The Exploring Engagement Fund was established with the belief that arts provide a distinct, powerful public benefit that helps create a vibrant, inclusive, and compassionate society. From 2012 to 2018, the Exploring Engagement Fund supported new approaches that these nonprofit arts organizations used to actively engage more diverse participants.…

From 2012 to 2018, the Exploring Engagement Fund of The James Irvine Foundation provided risk capital for more than 100 engagement projects conducted by California arts nonprofits. These organizations had innovative ideas and a readiness to take bold steps to engage groups often underrepresented among mainstream arts participants--specifically…

To stay relevant to changing communities, many arts organizations have been developing engagement programs--that is, programming designed to reach more and different people and involve them more actively in how art is made and experienced. While engagement efforts are often episodic or separate from an art organization's core programming, in late…

While engagement programs are often episodic or separate from an art organization's core programming, in late 2013 a group of 10 arts nonprofits across California set out to make engagement central to their work. They aimed to transform their programmatic, organizational, and business models in ways that would improve and sustain their reach and…

Many California arts organizations want their participants and artists to reflect the socioeconomic diversity of the state's population. The Exploring Engagement Fund supports new approaches that these nonprofit organizations are using to reach more diverse participants. Through project experiments, Irvine and its grantees are learning valuable…

This report distills lessons from the early implementation of Exploring Engagement Fund projects. The first phase of the Fund featured five rounds of grantmaking. It is based on information from three of these rounds; it covers the first year in a series of two-year grants. It is drawn from analysis of grantee reports and interviews, and offers…