MetLife Foundation and the National Guild are pleased to announce the grant recipients of the 2012 MetLife Foundation Creative Aging Program. Technical assistance and grants totaling more than $90,000 have been awarded to nine nonprofit arts education organizations that will deepen and expand professionally-led arts education programs for older adults. Each of the grantees has demonstrated the capacity to develop programs that can increase participants’ social engagement as well as mastery of one or more art forms.  

The Creative Aging Program was initiated in 2009 by MetLife Foundation and the National Guild in response to the rapid population growth of Americans aged 60+, as well as the research demonstrating the health benefits generated by professionally-led, participatory arts programs for older adults.

The goals of the Creative Aging Program are to:

1. increase the capacity of nonprofit community arts education providers to serve older adults;
2. expand and/or deepen existing creative aging programs of high quality; and
3. identify exemplary creative aging programs as models for the field.

The program is part of the National Guild's multi-year Creative Aging Initiative, which, in partnership with the National Center for Creative Aging and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, published Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit in English and Spanish (www.artsandaging.org) and which also produces training institutes for community arts education leaders.

For more information about the Creative Aging Program, contact Ken Cole or call (212) 268-3337 ext. 18.

These books, websites, and reports are helpful resources for understanding the arts and aging field and running creative aging programs.

Creativity Matters: The Arts & Aging Toolkit

La Creatividad Importa (Spanish-language edition of Creativity Matters)

Creativity Matters: The Arts & Aging Toolkit (online, English and Spanish)

Creativity and Aging Study: The Impact of Professionally Conducted Cultural Programs on Older Adults, by Dr. Gene Cohen (PDF)

MetLife Foundation Creative Aging Program: Findings from the Inaugural Year--A Report to the Field from the National Guild for Community Arts Education (PDF)

Creative Aging Program Assessment Instruments (Microsoft Word)

More organizations doing work on aging and the arts:

• American Society on Aging
• Grantmakers in Aging
• National Center for Creative Aging
• National Council on Aging