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Creative Trust was born of a community of mid-size music, theatre and dance companies committed to taking their futures into their own hands and ensuring their own long-term health and sustainability. It was a group used to delving into questions of how to achieve healthier organizations (and by extension, a healthier creative performing arts sector). The seeds of Creative Trust’s Working Capital for the Arts and Outreach programs were planted during Arts4Change, a community initiated project to help performing arts companies adjust and adapt to funding cuts and uncertainty in the mid-90s. Those seeds grew during Creative Trust’s first collaborative endowment fundraising campaign and flowered into Working Capital for the Arts: a six-year program to ensure the health and stability of companies essential to Toronto’s cultural well-being. Because Creative Trust was initiated by experienced arts managers and artistic directors – and because we knew that we wanted to distinguish ourselves from more traditional arts stabilization programs – we began by defining our values. These included the core belief that the artistic vision is at the heart of each organization; that positive change for the arts comes when artists and arts professionals reclaim control, energy and self-esteem; that we were trying to build a flexible, holistic model of organizational health; that economic balance is essential to |
allowing arts organizations to advance and sustain their missions; and that our program should encourage each organization to take responsibility for finding its own, most effective, balance between artistic mission and economic means. Creative Trust’s next years see us expanding this sharing. Creative Trust’s two latest initiatives – helping companies upgrade and repair their aging facilities, and move to the leading edge of audience development understanding and practice – are natural extensions of our working capital program. They’re twinned with each other as paths to financial health and stability. We know that audiences come more readily to comfortable, attractive and welcoming theatre spaces. And, to achieve long term box office and contributed support, it’s necessary to connect committed audiences with community and neighbourhoods. Creative Trust’s approach remains the same: we provide the tools, access to great minds and breakthrough thinking, firm goals, sharing and community collaboration that leads to fundamental change. You’ll hear more about our efforts to access infrastructure stimulus funding for our shovel ready companies (working with strongly aligned community organizations) and our exciting plans to help companies connect to and diversify their audiences. |
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra |
