peaceful world foundation

"So of course, the pandemic was a struggle for all of us, and so we all know the arts organizations are the first to close and last open, especially the performing arts are really still struggling" - Rachel Osajima

This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Fernando Pujals, the Deputy Director of the Mid-Market Business Association & Foundation and a great deep dive into how he and his team our supporting artists, arts organizations and leveraging the power of the arts to help bring back the Mid-Market neighborhood in our post pandemic world. 

As part of our great roving reporter team of Isa Nakazawa and Eric Estrada at the Arts For A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit; this episode includes an interview with Rachel Osajima who serves as the Executive Director of the Alameda County Arts Commission, which is a division of the County of Alameda. Rachel provides us with some wonderful insights into how a funder has continued to support artists and arts organizations through the pandemic and in the post pandemic marketplace.

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector. And if you have been enjoying the show please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. You can also watch this episode and please Sign Up for our Newsletter to stay up to date on future episodes and to participate in our next live show. We would love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com.

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

Dive Into More Information on Each Episode, Speakers, Organizations and Resources at our Voices of the Community’s Special Arts & Culture Series Web Landing Page 

"There's been a lot of talk about, how do you make this sustainable, and there's not one answer, but one piece that is core to that, is really galvanizing and cementing around this notion that arts and culture is already right here and we need to lean into it and value it and uplift it. And in that way it won't be able to be ignored'“ - Fernando Pujas

This episode is part of our special series on how the arts and culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pandemic and features voices from the Co-Production of Arts For A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit held at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th 2023. The focus of the summit was on rebuilding our communities through the arts. 

This episode features panelists from our breakout panel discussion “Regional Economic Recovery Through the Arts" on how the Arts are being utilized in economic and community development coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The panel features the voices of Laura Poppiti, the Deputy Director of the Center for Cultural Innovation, Richard Raya, the Chief Strategy Officer at Mission Economic Development Agency, Fernando Pujals, the Deputy Director of the Mid-Market Business Association & Foundation, Meredith Winner, the co-founder and COO of Building 180 and Managing Director and Co-Founder of Paint the Voice, and Jacob Bintliff, the Manager of Economic Recovery Initiatives at the City of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development along with our co-host Susie McKinnon a Steward at Arts for a Better Bay Area.

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector. And if you have been enjoying the show please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. You can also watch this episode and please Sign Up for our Newsletter to stay up to date on future episodes and to participate in our next live show. We would love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com.

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

Dive Into More Information on Each Episode, Speakers, Organizations and Resources at our Voices of the Community’s Special Arts & Culture Series Web Landing Page 

"It's all about partnering artists with small businesses to create site specific installations and that way create more exposure both for the business and for the artists and also to revitalize those corridors" - Vanessa Wilson

This is our second episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit "Rebuilding Our Communities," on June 28th, 2023.

The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the importance of arts and culture and its impact on our communities and economy, as well as the under-funding and fragility of our sector. Our second episode is focused on how governmental support, funding, artists, and audiences have changed and what arts and cultural organizations are doing to support, reinvent, and invigorate the sector. Join us to learn about various angles of this work and how you can get engaged.

This episode features Julie Baker, CEO - of Californians for the Arts; Vanessa Wilson, Deputy Director - of ArtSpan; Lauren Macmadu, Head of External Relations - of YBCA;  Jenny Cohn, Client Success Manager - of TRG Arts along with Cary McClelland, Chief Operating Officer - of YBCA.

You can watch this episode as part of our television show with our friends at BAVC Media. To receive more information on the State of the Arts Series please Sign Up for our Newsletter to find out more about each episode as well as to participate in our next live show.

We hope that you enjoyed episode three of our new six-part series highlighting the issues and solutions of our arts and culture organizations and their workforce as they innovate to come back from the pandemic along with addressing the systemic racism in our performing arts ecosystem. 

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

If you've been enjoying the show please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice and we’d love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com

Dive Into More Information on Each Episode, Speakers, Organizations and Resources at our Voices of the Community’s Special Arts & Culture Series Web Landing Page