The Creative City, Block by Block: Creators and Communities – In October 2006, TACF hosted an artist-led symposium on imagining neighbourhood change in partnership with Department of Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Ontario Trillium Foundation. Artists, animators, community leaders, participants in community arts programs, storefront arts organizations, youth organizations, community health centres, settlement/neighbourhood houses, municipal cultural workers, and local, provincial and national funders, gathered to imagine and share strategies for neighbourhood transformation through the arts, pose key questions and discuss best practices in community-based art and forge new partnerships.

For more information on this symposium please read the executive summary and report.

The United Way of Greater Toronto – 2006 marked the beginning of our partnership with The United Way of Greater Toronto. Their generous support, which has been renewed for 2007, has enabled us to increase the amount of funding for arts programming targeted at youth growing up in high-needs areas of the city. Toronto Arts Council (through its Community Arts Grants Program) and the TAC Foundation, together with The United Way, are committed to supporting Toronto’s at-risk youth by providing them with hope and an opportunity to build productive lives. “The arts are a key component of United Way’s strategy to offer opportunities for youth,” said Frances Lankin, President and CEO, United Way of Greater Toronto. “Research shows that the arts have positive impact for youth, especially those at risk, and helps engage them while developing skills.”

Volunteering with TACF is a great way to meet new people and learn new skills, while promoting the arts in your city! Take in fabulous arts events! Develop/sharpen skills in event management and Raiser’s Edge database system!

Volunteer Benefits

Learn new skills such as web design; meet artists and others who love the arts
Volunteer time goes towards complimentary tickets to various arts events
Complimentary TTC tokens

Interested volunteers will be added to our email distribution list. Through this list, you will be notified of all volunteer opportunities as they become available. Then you can choose to respond if the position is of interest.

If you are interested in joining this mailing list, please send your information and resume to coalition@torontoartscouncil.org.

For more Volunteer Opportunities with our Partner Organizations:

The mandate of TACF is to increase the resources available to Toronto artists and arts organizations, and to increase awareness of the value of the arts to our City and citizens.

Toronto Arts Council and its Foundation took the first step in this program by hosting a series of art exhibitions in our own workspace where 100% of all proceeds of sales would go direct to the artist, as well as providing each artist with an exhibition fee and online insurance.

the mission of arts in the workplace:

To increase public interest in the work of living Toronto artists.
To provide a source of additional revenue to living Toronto artists.
To encourage Toronto’s commercial organizations to display and purchase the work of Toronto artists thereby celebrating the immense talent and creativity that exists in this City, as well as helping to improve the health of the arts sector.

our partnership with investors group

Toronto Arts Council Foundation is pleased to launch the inaugural installment of its Arts in the Workplace initiative in partnership with Investors Group.

This innovative program is designed to bring contemporary works of art by Toronto creators to workplace environments and is only possible with generous support from the private sector.

Investors Group has embraced an adventurous and exciting vision – one that so directly brings creativity to its corporate working space.

The program with Investors Group will consist of two exhibitions over the course of 2006. Investors Group has made a generous donation to the Toronto Arts Council Foundation and has agreed to purchase one work of art for their corporate collection. In addition, all artists participating in Arts in the Workplace receive exhibition fees.

The Arts in the Workplace initiative provides an opportunity for both emerging and established artists to present their creations to a diverse and unusual workplace audience – this is an important, invaluable and challenging experience. By extension, the staff complement of Investors Group Credit Card can contemplate, discuss and hopefully enjoy a breadth of artwork in the comfort and convenience of the office environment.

Our hope for this initiative and in bringing art to the workplace is that we can provoke appreciation and inspiration – for this new viewing audience and the participating artists alike.

At last evening’s Annual General Meeting, the members of Toronto Arts Council elected five arts and community leaders to join its 29 member Board of Directors. There was no change to its team of officers: John McKellar, C.M., Q.C. Chair, Karen Tisch President, Richard Fung and Jini Stolk Vice-Presidents, Mark Opashinov Secretary and Randal Levine Treasurer.

New Board members elected last night include: Martha Burns (well-known stage and television actor who has appeared at Stratford and Shaw Festivals and for three seasons on ‘Slings and Arrows’), Ruth Howard (Artistic Director of Jumblies Theatre and creator of large scale art and theatre projects), Linda Lewis (Chair of the School of Fashion at Ryerson University and founding President of the Design Exchange), Priscila Uppal (poet, writer and professor at York University) and John Van Burek (founding Artistic Director of Théâtre français de Toronto, director and translator of over 100 plays, workshops, operas and special events).

Earlier in the evening, Toronto Arts Council Foundation, the sister organization of the Toronto Arts Council, agreed to file supplementary letters patent to change its name to Toronto Arts Foundation. As chair of the Board, Diana Bennett, explained it, the name change will help reinforce the foundation’s commitment to becoming the City’s primary arts foundation and creating opportunities for philanthropy in the arts. “We want to make all Toronto aware that investment in our city through the arts has the potential to transform neighbourhoods, engage youth and create change.”

One new TACF Board member was elected to join its 14 member Board of Directors. Frances Price has volunteered for numerous organizations including Creative Trust (for which she chaired the Development Committee), the AGO, Planned Parenthood, Branksome Hall School, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation, The St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation and, currently, the York University Board of Governors and Foundation and Roy Thomson Hall.

Claire Hopkinson, Executive Director of TAC and TACF said that “I am delighted at the prospect of working with all our Board members. Particularly in these volatile economic times, artists and arts organizations in Toronto continue to prove the importance and impact of arts programming and investment”.

For more information, please visit www.torontoartscouncil.org

Toronto Arts Council (TAC) is the City of Toronto’s funding body for artists and arts organizations. Since 1974, Toronto Arts Council (TAC) has played a major role in the city’s cultural industries by supporting a very broad range of artistic activity. From the emerging artist to the most established, from celebrated institutions to arts that challenge convention, TAC is typically the first funder to offer support. Today, TAC grants lead to exhibitions, performances, readings and workshops seen annually by over 7.5 million people. Through its ongoing funding, TAC cultivates a rich engagement between artists and audiences. It is proud to reflect Toronto’s vibrancy through the diversity of artists, arts communities and audiences that it serves.

Toronto Arts Council Foundation (TACF) was incorporated in 1995 as a sister organization to Toronto Arts Council (TAC). It has a two fold mission: to increase awareness of the value that artists and arts organizations bring to the City of Toronto; and to increase resources for the arts. In addition to administering programs which further the above goals, TACF enables individuals, foundations and corporations the opportunity to support a broad spectrum of initiatives and arts disciplines in the City of Toronto through tax-deductible contributions.

A great city demands great art, and by supporting, celebrating, financing and advocating for Toronto’s local artists, we’re improving the quality of life of all Torontonians.

In October 2006, the Toronto Arts Council Foundation hosted, in collaboration with Canada Council for the Arts and Department of Canadian Heritage and Usana Canada, The Creative City: Block by Block – Creators and Communities, an artist-led symposium for imagining neighbourhood change. Close to two hundred community arts practitioners, community agencies, funders, academics and researchers gathered to discuss the ways in which community arts adds radiance and energy to community settings.