ArtPlace America is 10-year collaboration among 15 foundations, eight federal agencies, and six financial institutions who are dedicated to positioning art and culture as a core sector of comprehensive community planning and development in order to help strengthen the social, physical, and economic fabric of communities. ArtPlace focuses its work on creative placemaking, the set of practices in which art and culture work intentionally to help to transform a place. ArtPlace does this through a national grants program and five community-wide investments; it seeks to understand and disseminate successful practices through its research strategies; and it works to connect practitioners, organizations, and communities with one another.

They will be working through the South Carolina Arts Commission which is the state agency charged with creating a thriving arts environment that benefits all South Carolinians, regardless of their location or circumstances. ArtPlace is holding a grant making seminar at the Penn Center at 16 Penn Center Circle West on September 22nd between 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to help local individuals and organizations prepare and subsequently receive grant monies. Topics will include:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• What is creative placemaking?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• An overview of the grant process.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• What makes a strong application?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• A discussion on how the arts have been used to “move the needle” and to address relevant and challenging community issues.</p>
Who should attend? Anyone and everyone interested in learning about how the community can be supported to creatively make changes in your community! Artists, arts organizations, designers, community developers, planners, city and town administrators, community residents, business owners, faith and religious groups, philanthropists, and more are invited to learn more about arts-based strategies to community development. The National Grants Program will fund anyone regardless of tax-exempt status.

Learn specifics about ArtPlace’s grants program that offers $50,000 to $500,000 to support place-based arts projects as they relate to advancing our communities. Since 2011, ArtPlace has invested $66.875 million in 227 projects across 152 communities of all sizes, in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Its National Grants Program is designed to invest in creative placemaking projects that involve cross-sector partners committed to improving the social, physical, and economic fabric of their communities through arts-based strategies. Applications for grants will be due in early January, 2016.