Create Ca

Arts Now: Create CA's Arts Now program offers professional development and coalition building to arts advocates across California. The program offers synchronous and asynchronous training for Arts Now participants, allowing them the flexibility to fit the program into their schedules. Arts Now adapted to meet the changing needs of local organizers following the passage of Proposition 28. The Arts Now Leadership Institute provided arts education advocacy training to 27 individuals across the state. We also hosted programs that reached a total of 315 individuals. The Arts Now Leadership grew slightly to serve 30 advocates for the 2024-2025 session. Our program team provides one-on-one technical assistance to participants outside of these group sessions. Program staff offered additional technical assistance to program participants working to understand how Prop 28 is rolling out in their communities. We continue to be pleased with the outcomes of our Arts Now Regional Hubs in both the Bay Area and Sacramento region. We are partnering again with Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area and Friends of Sacramento Arts during the 2024-2025 school year. In the last year, Create CA has continued to grow its significant library of resources to support advocates working to ensure proper implementation of Prop 28. Tools and resources include social media posts and graphics, talking points, a school board presentation template and guidance, an op-ed template for local media sources, several fact sheets, and one-pagers in English and Spanish to spread information about Prop 28. In addition, we have updated the Contact Your School Leaders page three times, our one-click letter to school board members and superintendents of districts across the state. We share these resources in our monthly Arts Now Meetups, where we also host listening sessions and gather stories of successes and challenges in the implementation of Prop 28. In 2024, Create CA continued offering the Arts Now Organizational Partners program, which offers the Arts Now Leadership Institute and additional targeted programming to nonprofit organizations across the state. The goal is for these nonprofits to build their capacity to advocate for increased arts education programs in their communities and local school districts. In late 2024, Create CA accepted six organizations into the second cohort of the program.

Student Voices: Student Voices is a hub that provides training, resources, and opportunities to 12- to 24-year-olds, teaching them the importance of civic engagement and advocacy and how this is tied to arts education. In 2023-2024, we provided leadership training and workshops to 19 Student Voices Leaders, all current 7-12th grade students in public schools around the state who received a stipend for their participation. In 2024-2025, Student Voices accepted another 19 students to the Student Voices Leaders program. Student Voices also hosted the third annual Student Arts Advocacy Day at CalArts on July 13, 2024. This event served over 500 current high school students from across California, making it the largest arts advocacy training event for students in the state. We offered numerous work in shops, including Activism in Animation, Drumming for Change, and Dancing New Futures. To continue integrating student perspectives into Create CA's programs and policy work, the Student Voices team launched a new Youth Advisory Council (YAC) in 2024. The YAC currently trains 10 current students and youth ages 16-24 in civic engagement. Create CA is also integrating the YAC's ideas and feedback into our work. This will ensure that the organization is always soliciting feedback and ideas from the people who are most impacted by our programs. In early 2024, Create CA partnered with ArtCenter College of Design for the second year in a row to offer a course titled Designing Advocacy. Taught by Joel "Rage.One" Garcia, this 12-week course was offered free-of-charge to current college students. Lessons focused on racial justice, equity and self-expression, all with the goal of giving young activist-artists the tools to raise their voices.