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ArtPlace America’s $2.8 Million Midwest Impact

DATE

December 19, 2019

An astonishing $2.8 million. That’s the magnitude of the impact that ArtPlace America has made in Minnesota, South Dakota and the 23 Native nations sharing that geography in just the past six years.

Launched in 2011 and due to phase out in 2021, ArtPlace America is a 10-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies and financial institutions to strengthen the social, physical and economic fabric of communities by positioning arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development. In short, ArtPlace is founded on the belief that we should stop asking what communities can do for the arts, and start asking what the arts can do for our communities.

Like the Bush Foundation, ArtPlace has strong roots in this region, and has from its very beginning, with both the McKnight and Knight Foundations as founding partners.

In addition to its nationwide reach, ArtPlace has funded more than two dozen projects across this area since its inception, and the Bush Foundation’s five-year $2.5 million investment is instrumental to the four new regional projects that are receiving support from ArtPlace’s National Creative Placemaking Fund in 2017. Here are the investments they’ve made thus far:

2016
Cheyenne River Youth Project, Eagle Butte, SD, $325,000
Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis, MN, $350,000
Region 5 Development Commission, Little Falls, MN, $440,000
Thunder Valley CDC, Porcupine, SD, $500,000

2015
Art Shanty Projects, White Bear Lake, MN $100,000
First Peoples Fund, Kyle, SD, $385,000
West Broadway Business & Area Coalition, Minneapolis, MN, $200,000

2014
City of New London, MN, $262,500
Juxtaposition Arts, Minneapolis, MN, $500,000
Pangea World Theater, Minneapolis, MN $120,500
Springboard for the Arts-lake Region Office, Fergus Falls, MN, $100,000

2013
Bedlam Theatre, St. Paul, MN, $350,000
Can Can Wonderland, St. Paul, MN, $350,000
Lanesboro Arts, Lanesboro, MN, $313,000

2012
Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN, $325,000
Native American Community Development Institute, Minneapolis, MN, $435,000
Pillsbury House + Theatre, Minneapolis, MN, $250,000
Public Art St. Paul, MN, $300,000

2011
Springboard for the Arts, St. Paul, MN, $750,000
The Heritage Center Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, SD, $110,000,

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