EAP is a network of 3000+ arts and culture workers and leaders, representing varied backgrounds of experiences, roles, education, geography, and disciplines. We serve beginning, mid-career, and established leaders who are committed to exploring emerging models and ideas and value omnidirectional learning. Our network lives/works across the fourteen-county combined statistical area of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Each of our programs has been created in response to discussions within the network and in alignment with our strategic and equity frameworks. EAP builds solutions collaboratively with our network (as evidenced by our network-built curriculum and practices) and gives platform and support for the community to build their own solutions.
Past Programs
Some examples from our 2021–2022 Program Year
– Our Fellowship focused on deep work around healing and wellness for BIPOC folks doing EDI work and created a score card (modeled after restaurant health and safety cards) for arts organizations to identify to staff and public the organizations’ base-level wellness and equity.
– Our annual network convening provided a collaborative platform for the Bay Area workforce to connect, share ideas, and elevate their work and voices. Emergence 2022: Models for Change shared how artists and organizations have pushed for, and adopted, models of shared leadership, mutual aid, and BIPOC-led programs, and explored how we can create more authentic and lasting change by integrating these models into our own cultural work.
– Artist Adaptability Circles, a mutual-aid-based funding and cohort development program, is community-created and artist-led. AAC was co-designed with a collective of leaders from artist-led organizations, cultural centers, and progressive funders empower Bay Area artists and arts workers who are creatively addressing issues arising in their lives and communities. We offered training, funding, time, and trust that artists can thrive when given autonomy over their solutions.
Some examples from our 2016–2019 program years
Our programs include: the Fellowship, a nine month participatory learning cohort for 17-20 art and culture workers/producers; Emergence, an annual network convening that creates space for discussions and explorations into the most exciting, challenging, and urgent issues impacting the local arts and culture field; MADE, a project incubator in which selected proposals receive up to $1,000 and network support to execute the proposed idea; public events and workshops; and in 2017 we are launching Emerge, a cross-discipline, pan-arts industry publication highlighting the personal stories, unique knowledge, and skills of cultural workers and arts leaders with the goal of sharing creative solutions.
Engagement programs for 2017-2018 include: hosting at least 30 Entry Interviews (as part of membership), facilitating quarterly Affinity/Interest Circle meetings (for Executive Directors, Curators, and a “book club” or research paper study group), convening an Editorial Committee and Contributors working on Emerge (the new annual publication), and producing at least six regular Network Socials that have time for volunteer meeting, guest presenters/demos, and mingling. Since early 2016, EAP has participating in advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion at a statewide level through participation in Arts Leadership Forward Network, facilitated by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Fellowship
The fellowship expands the skill-sets of emerging and mid-level arts and culture workers through a nine-month personal and professional development curriculum. Through participation in this interactive learning cohort you will build relationships across sector, discipline, and role within the bay area’s arts and culture field. Fellows should be self-starters, interested in building cross-sector relationships and willing to take an active role in the learning process. From the start, Fellows will work with EAP Leadership to identify specific learning goals and methods for achieving those goals. Milestones, collective expectations and personal benchmarks will then be developed collaboratively.
MADE Grants & Incubator
MADE is a re-granting & project incubator program that draws upon the inspiration and power of the network to propose and execute projects that addresses immediate solutions of the day, widely ranging from new social modeling, to practices around life/work balance, to new ventures on system theory, to innovative ways of building smarter communities. MADE is, at its core, an actionable, flexible forum that drives exploration, prototyping, and knowledge sharing.
Emergence & Public Programs
Emergence, the annual convening of the EAP network, provides a collaborative platform for Bay Area arts & culture workers to connect, share ideas, and elevate their work and voices. EAP is committed to curating Emergence as a participatory experience that encourages deep connections and inquiries that are omnidirectional through generations, career levels, business models, and disciplines. Our goal is for you to walk away with actionable next steps, as well as tangible tools and a strengthened network to support your work.
Membership
EAP represents the diverse arts workforce in the Bay Area. We are a network of arts administrators, for-profit and nonprofit staff, arts educators, creative entrepreneurs, curators and cultural producers, and creatives — those whose work is to facilitate other people’s work. Through knowledge sharing, learning opportunities, and partnerships, EAP members build relationships, develop leadership, explore emerging ideas and models, and take action on issues impacting arts and culture workforce. As a network we elevate the way arts leadership is expressed and valued and create pathways to meaningful and sustainable work.
Networks & Affinity Circles
Publications & Resources
2008–2015
Friday Firsts Mixer Series
Emerging Arts Professionals Friday Firsts is a series of soirees designed to engage the senses and help arts and culture professionals unwind while getting to know each other in novel and exciting ways! We encourage networking, socializing, and exploration that strengthens our community of arts and cultural workers.
MADE Grants & Incubator
MADE is a re-granting & project incubator program that draws upon the inspiration and power of the network to propose and execute projects that addresses immediate solutions of the day, widely ranging from new social modeling, to practices around life/work balance, to new ventures on system theory, to innovative ways of building smarter communities. MADE is, at its core, an actionable, flexible forum that drives exploration, prototyping, and knowledge sharing.
Fellowship
The fellowship expands the skill-sets of emerging and mid-level arts and culture workers through a nine-month personal and professional development curriculum. Through participation in this interactive learning cohort you will build relationships across sector, discipline, and role within the bay area’s arts and culture field. Fellows should be self-starters, interested in building cross-sector relationships and willing to take an active role in the learning process. From the start, Fellows will work with EAP Leadership to identify specific learning goals and methods for achieving those goals. Milestones, collective expectations and personal benchmarks will then be developed collaboratively.
