and developing strategies to inform federal education policy, and building field preparedness to implement local strategies for change. Renewed support of Americans for the Arts at the national level would complement the advocacy efforts of the Foundation’s arts education grantees in California.