Grantee Spotlights

Design Corps supports the vital role that design can play in addressing critical issues and needs of communities. Through the Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED) initiative, Design Corps provides communities, institutions and design professionals with the tools and services they need to integrate community-engaged processes into design activities, leading to projects that reflect a community's values and cultural identities. Public inclusion as a "best practice" in design is increasingly recognized as a highly effective way to sustain the health and longevity of a place or a community.

The East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy's (EBASE) mission is to advance economic, racial, and social justice in California's East Bay region by building a just economy based on good jobs and healthy communities. In order to support low-income workers and communities of color, and address root causes of economic injustice, EBASE builds power through strategic alliances with labor, community, and faith groups.

Alliance for Building Capacity works to create a more just and sustainable food system through a frame of equity,  inclusion, and racial justice. Comprised of more than 1,000 organizations across the country, ABC seeks to meet the needs and challenges of a growing and increasingly more diverse food system movement.

The Surdna Foundation is pleased to announce the transition of its national and longstanding Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship Program (SATF).  As of July 1, 2012, this signature program will be known as the National Arts Teachers Fellowship Program (NATF), and will be under the direction of the Center for Arts Education at the Boston Arts Academy in Boston, Massachusetts.

Since 1998, AS220 Youth has worked to increase access to the arts among Rhode Island's low-income teens. Its goal is to engage youth in rigorous artmaking that leads to increased skills and self-esteem. The enhanced skills acquired at AS220 contribute to teens' positive social, educational and vocational outcomes.

The New Policy Institute (NPI) is a non-partisan think tank based in Washington D.C. Its mission is to imagine and build a 21st century America capable of meeting the challenges of our time. NPI’s work with Surdna Foundation focuses on the Next Economy Partnership Project, a program devoted to advancing an economy based on bottom-up development and low-carbon outcomes.

The Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED, the Center), was established in 2006 to galvanize residents and focus recovery efforts in an environmentally conscious and sustainable way for the Ninth Ward, an area of New Orleans that has traditionally been underserved and systematically marginalized.  The CSED is strongly focused on engaging community residents and leaders on a host of issues, including coastal eco-system restoration, food security and the built environment.

The California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) is a rigorous, month-long residential training program for talented and motivated high school students.  Established in 1985 by the California State Legislature, CSSSA selects students based on review of applications in Animation, Creative Writing, Dance, Film/Video, Music, Theatre and the Visual Arts.

The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) Northwest is a group of community organizing alliances in Washington and Oregon, including the Sound Alliance, the Spokane Alliance, and the Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good. It is an affiliate of the IAF network, the oldest and largest network of community based organizing in the nation, with affiliated organizations in more than 50 cities. In the Northwest, it has brought together an uncommon mix of constituencies-more than 100 synagogues, churches, education associations, building trades unions, immigrant and neighborhood organizations, and recovery and disability organizations-and has discovered that green jobs ties them together in a deep and meaningful way.

Baltimore's Safe & Sound Campaign's Ready By 21 Compact is a new effort that will provide a pathway for young adults aging out of the foster care system or in the state's custody to earn their high school diplomas or GEDs, receive life skills and career training, and be placed in career ladder jobs that pay good wages and benefits. The Campaign will implement a culinary arts workforce development program for a cohort of these young adults.