Sonoma County Economic Development Board and Foundation

A program of Sonoma County Economic Development Board and Foundation, Creative Sonoma is dedicated to advancing and supporting the creative community of Sonoma County. Creative Sonoma provides grant support, trainings, and workshops, convenings, and one-on-one consulting for more than 2,000 artists and arts workers per year. Creative Sonoma also supports advocacy for arts education in the county, providing access to arts education for about 16,000 students each year. This grant, for adaptation planning and implementation for Creative Sonoma, advances the Performing Arts Program’s Communities strategy by supporting a county-wide arts service organization in a rural part of the Bay Area with few arts resources.

Creative Sonoma is a program of Sonoma County Economic Development Board Foundation. Through trainings and workshops, convenings, one-on-one consulting, partnerships, and advocacy for arts education, Creative Sonoma is dedicated to advancing and supporting the creative community of Sonoma County. In 2017, Creative Sonoma established the Fire Recovery and Response Grants, a fund for artists and arts organizations affected by the North Bay wildfires in October 2017. This grant will augment the work of the Fire Recovery and Response Grants, and help Creative Sonoma recover from the devastating fires.

Creative Sonoma will partner with Sonoma County Office of Education, Community Foundation Sonoma County, and Arts Education Alliance of Sonoma County to conduct a countywide arts education assessment and strategic planning process. The assessment will include a professionally designed survey of key stakeholders including teachers, administrators, arts organizations, teaching artists, funders, parents and students. Once the survey data has been analyzed, the partners will work together to prioritize the most critical findings, and develop a strategic plan for addressing them with the help of an external consultant. At the end of this two-year comprehensive process, partners throughout the county will have a strategic framework to ensure all students have access to arts education opportunities.