November 30, 2022
The Guild is pleased to announce that we’ve contracted Heather Heslup of Pure Art Solutions and Allegra Mercedes Brown of Leadership Development & Learning Design LLC as our strategic planning consultants! Heather and Allegra are Arts/Education Management & Social Justice professionals who specialize in tapping into the creativity of a collective to strategize optimal futures. They have supported various organizations and educational institutions to reach their strategic goals, including the Los Angeles Department of Arts & Culture Arts Ed Collective Program, Arts for Healing & Justice Network, artworxLA, and Turnaround Arts: California.
Heather and Allegra take clients through a strategic planning process that centers humanity, collaboration, and equity. We found alignment with their collaborative process, their racial equity lens, and their commitment to facilitating the dreaming and imagining required to challenge the status quo.
As part of our Portal of transformation, we are embarking on this strategic revisioning through a lens of cultural and racial equity—to be completed in summer 2023. As the sole national service organization existing to support community arts education, we find ourselves at a unique and exciting time which calls for deep and generative listening and dialogue with our constituents and field; thorough examination of our organization internally and externally; and bold dreaming and reimagining to create a fresh new vision that is deeply rooted in our values and our racial equity principles and policies.
Stay tuned! We will invite community in various ways (including more in-person and virtual Community Spaces in the new year) to give input about what you’d like to see and how we can best support you. The feedback gathered will be incorporated into the strategic plan, as well as shared back with community.
Published: November 30, 2022