PONCHO’s Arts Education and Outreach Initiative

Washington State arts organizations have long recognized the importance of bringing youth in contact with the arts. Many have implemented ongoing educational programs that have filled in the space left by vanishing school arts programs. We at PONCHO believe in deepening the connection between kids and the arts. We have determined that our best strategy for realizing this vision is to invest in programs that will accomplish one or more of the following things:

provide young people with early and fundamental exposure to the arts
expand the capabilities of teaching artists to use the arts to impart basic academic subject matter
assist arts organizations in strengthening the quality of their educational offerings and/or making them available to more young people, either on their own or through partnerships with schools
provide positive, hands-on after-school experiences for young people
enable arts organizations to assist schools and teachers with the integration of the arts into their curriculum models

The PONCHO Arts Education and Outreach Initiative is focused on significantly increasing the amount of money in our community earmarked for support of arts education and outreach. Key features of the initiative include:

Funding existing programs conducted by Washington State nonprofit arts organizations
Leveraging the very special relationship that PONCHO has with individual donors
Identifying like-minded foundations and corporations and providing them with matching opportunities for their contributions
Implementing a rigorous grant review process that involves community arts education professionals and formalized evaluation tools
Continuous evaluation, including site visits

Our objective is to raise and distribute at least $500,000 annually to youth-oriented arts programs in Washington State. (These monies are in addition to the unrestricted operating funds we distribute through our regular grant program.)