VSA and MetLife Foundation Invite Arts Organizations to Apply for Arts Connect All Program
August 31, 2010
VSA, an international nonprofit that works to create a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts, and the MetLife Foundation have designed the Arts Connect All funding opportunity to encourage arts organizations in select metropolitan areas of the United States to create or enhance multi-session, inclusive education programs by strengthening partnerships with local K-12 public schools.
The Arts Connect All program is designed to enable more students with disabilities to experience social, cognitive, and cultural development through arts learning alongside their peers without disabilities; create educational access and inclusion in the arts for students with disabilities; and document the contributions that arts organizations make to inclusive education in public schools. Inclusive programs are those which have students with and without disabilities interacting in activities together to create awareness, understanding, and respect.
VSA and MetLife Foundation invite proposals from arts organizations working to create or enhance inclusive educational programs that incorporate inclusive teaching practices; provide access to students with all types of disabilities; develop social, cognitive, and artistic skills; involve people with disabilities in planning and implementation; build staff, teacher, and/or artist knowledge and skill of inclusive practices; and collaborate with public schools, actively engaging students, parents, and school administrators.
Nonprofit 501(c)(3) performing and/or exhibiting arts organizations — including museums, theaters, and multidisciplinary arts presenters —that are creating or have an established educational program are eligible to apply. Organizations must have as their primary mission the goal of advancing the arts and/or a specific art form.
Only arts organizations located in and partnering with public schools in the following metropolitan areas are eligible: Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, California; Denver, Colorado; Hartford, Connecticut; Tampa, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Detroit, Michigan; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota; Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Charlotte, North Carolina; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Portland, Oregon; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Providence, Rhode Island; Nashville, Tennessee; Houston, Texas; and Seattle, Washington.
Eligible programs (existing or newly developed) must have students with disabilities and without disabilities learning together at the same time and place; must involve K-12 public school students in the target audience; must be ongoing or have multiple sessions; may take place during school hours or after school; and may receive awards in a maximum of three grant cycles. Second- and third-year grants must expand or enhance programs funded in a previous cycle.
A maximum of ten grants of up to $15,000 each will be awarded.
Guidelines and application instructions are available at the VSA Web site.
From World YWCA
Short Film Commission Where is the Money for Women’s Rights and HIV? – We Are Watching
We are writing to you to let you know about a new resource that the World AIDS Campaign, the World YWCA and Women Wont Wait are developing.
“Where is the Money for HIV?” is a joint campaign building on ARASA’s work, which is planned to be undertaken in partnership by ARASA, APCASO, Art Global Health Center at UCLA, LACCASO, Mosaic (South Africa), World AIDS Campaign (WAC), World YWCA and Caribbean Broadcast Media Partnership on HIV.
As part of this campaign, WAC, the World YWCA and Women Wont Wait are sending out a Call for anyone interested who has the necessary experience to produce a 2 – 3 minute video campaign focusing on “Where is the Money for Women’s Rights and HIV?”.
The video will seek to highlight three main issues:
1. The realities of women and girls around the globe, particularly in regards to HIV related human rights violations
2. The money that is needed to work towards overcoming these violations
3. How money is misspent by governments instead of investing in women’s rights, going for example towards military expenditure instead of financing for women.
Interested persons should send a brief treatment and shot list/paper edit to womenshivfilm@gmail.com no later than September 1st 2010.
Late submissions will not be accepted. For more info: http://www.worldywca.org/YWCA-News/World-YWCA-and-Member-Associations-News/Short-Film-Commission-Where-is-the-Money-for-Women-s-Rights-and-HIV-We-Are-Watching
Revolutionizing the Professional Conference Experience, The Women In Green Forum Grants Lifetime Membership To All 2010 Registrants
The Women In Green Forum, an annual sustainability conference, will include lifetime access to future Women In Green annual conferences in this year’s one-time registration fee.
In an unprecedented move, the Women In Green Forum just announced that it will grant lifetime membership to every registered attendee at the inaugural 2010 Forum, which is scheduled for September 1st and 2nd at the Pasadena Convention Center. This groundbreaking strategy will allow anyone who purchases a registration pass this year to be exempt from registration fees in future years, thereby granting 2010 Women In Green goers lifetime access to the yearly Forum for a modest, one-time fee.
Offering the added value of lifetime membership for 2010 registrants is likely to substantially boost the Forum’s attendance, serving as an innovative response to this year’s difficult economic climate. It will also create a loyal support base for future Women In Green Forums by granting conference-goers an enhanced event experience. The Forum organizers want all registrants to enjoy being members of a community versus participants in a one-time event. Unlike traditional conferences, the Women In Green Forum will continue to support the professional development interests of its members long after the Convention Center shuts down the evening of September 2nd.
“By promoting lifetime access to the Women In Green Forum, we are hoping to re-engineer the attendee experience,” says Jaime Nack, President of the event production company Three Squares Inc. (TSI) and Executive Director of the Women In Green Forum. “The purpose of the Forum is to connect professionals within the sustainability field in a meaningful way. Our lifetime membership offer will allow attendees to build upon their conference experience every year and cultivate long-term relationships, leading to career growth among individuals and the formation of a powerful Women In Green community. With so little time to solve the many critical environmental issues confronting us, we see an opportunity for the Women In Green Forum to become a driving force in shaping collaborative solutions to the environmental challenges ahead.“
The Women In Green Forum’s unique lifetime model is making a splash within the event production industry. Given the current economic climate, Three Squares Inc.—the Forum’s event production company—is diverging from the “business as usual” mode in conference production, which typically relies on sponsorships, registration rates, and short-term experiences lasting from one to three days. This unique approach provides more added value for the attendees, sponsors and speakers and will allow 2010 participants to stay connected with the Forum for years to come.
“Lifetime membership is a visionary move,” says Sarah Backhouse, Anchor of Planet 100 for Discovery’s Planet Green.com and master of ceremonies for the 2010 Women in Green Forum. “It’s an amazing opportunity for the Forum’s attendees to foster a sense of community, grow their networks and enhance job prospects. I envisage these exclusive memberships becoming highly coveted in the future.”
Serving one of the chief goals of the Forum—to create a community of professionals who share a passion for sustainability—lifetime memberships will be assigned to individual attendees rather than their affiliated companies. Lifetime memberships will also include priority invitations to other Women In Green Forum events throughout the year and future access to an online “members only” portal. By creating more opportunities to connect with others in the field, the lifetime membership strategy is anticipated to create a collaborative platform from which women can develop powerful professional networks and build upon each other’s successes. For more details and the terms of the membership offer, please visit the Forum web site at http://www.womeningreenforum.com.
Guinnessforgood.com Helps Social Entrepreneurs Get Funding
application process will begin on Tuesday, 28 September 2010
GUINNESS INCREASES THE ARTHUR GUINNESS FUND TO €7.4 MILLION IN SEARCH OF THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS AROUND THE WORLD
The Arthur Guinness Fund also announces a new global partnership with Ashoka and launches http://www.guinnessforgood.com
Dublin, IRELAND – 12th August 2010 – Guinness & Co. has today announced it is increasing the Arthur Guinness Fund to €7.4 million by 2012 as it continues its commitment to maintaining the legacy of Arthur Guinness, by further supporting the search for the next generation of social entrepreneurs worldwide. As part of this, the Arthur Guinness Fund is also announcing a new three year partnership with Ashoka – the world’s leading community of social entrepreneurs – to enable the deployment of the funds to new social entrepreneurial projects and around the world.
The Arthur Guinness Fund is also today launching new website http://www.guinnessforgood.com, to raise awareness of the Arthur Guinness Fund and help aspiring social entrepreneurs learn about the fund as well as how they can apply. The application process will begin just after this year’s Arthur’s Day on Tuesday 28 September 2010.
The Arthur Guinness Fund is an internal programme set up to further the legacy of Arthur Guinness, who was one of Ireland’s best known social entrepreneurs. Set up in 2009 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the lease for the St. James’s Gate Brewery to support community projects around the world. Projects in Ireland, Africa, Indonesia, the United States and the UK have already received funding, and through the commitment announced today, the Arthur Guinness Fund will support the work of social entrepreneurs around the world for at least the next three years.
As part of the new partnership with Ashoka, a total of 30 Fellows will be selected over the next three years, each receiving financial, strategic and practical support from the broader Ashoka community to empower them to deliver projects that will affect positive social change in their communities.
Brian Duffy, Global Brand Director for Guinness, said: “Arthur Guinness and his family were responsible for some of the most well known acts of philanthropy in Ireland. We created the Arthur Guinness Fund to continue his legacy of positive social change around the world as part of our commitment to celebration with substance. Since establishing the Arthur Guinness Fund in 2009 we have already invested in some remarkable projects in Ireland, Africa, Indonesia and the UK. We have partnered with Ashoka in 2010 to ensure that our commitment is delivered in the most effective way to the brightest and best emerging social entrepreneurs across the globe.”
Arthur’s Day headliner Brandon Flowers from The Killers, said: “To take part in Arthur’s Day, and to be involved in the incredible work that the Arthur Guinness Fund has done in empowering Social Entrepreneurs around the globe, is very exciting”
Bill Carter, Senior Vice President of Ashoka, said: “The social entrepreneurs create deep and lasting impact in their communities and inspire future generations along the way. With the support of the Arthur Guinness Fund, Ashoka will be able to welcome even more of these leading social entrepreneurs into our community and demonstrate the world over that everyone, not just an elite few, can create positive and lasting change.”
The new agreement establishes Ashoka as the significant partner in the delivery of the Arthur Guinness Fund’s objectives globally. In Ireland The Arthur Guinness Fund already works with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland where the partnership remains. The Arthur Guinness Fund also works with UnLtd in the UK and the British Council in Indonesia to support social entrepreneurs as well as contributing to projects like the Water Filter Enterprise programme in Ghana and Nigeria, aimed at developing campaigns to educate people across both populations on the benefits of clean water and hygiene.
The application process for the Arthur Guinness Fund will begin on Tuesday, 28 September 2010. Social entrepreneurs from around the world will be able to visit www.guinnessforgood.com for further details an can email infor@guinnessforgood.com for specific queries.
The GUINNESS, ARTHUR GUINNESS DAY. ARTHUR’S DAY, ARTHUR GUINNESS FUND and GUINNESS FOR GOOD words and associated logos are trade marks.
For media enquiries please contact:
Alison Reemer
Email: guinnessglobal@taylorpr.com
Email: areemer@taylorpr.com
Phone: 011-44-7545247861
Rachael Shaw
Email: Rachael.M.Shaw@diageo.com
Phone: +44 20 8978 2820
About the Arthur Guinness Fund:
Arthur Guinness Fund™ is an internal programme vehicle set up to further the legacy of Arthur Guinness and support social entrepreneurs around the world. The fund was launched and set up last year to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the lease for the Guinness® brewery at St James’s Gate. The Arthur Guinness Fund is committed to identifying
and supporting social entrepreneurs globally with the skills and support required to deliver a measurable, transformational change to communities around the world.
About Ashoka:
Founded in 1980, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public is the world’s working community of more than 2,500 leading social entrepreneurs. It champions the most important new social change ideas and supports the entrepreneurs behind them by helping them get started, grow, succeed, and collaborate. As Ashoka expands its capability to integrate and connect entrepreneurs around the world, it builds an entrepreneurial infrastructure that is supporting the fast-growing needs of the citizen sector. Ashoka’s vision is to create change today, for an Everyone A Changemaker™ society to become the reality of tomorrow. For more information, visit www.ashoka.org.
Amgen Foundation and Ashoka’s Changemakers Announce Patient Empowerment Competition
The Amgen Foundation, a giving vehicle of human therapeutics company Amgen, and Ashoka’s Changemakers have announced the Patients | Choices | Empowerment competition to help answer the question of how patients’ voices can be elevated to improve health outcomes globally.
The competition’s organizers hope to help build a global community of organizations that are working to ensure that patients have an active role in their personal health care and ultimately lead to sustainable solutions that will have a broad social benefit beyond the competition itself. The competition is seeking the submission of solutions and the nomination of projects that empower the patient and provide avenues for informed decisions. Solutions could include new methods of changing the training and interactions of healthcare providers to act in partnership with patients to make the right decisions at the right time; programs that support the emotional and social needs of patients to promote prevention, wellness, and health literacy; or interactive technologies that provide instant information and local resources for patients and their families to understand health conditions and actively participate in healthcare decisions.
Solutions should ideally work for people where they live — regardless of age, status, or education level. The competition seeks model solutions that can be replicated at the widest scale and across various diseases and populations for maximum impact.
The competition is open to anyone (person or organization) anywhere in the globe. To be eligible for an award, projects should indicate growth beyond the stage of idea, concept, or research. At a minimum, entries should be at the demonstration stage and indicate success. While the competition supports new ideas at every stage and encourages their entry, the judges are better able to evaluate programs that are beyond the conceptual stage and have demonstrated a proof of impact, even at small scale.
Entries will be accepted in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.
The three winners of this competition — the finalist individuals or organizations that receive the most votes online — will each receive a cash prize of $10,000. Early entries, received by August 25, 2010, will be considered eligible to win one early entry prize of $1,000, and will remain eligible to win the competition.
Following the Changemakers competition, selected entries may be invited to submit proposals to the Amgen Foundation for future funding consideration. The Amgen Foundation will consider awarding up to $1 million in grants to support promising innovations in patient empowerment submitted by qualifying nonprofit organizations. In particular, the Amgen Foundation seeks innovations that demonstrate potential to produce significant improvement in health and healthcare around the world and that reflect Amgen’s dedication to impacting lives in inspiring and innovative ways. To be eligible for future Amgen Foundation funding, organizations must operate in the U.S. or Europe and meet the foundation’s grant guidelines.
Visit the Changemakers Web site for competition guidelines.
2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge
August 10, 2010
2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge
* awards
* solutions
* competition
* innovation
Call for Entries Deadline: October 4, 2010.
The Buckminster Fuller Institute announces the Call for Entries to the 2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, an annual $100,000 prize program to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.
In a statement about the Challenge, The Buckminster Fuller Institute explains the background of the prize program:
Short term reductionist thinking which dominates all industrialized societies is a fundamental cause of the massive social, economic and environmental deterioration our world is confronted with today. It is now painfully obvious to many that most attempts by civil, corporate, scientific, academic and government sectors to deal with these breakdowns, despite good intentions and significant investment, often exhibit little more than a reflexive default to the same reductionist approach that created the problems in the first place. Little if any attention is ever directed toward optimizing whole systems. Instead the focus remains riveted only on improving various parts in isolation. Not surprisingly, when it comes to solving complex problems, actions are typically fragmented, disjointed and piecemeal. The net result: on a global scale the level of deterioration is rapidly increasing and imbalances have already reached crisis proportions.
During the past half century pioneers like Buckminster Fuller and other visionaries responded to the failure of reductionism by developing new approaches to meeting human needs, concurrent with preserving the vital diversity of cultures and ecosystems that form the fabric of life on Earth. Their holistic approach has influenced thousands of individuals in numerous fields who continue to break new ground in how to think, plan and design.
This evolving and growing body of work contains the seeds, models and strategies for the fundamental shift in direction so urgently needed today. The work spans a range of development stages— from the conceptual phase, to prototype ready, to well proven models poised to scale up. However, most of these new approaches, even the most advanced, remain under funded, under recognized and have yet to significantly penetrate mainstream education, economic activity, media, philanthropy and public policy.
“We’re looking for solutions that address multiple problems without creating new ones down the road— integrated strategies dealing with key social, economic, environmental, policy and cultural issues. Our entry criteria is deeply inspired by what Fuller termed comprehensive anticipatory design science— an approach we feel holds an important key to the design of strategies aimed at having a transformative effect on the system as a whole. We are very grateful for the recognition the prize recipients have received to date and hope this will lead to the greater understanding and wide-spread application of the whole systems, design science approach we are championing.” said Elizabeth Thompson, Executive Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute.
After decades of tracking world resources, innovations in science and technology, and human needs, Fuller asserted that options exist to successfully surmount the crises of unprecedented scope and complexity facing all humanity— he issued an urgent call for a design science revolution to make the world work for all.
ANWERING THIS CALL IS WHAT THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER CHALLENGE IS ALL ABOUT!
Please help us get the word out. Share this notice with your network, Thank you.
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Important Links
– The deadline for entries is 5pm (Eastern Standard Time) on MONDAY OCTOBER 4, 2010.
– For the call for entries, instructions for how to enter, reference materials, and much more, visit http://challenge.bfi.org
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About
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge originated in 2007 and awards $100,000 annually. Support for the program has been provided by the Atwater Kent Foundation, The Civil Society Institute, The James Dyson Foundation, The Highfield Foundation; The Jewish Communal Fund, and the members of The Buckminster Fuller Institute.
Founded in 1983 and headquartered in New York, The Buckminster Fuller Institute is dedicated to accelerating the development and deployment of solutions which radically advance human well being and the health of our planet’s ecosystems. BFI’s programs combine unique insight into global trends and local needs with a comprehensive approach to design. BFI encourages participants to conceive and apply transformative strategies based on a crucial synthesis of whole systems thinking, Nature’s fundamental principles, and an ethically driven worldview. By facilitating convergence across the disciplines of art, science, design and technology, BFI’s work extends the profoundly relevant legacy of R. Buckminster Fuller. For further information visit http://www.bfi.org
2010 Out of the Box Prize
August 10, 2010
2010 Out of the Box Prize
* social justice
* competition
* community development
* health
* rural development
* innovation
* awards
* education
Application Deadline: October 31, 2010.
The Community Tool Box will honor innovative approaches to promoting community health and development worldwide with the 2010 Out of the Box Prize. We invite you to enter and encourage you to share contest information with others doing innovative work to improve life in their communities anywhere in the world. (Click here to download a flyer that can be shared with others.)
Your group’s work may involve efforts to improve community health, education, urban or rural development, poverty, the environment, social justice, or other related issues of importance to communities. Applicants must be willing to share the group’s innovative and promising approach with others.
Grand Prize:
$5,000 cash award (USD) + free customized WorkStation for your group (value $2,100)
Second Prize:
$2,000 cash award (USD) + free customized WorkStation for your group
Award Finalists: All Award Finalists stories will be featured on the Community Tool Box as an outstanding example of “Taking Action in Your Community.”
Finalists will be selected by an international panel of judges. Site visitors will vote on their favorite “Out of the Box” project to be awarded the top two prizes.
Important Contest Dates:
8/1/2010: Opening date for applications
10/31/2010: Deadline for submission of applications
11/1 – 11/21/2010: International panel reviews the applications to select Finalists
12/1/2010: Award Finalists posted on the homepage of the Community Tool Box; public voting begins
1/31/2011: Public voting on Award Finalists closes
2/15/2011: Grand Prize and Second Prize announced
We invite you to submit an application. Click here to download application.
Eligibility and Selection Criteria
Any group that has engaged in any aspect of community health and development effort – from planning to sustainability- for the period of 2008 to 2010 can apply. Your group’s work may involve efforts to improve community health, education, urban or rural development, poverty, the environment, social justice, or other related issues of importance to communities. Applicants must be willing to share the group’s innovative and promising approach with others.
We are seeking “out of the box”—innovative and promising— approaches to promoting community health and development. “Innovation” may include a unique or effective way of planning or implementing a change effort, creative use of existing community resources, original ways of generating participation and collaboration, implementing a best practice within a new context or group, or other innovative and promising approaches. We seek clear descriptions of how applicants took action in the community (currently or within the past three years); including Assessment, Planning, Taking Action, Evaluation, and Sustainability of the group’s efforts. The initiative should effectively address an issue of importance to the community.
To get an application: visit: http://ctb.ku.edu
Introducing the Nonprofit Guru: Kelly N Patterson 