Voices of the Community

"I have been used, abused and silenced within the nonprofit industrial complex... I'm not gonna take it anymore... I'm gonna get mine and my community's gonna get there's this year" - Nikko Kimzin, Kimzin Creative

In Part One of season two of Where Art Meets Impact highlight episode. This episode features inspiring voices from the 2024 California Arts and Culture Summit, which highlights, how artists and advocates tackle three major issues: legitimizing creative careers as real work, integrating arts into health systems, and empowering economic justice through entrepreneurship and guaranteed income. Learn how intentional funding, narrative shifts, and...

"When the community comes together, organizes, advocates, makes noise, and has a plan, we can change systems” - Richard Raya

Join host George Koster for part two of our Arts for a Better Bay Area highlights as ten visionary guests tackle some of the big issues facing San Francisco and our arts organizations and creative workforce; Such as downtown vacancies, converting offices into affordable artist homes, changing Hotel Tax Funding of the arts via reforms ensuring transparent hotel‑tax dollars, and showcasing the impact of arts in economic development of neighborhoods like the Mid‑Market along with providing direct grant...

We must disrupt and rebuild; our task is to shift how society thinks through art” - Ralph Remington

Part one of this special episode, in collaboration with Arts for a Better Bay Area, delves into the discussions and insights from the 2023 State of the Arts and Culture Organization Summit. Host Eric Estrada and summit reporter Isa Nakazawa bring you the voices of key panelists and attendees who are shaping the future of the arts in the Bay Area. 

Guests:

Arts Equity, Advocacy, Impact

"Artists, cultural bearers, creatives are essential contributors to the economy… so that arts are not a luxury, arts are not a hobby" – Ron Muriera

This episode of Where Art Meets Impact features Kristen Sakota, Michael Alexander, Ron Muriera, Meghna Bhat, and Josiah Bruny, discussing arts advocacy, economic empowerment, storytelling, arts and health, and youth leadership. They offer solutions including increasing arts funding, strengthening community engagement, advocating for policy change, empowering youth through creative leadership, and integrating the arts into healthcare. Tune in to learn how these leaders are shaping the future of a...

"Artists must be at the center of decision-making, shaping policies and funding structures that directly impact their work and their communities” - Nataki Garrett

Show Guests

“So, if people need potable water, then we need to provide them with that. Or if people are looking for a job that we don't need to categorize that. We can start to put away our own judgment and provide them with the opportunity that they're putting in front of us versus us telling them, no, no, you need to go get treatment before you get a job”- Mary Carl

In Part Two of our “Finding Home” Live Show, experts and those with lived experience discuss the complexities of homelessness in San Francisco; Along with solutions, focusing...

"For the first time, we are centering artists in our work with an equity-centered, artist-centered cultural plan... with a big emphasis on affordable housing and live-workspace for artists” - Jonathon Glus, City of San Diego

In this engaging episode of Voices of the Community, we spotlight transformative policy wins and the visions shaping the future of California's arts and culture sector. Recorded live at the second annual California Arts and Culture Summit in Sacramento, this episode features highlights from a dynamic PechaKucha-style panel discussion moderated by Jennifer Laine, Executive Director of the San Benito County Arts Council.

"Our philosophy is simple: without rest, there is no healing. We open our doors so that people can have a safe space to rest, restoring a basic dignity often lost on the streets.”- Lydia Bransten

In Finding Home, host George Koster speaks with leaders from San Francisco-based organizations committed to supporting unhoused residents. This insightful conversation highlights the unique challenges and solutions surrounding homelessness, especially in a post-pandemic environment.

Featured Guests:  Mary Carl – Executive Director, Miracle Messages, Sammie Rayner – Co-Chief Executive, Community Forward SF, Erica Kisch – CEO, Compass Family Services, Meghan Freebeck – Director, Simply the Basics...

"It’s really important for arts advocates and tradition bearers, artists, and cultural organizations to participate in the visioning and guiding principle process in your community plan, to get named in the vision statement of the community" - Tracy Hudak

Join Tracy Hudak, Director of Field Engagement for California for the Arts, and Jackie Melendez, Assistant City Manager of the City of Chino, for an insightful discussion in "Casemaking for Collaboration." This episode explores the intersection of arts advocacy, economic development, and urban planning. 

Discover how artists, cultural organizations, and advocates can effectively engage with loc...

"We’re living through the greatest art heist of all time. Billions of images, data, and content were scraped illegally, impacting creative jobs, and AI is at the forefront of this transformation." - Nicole Hendrix

The creative economy is at a crossroads, grappling with issues of fair pay, technological disruption, and access to resources. The panelists in this insightful discussion offer solutions and strategies for artists and advocates to navigate these challenges and build a more sustainable and equitable future for the creative sector. 

As part of our co-production partnership with California for the Arts 2nd...

“So if you have not tapped into community members that you are serving, that you are working with, then you are missing a large, piece of the solution to your problems”. - Heather Heslep

Gentrification, displacement, the struggle for ownership... these are the challenges faced by many communities today. But what if art could be the key to preserving cultural heritage and building economic resilience? 

The panel discussion features Tamaira “Miss Tee” Sandifer, CEO & Founder of Studio T Arts & Entertainment, Arianna Chavez, Executive Director at Arte Americas, Roshaun Davis, Executive Director of CLTRE and Co-Founder of Unseen...

"At the structural level, we don’t make decisions based on evidence. If we did, we would have universal healthcare and basic income. The arts can be part of this shift” - Tasha Golden

Join Nefesha Yisra’el from California for the Arts as she introduces our second episode, featuring a powerful panel discussion on the intersection of arts and health. This episode is part of our exclusive interview series with California for the Arts and their second annual State of the Arts Summit.

Featured Speakers:

Moderator: Deborah Cullinan, Vice President for the Arts a...

 "Together we can create a world where arts and culture are recognized and invested in as essential to society, embedded in community life, and intersecting with broader policy change to reshape systems towards equity and justice." - Julie Baker

Join us as we kick off our second season, celebrating the vibrant and resilient arts and culture scene that shape our community. This season, we bring you highlights from the second annual California Arts & Culture Summit, organized by our partner California for the Arts, with the theme "Art Work is Real Work."

In our premiere episode, d...

"The interesting thing about a Land Trust is that it's a split title, we'll split the title and the land trust will own the land forever. And then we'll either sell or lease the housing or creative space on top of it to artists" - Meg Shiffler

Welcome to the finale of our series on affordable housing for the creative workforce, brought to you in partnership with Arts for a Better Bay Area and the State of the Arts Summit. This episode is the culmination of our journey, featuring innovative solutions and inspirational figures from the creative...

"The resilience that we have to live through booms and busts and pandemics and continue to serve the community, continue to drive foot traffic, continue to create economic opportunities for local people to have jobs and work and express themselves is just incredible. So if you're struggling with a storefront or a vacancy or empty space, just remember to think about the arts” - Julie Phelps

In this episode, we delve into our special series that charts the resurgence of the arts and culture sector from the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic. We're bringing together insights from th...

“It's about forcing the city to make sure that they build affordable housing. And there's lots of, programs that we have in the Citywide People's Plan that can make, huge steps towards, building affordable housing” - Dyan Ruiz

This episode is part of our ongoing Special Series on How the Arts and Culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pandemic. In our co-production of Arts for A Better Bay Area’s [ABBA] State of the Arts Summit on June 28th 2023 one of the breakout sessions was focused on the work in our community to develop affordable housin...

"I think the action and the continuity of the coalition from Prop S to Prop E went from 40 organizations to 140 organizations. That was something that was huge” - Vin Seaman

In this seventh episode of our series focusing on the arts and culture sector's recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we bring you highlights from the Co-Production of Arts For A Better Bay Area (ABBA) State of The Arts Summit, held at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th, 2023. The summit centered around rebuilding communities through the arts.

This episode features a community conversation fr...

“Bringing the scale of human life to the community again so that we can kind of start seeing our humanity and our everyday Experiences” - Melissa Abercrombie

This episode is from our November 4th 2023 live event co-production with the Petaluma Arts Center, our broadcast partners KPCA 103.3fm and Petaluma Community Access TV and BAVC Media. This special event was focused on exploring the question, “How Do Community Based Arts Organizations Secure Sustainable Funding?”  Our wonderful panel and audience members covered sub topics such as Exploring Different Business Models, Hybrid Productions - Live and Streaming, bringing arts organizations and gover...

“I think really being open minded and also really trusting artists is a really big, important factor because. Artists know what they're doing, at least when it comes to making the artwork, that's why people hire them and allow them to have the most creative freedom as possible, really. Usually allows the project to be as best as it can be or as good as it can be” - Meredith Winner

This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Meredith Winner the COO and Co-Founder of Building 180 and Managing Director and Co-Founder of Paint the Vo...

"So of course, the pandemic was a struggle for all of us, and so we all know the arts organizations are the first to close and last open, especially the performing arts are really still struggling" - Rachel Osajima

This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Fernando Pujals, the Deputy Director of the Mid-Market Business Association & Foundation and a great deep dive into how he and his team our supporting artists, arts organizations and leveraging the power of the arts to help bring back the Mid-Market neighborhood in our post pandemic world. 

"There's been a lot of talk about, how do you make this sustainable, and there's not one answer, but one piece that is core to that, is really galvanizing and cementing around this notion that arts and culture is already right here and we need to lean into it and value it and uplift it. And in that way it won't be able to be ignored'“ - Fernando Pujas

This episode is part of our special series on how the arts and culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pandemic and features voices from the Co-Production of...

"So looking at how do we build an ecology where affordable housing isn't just a place you stay, it's a place you stay and work and build a business and raise a family and, you know, build the economic resources,for the next step. " - Josh Simon

This episode is part of our special series on how the arts and culture sector is coming back from the Covid 19 pandemic and features voices from our co-production of Arts For a Better Bay Area’s State Of The Arts Summit on June 28th 2023. The focus of the summit was ho...

“One of the things that I, would say to this community coming from a repressed community is let’s turn to each other, not on each other. Let’s bond together, and find our commonality, not our differences. Because the enemy, I’ve seen the enemy in Arizona, and it is not us. So when we have small differences with each other, let’s recognize them for what that is, and let’s stop this San Francisco bickering that we’re famous for, and killing each other over really tiny differences. And let’s bond together over the big stuff because th...

"It's all about partnering artists with small businesses to create site specific installations and that way create more exposure both for the business and for the artists and also to revitalize those corridors" - Vanessa Wilson

This is our second episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit "Rebuilding Our Communities," on June 28th, 2023.

The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the importance of arts and culture and its impact on our communities and economy, as well as the under-funding and fragility...

“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen

This interview with Maria Jensen is part of our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023. You can watch the wonderful interview conducted by our roaming reporter team of Isa NakazawaJensen Jensenand Eric Estrada. 

You can listen to the full episode features the opening and keynote speakers made up of communit...

"A clean city is not what San Francisco is. San Francisco is a messy city. It’s politically messy, it’s diverse. It fights amongst itself. It is San Francisco and it’s never not gonna be. So, let’s lean into the right kind of messy of San Francisco and artists can get messy. So, let’s get messy." — Jonathan Moscone, Executive Director,California Arts Council

This interview with Jonathan Moscone is part of our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023. You can watch...

“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen

This is our first episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023 . This episode features the opening and keynote speakers made up of community leaders, poets, artists, administrators, government officials, and representatives from arts and culture organizations; who share their wonderful insights and recommendations on the rebuilding of our communities through...

"We wanna incentivize and give board love too. I think the board is often like the scary people or viewed as the scary people behind the curtains that are doing the work or maybe overseeing or assessing” - Michelle “Mush” Lee, Youth Speaks

Our first episode of the special series titled "Insights for Building Your Nonprofit Arts and Culture Board" features these three exceptional nonprofit arts and culture leaders, doing big ambitious things with their Boards:

• Michelle "Mush" Lee, Executive Director, Youth Speaks

• Julie Phelps, Executive Director, Counterpulse

• Meredith Suttles, Managing Director/CEO...

"There's still a lot of public resistance to the idea of giving people in homelessness cash, because, the public doesn't trust people in poverty or people in homelessness, I think that has to be corrected and addressed" - Dr. Jiaying Zhao

One of the topics we have focused on through our special Covid-19 series is our unhoused neighbors' lives by organizations and governments experimenting with providing cash transfers to unhoused community members. We are finishing up our special series on Covid-19’s impact on our nonprofits, small businesses, and local governments with this very informative and insightful in...

“I volunteer at a safe sober space. I serve on the board of a retreat for healing that happens once a year. I serve on the Board of StartOut which helps LGBTQ + entrepreneurs gain access to mentorship and resources and fundraising to increase our representation as founders of companies. I will always do this work, because these are the same kind of organizations that empowered me to have the life I lead today.” Jugal Patel

Throughout this special series on covid-19’s impact on our nonprofits, small businesses and local governments we have heard from numerou...

“It breaks my heart as a mother and a teacher almost the, majority of people who are unhoused are families with children. Sleeping in cars, sleeping in garages, and that these families, these moms and dads, aunts and uncles, they work, but again, they can't get enough together to secure safe and affordable housing”-Elizabeth Softky

Welcome to our annual holiday show and fundraiser. As we bring this year and our special series on Covid-19’s impact on nonprofits to a close, we wanted to go back to Episode One in the series when we introduced you to Mir...

"It’s the chemistry of people, who come from very different backgrounds, you have gay, transgender, straight, and different talents and different abilities coming together and making this music and magic"-Shavonne Allen

This episode features the voices of the founder of ABD Productions and the Sky Watchers Ensemble program, Anne Bluethenthal, along with the members of the Sky Watcher Ensemble, Shavonne Allen and Joel Yates who share about the power of people, from very different backgrounds coming together to make music and magic

To find out more about Skywatchers ensemble annual homeless person memorial vi...

“We provide education to encourage people to vote and participate in government”-Michelle Moritz

Welcome to our 2022 Election Show. Given all the propositions on both a State of California level as well as the usual too many propositions to understand on the City of San Francisco level we wanted to bring together two wonderful subject matter experts to help us better understand both the Pros and Cons of both State and City propositions. 

Our Elections 2022 show features the voices of two wonderful subject matter experts to help us better understand both the Pros and Cons of bo...

“The Compton, Cafeteria Riots and Felicia Elizondo's life living in the Tenderloin in the 1960s and trans sex workers who were fighting for their right to survive, connected with the ideas that were coming out of my mind”-Adrienne Price

In this our one hundredth episode of our special series on the impact of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic on our nonprofit's small businesses and local government, we reached back out to folks at Z Space to share with you how they have struggled through the pandemic to bring you a very unique show The Red Shades: A Tran...

“I think the, first one that stood out to me is unlike some other cities, the San Francisco city government, is not pushing for these downtown office to housing conversions”- Sarah Wright

This is part three of our three episodes exploring how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting San Francisco's downtown neighborhood and economy along with the efforts to address the issues in the reinvention of downtown San Francisco. As downtown San Francisco continues to struggle to come back from the Covid-19 pandemic one of the ideas that is being discussed is to convert office buildings into hous...

“San Francisco’s tax structures are incentivizing companies to, in some cases just move entirely out of San Francisco”-Anna Tong

This is part two of the three stories we are covering on how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the downtown of San Francisco and the efforts to address the issues and the reinvention of downtown San Francisco.

In this episode we feature the voices of two local reporters Anna Tong from the San Francisco Standard and Noah Arroyo from the San Francisco Chronicle who are doing some interesting and informative reporting on all of the is...

“I always say that music is a healthy thing that we do. It's something that we strongly believe that even the flowers and the plants and the trees really enjoy having music being played for them”-Mauro ffortissimo

One of the topics we’ve covered in our two plus years of producing this special series on the Covid-19 Pandemic’s impact on our community is the impact the pandemic is having on our live performing arts organizations. This episode features the voices behind the annual Flower Piano show in Golden Gate Park’s Botanical Garden.

Our featur...

“We heard of neighbors helping neighbors, of people dropping off food on their friends’ doorsteps, of mutual aid groups, of people becoming champions and ambassadors in their community and, showing the way to access resources and support”-Elena Fairley

As millions of families accessed and received billions of dollars of financial support from the US Federal Coronavirus Relief CARES Act Fund, millions of immigrant families were excluded from federal COVID-19 relief. Find out in our latest episode about how Mission Asset Fund [MAF] stepped up to create financial programs and support to help stabilize thousands of immigrant famili...

"I think that there is a recognition that we're all interconnected and that this area is important. It's essential for, the City and the region. I think that there is a, great opportunity for all these groups to come together and to build something great." - Chris Wright

This episode focuses on the impact the COVID 19 pandemic is still having on the city of San Francisco's downtown community area. Along with this businesses workers and visitors, the city of San Francisco, along with businesses and community leaders have developed studies plans and funding to attempt to reinvent...

"We are taking charge of our community. And Dr. Aboelata has coined this phrase years ago, healing our community from within. And we do have to look into ourselves to help heal what ills our communities"-Aquil Naji

Over the past two-plus years, our community health care centers have faced many challenges in an ever-changing landscape, forcing them to adapt and evolve their outreach and delivery of both health care and comprehensive wrap-around support services to the most at-risk members of our community. 

Welcome to our hour plus special discussion on the importance of our c...