Partnering with community foundations to strengthen arts and creativity across Massachusetts.
Cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth are full of creative talent and cultural assets that have the power to inspire us, challenge us, and bring us together. Yet, depending on geography, art form, or networks, access to funding can be uneven—as can opportunities to experience arts and creativity.
In 2017, Barr began the Creative Commonwealth Initiative, investing in five community foundations as partners in a journey to strengthen resources for local arts ecosystems across the state. Their leadership and commitment to boosting equitable, diverse arts and creative expression in the regions they serve led to expansion of the initiative to span ten years, with three additional community foundations joining the partnership in 2023.
Why Community Foundations?
Barr invests in community foundations as cornerstone institutions in their regions. These place-based philanthropies hold unique potential as civic leaders and catalysts for positive change. They have knowledge, relationships, and credibility to help infuse arts and creativity into civic life. They can convene organizations across sectors, bring new information and insights to decision makers, raise public awareness of key issues and opportunities, attract donors to generate new funding, and spur collaborations that center arts and culture in community.
Each community foundation in the Creative Commonwealth cohort embraces diversity and is growing its capacity for inclusive practices. These attributes are especially vital given significant demographic changes in the areas they serve, which are characterized by a density of arts organizations, including African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American nonprofits, and are home to significant immigrant populations. Progress by community foundations in these regions can in turn help the statewide creative sector grow its relevance, resources, and resilience.
Creative Commonwealth Geography
Initiative Participants and Service Areas
About the Partners
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Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (2017)
Equitable access to the arts is a pillar of Berkshire Taconic’s community engagement strategic priority. Its Arts Build Community initiative began with research surfacing barriers to participation; it supports resident leadership, connecting arts organizations and diverse communities, and more.
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Cambridge Community Foundation (2023)
Cultural vibrancy is a longstanding commitment of the community foundation and core to its social cohesion strategy. By investing in arts and culture, we can build bridges of understanding and preserve a vibrant, diverse Cambridge for all.
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Community Foundation for MetroWest (2023)
Arts are a pillar program area at the community foundation. Convenings, capacity building, evaluation, and storytelling amplify grant investments. Priorities include deepening understanding of arts stakeholders and community needs, as well as elevating historically underrepresented voices and under-resourced organizations.
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Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts (2017)
Through ValleyCreates, the community foundation helps to sustain the Valley’s vibrancy. It provides funding, coaching, and technical assistance to a diverse group of creatives and flexible funding to arts organizations, fostering a dynamic arts community.
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Essex County Community Foundation (2017)
The community foundation’s Creative County Initiative embraces a systems approach for long-term impact in the creative sector. It features grassroots community engagement, strategic partnerships, and donor involvement to support a sustainable, equitable and accessible arts ecosystem.
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Greater Lowell Community Foundation (2023)
The community foundation is instrumental in the creation and implementation of Mosaic Lowell—Lowell’s arts, culture, and creative economy plan. This plan is the guiding framework for deepening the organization’s involvement with arts across its region.
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Greater Worcester Community Foundation (2017)
The community foundation’s Creative Worcester County initiative seeks to center arts and culture in community, fully recognizing the creative sector as a key component in the ability of individuals and families to lead healthy, thriving lives.
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SouthCoast Community Foundation (2017)
Through its Creative SouthCoast Initiative, the Community Foundation supports capacity-building for arts organizations and other organizations offering arts-related programs, collaborates with intermediaries to strengthen the region’s arts ecosystems, supports public arts and events, and invests in youth development.
Design & Timeline
Design & Timeline
The Creative Commonwealth Initiative was created to elevate the Massachusetts arts field and Massachusetts philanthropy. Pursuing these goals features a dual focus on:
- Arts in communities—advancing diverse arts and creative expression that are visible, integrated, valued, and supported in cities and towns across Massachusetts.
- Community foundations in arts—supporting these local philanthropies as they strategically and effectively enhance their leadership for arts and creative expression.
To achieve these outcomes, Creative Commonwealth has evolved into a ten-year initiative. An initial cohort of five community foundations began this journey with Barr in 2017; three additional community foundations joined the partnership in 2023.
Initiative Timeline
Creative Commonwealth is led by the Barr Arts & Creativity program team, staffed by a consulting team with extensive experience in arts and the U.S. community foundation field, and designed through a collaborative process involving Barr and the participating community foundations. This co-designed initiative incorporates a mix of Barr supports:
- Grants to fund the local arts initiatives created by each community foundation, and to address internal capacity-building priorities in each organization
- Individualized strategy coaching for each community foundation provided by members of the consulting team
- Cohort-wide learning and knowledge sharing—including periodic convenings as well as ongoing networking and interaction among peer groups of chief executives, arts program leads, and donor development and communications staff
Barr supports are delivered in ways that align with the program and development strategies forged by each community foundation team. These partners each generate a Theory of Change to articulate and guide their arts and creativity work.
As the initiative moves into its sustainability phase, community foundations are building their resilience as adaptive leaders; amplifying their voices, connections, and influence as arts champions; investing in ways to strengthen the structures and activities that enable arts and creativity to flourish in their regions; and cultivating new donors and long-term funding sources to increase financial assets for arts.
Upcoming years will feature new and deepened investments, experiments, and learning to advance more equitable, vibrant, and sustainable arts and creativity in communities across Massachusetts.
News and Ideas from Creative Commonwealth Partners
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Blog Post
Three New Community Foundations Join “Creative Commonwealth” Partnership – Cambridge, Greater Lowell, and MetroWest
Expanded initiative now includes eight community foundations. Next three years to feature new and deepened investments, experiments, and learning to advance more equitable, vibrant, and sustainable arts and creativity in communities across Massachusetts.
Read the blog post
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Blog Post
Arts Engage People in Bettering the Places They Love
Leaders from two Massachusetts community foundations on how arts and creativity enrich civic life.
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Blog Post
Supporting BIPOC Artists, Growing Vibrant Communities
The brilliance of individual artists propels social, economic, and physical progress in the places we love.
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Blog Post
Arts Help Communities Connect, Heal, Imagine
Local partners across Massachusetts are addressing social issues.
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Moving the Needle on Systems Change in Arts Philanthropy
"creating bespoke, impactful, and catalytic interventions, systems of support, and infrastructure that will make arts and creativity sustainable, equitable, and accessible for all" The "GIA Reader" from Grantmakers in the Arts