Annual Kansas Arts Councils Symposium
The 2023 Kansas Arts Councils Symposium builds on the momentum and excitement of the first two symposiums in 2021 and 2022. The Symposium was created to bring together emerging and established arts councils and organizations from around the state of Kansas to facilitate professional development, partnership, and celebration of the arts in our communities. In 2023, the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission and Salina Arts & Humanities are hosting the Symposium. It will take place on October 11th and 12th, 2023 at Homewood Suites in Saline, Kansas. Please contact sah@salina.org with any questions. The deadline to register for the 2023 Symposium is Thursday, October 5th!
Past Symposiums:
2022 Symposium Keynote Speaker
Jun-Li Wang: Associate Director of Programs, Springboard for the Arts
Jun-Li Wang is a connector of people, places and ideas. As Associate Director, Programs, Wang leads strategy and programs at Springboard for the Arts with a focus on partnership development and community building. Based in Saint Paul and Fergus Falls Minnesota, Springboard works locally and nationally at the intersection of arts and economic and community development, helping local artists and communities thrive together. Our mission is to support artists with the tools to make a living and a life, and to build just and equitable communities full of meaning, joy and connection.
Wang has extensive experience in asset-based community development, community organizing, neighborhood leadership, workshop curriculum design and implementation, and training. For the past 10 years, she created and led Springboard’s Community Development program, including Irrigate, a nationally-recognized creative placemaking program designed to train and support local artists to address community challenges. She recently completed her third toolkit for Springboard, the Handbook for Artists Working in Community. In recent years, Wang has served on the Saint Paul Planning Commission, the Metropolitan Council Livable Communities Advisory Committee, and the board of Urban Boatbuilders, a metro non-profit serving at-risk youth. Wang holds a BA from Vassar College and MPS in International Development from Cornell University, and though she has lived in Minnesota longer than any other place, some of her heart remains in Berkeley, her childhood home. When time permits, Wang is a craft artist with guerrilla art aspirations.
Keynote Theme: CREATIVE PEOPLE POWER: A Natural Resource for Building Community Vitality
Community change requires the creativity to imagine what could be and the ability to turn ideas into reality. Art and culture have unique capacity to bridge differences, build social connections and imagine new futures. To generate creative people power in our communities we need to ensure that our local policies and practices support people’s creativity, sense of agency, and basic well-being and we need to build strong relationships and networks across different parts of the community. Jun-Li Wang will share stories and tools from the work of Springboard for the Arts to illustrate the potential of a creative people power approach to arts and culture.
“Empowering arts industries workers, arts councils, and arts organizations in their work.”
2022 Pre-Symposium Workshops
Fundraising 101
Fundraising is vital to the arts, and the people who support our arts are at the center. They are incredibly important to what we do and sustain the arts in our communities. In this session Jennifer Wampler, CFRE, gives an overview of the different areas of fundraising including grant writing, events, and individual giving. She will also provide some practical information you can start using immediately. Most importantly, she will answer YOUR questions about fundraising.
Facilitator:
Jennifer Wampler, MBA, CFRE
Chief Development Officer
Kansas City Ballet
Jennifer Wampler is currently Chief Philanthropy Officer at Kansas City Ballet where she was instrumental in raising $38 million for the Todd Bolender Center for Dance & Creativity, the first permanent home for Kansas City Ballet. The organization is currently half way through a $30 million endowment campaign. Prior to her work at the Ballet, Jennifer was Sr. Director of Development for the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance where she successfully raised $48 million for the construction of a new facility for the Conservatory. She is a past president of the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, is a Certified Fund Raising Executive and a Senior Fellow at the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership at UMKC. She was appointed to the Lenexa Arts Council 2012, is Chair of the Advisory Board for the Arts Council of Johnson County and is a board member for the Missouri Citizens for the Arts. Jennifer earned a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from Iowa State University and an MBA in non-profit management from the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at UMKC.
Understanding and Navigating Implicit Bias
Unconscious bias (or implicit bias) is often defined as prejudice or unsupported judgments in favor of or against one thing, person, or group as compared to another, in a way that is usually considered unfair. It is also something that is very common for most of us because our brains make split-second decisions and without realizing it, we can engage in beliefs or behaviors that may result in unintentionally causing harm. This workshop is intended to help increase awareness and create an action plan to help disrupt our own biases.
Facilitator:
Ghadeer Garcia
Co-Founder
Ally Lab
Ghadeer M. Garcia was born in rural Kansas to a happily wed couple. Her midwestern mother and immigrant father raised Ghadeer and her two siblings with a sense of traditional values and very deep familial ties. After many years moving through small towns in Kansas, her family finally settled in Kansas City, MO. At the age of 15, Ghadeer found herself embarking on a new cultural experience as a high-schooler in an unfamiliar town. She graduated from Southwest High School and went on to complete her literature degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Of her parents’ three children, Ghadeer is the eldest – the other two siblings, a brother who lives in Delaware and a sister who resides in Kansas enjoy having the best big sister in the universe.
Her career has taken her through several sectors such as nonprofit, corporate, and even legal and entrepreneurship. Currently, she is the co-founder of Ally Lab, a component of idealect. Ghadeer’s work lives at the intersections of education, human development, diversity and inclusion, equity and belonging. She is passionate about creating and building understanding through kinship and humanizing interactions.
In addition to her professional life, Ghadeer believes in deliberate and purposeful action to create necessary change, which is why she is so passionate about her work and civic engagement. Some of her strengths lie in making connections and building relationships across networks to create meaningful associations that serve many, not just a few. Ghadeer has served on the board of the Linwood YMCA, 2020 Youth Leadership, the OwenCox Dance Company board, and Goodwill of Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas, as well as been a volunteer for various other nonprofits and community groups. She is a graduate of Central Exchange’s AHEAD Program, the KC Civic Council’s Kansas City Tomorrow Leadership Program, and 2020 honoree of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City’s Most Wanted Auction. Not only is she a serious networker, Ghadeer is a fun-loving theme party thrower who enjoys cooking, travel, and more than anything else in this life, being mother to her two hilarious, brilliant, precocious teenagers.
Breaking Down How to Speak Up: Influencing Decision Makers Through Communication
You will never get a seat at the table if you wait for an invitation. You must knock on opportunity’s door, ask to be seated, then start talking… and listening. Creating change through communication can be as simple as a casual conversation or as complex as a coordinated campaign. Join Arts North Carolina Executive Director Nate McGaha as he breaks down how to speak up for your cause or yourself and make a case to decision makers that provides context and compels action. Participants will gain understanding in how to craft a persuasive narrative using their own experiences and apply it to practical situations to affect change in their lives and communities.
Facilitator:
Nate McGaha
Executive Director
Arts North Carolina
Nate McGaha has served as the Executive Director of Arts North Carolina, the statewide advocacy organization for the arts, since 2017 where he works for public funding and policy for the arts and arts education. He helped to create the Joint Caucus on Arts and Arts Education at the NC General Assembly, shepherded the NC Arts High School Graduation Requirement into law, and has led several statewide initiatives for relief, reopening, and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to his work in advocacy, Nate was the Executive Director of Carolina Ballet in Raleigh for five years with Artistic Director Robert Weiss. Before coming to the Raleigh area he was the Director of Operations at Charlotte Ballet under the Artistic Direction of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride for seven years after serving as that company’s Resident Lighting Designer since 1996. Nate was also the Production Manager and Lighting Designer for the Chautauqua Ballet Company in the summer months from 1997 through 2009 and toured internationally with Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson’s Complexions Dance Company. He is a graduate of UNC School of the Arts where he received a BFA in Design and Production with concentration in Lighting Design.
2022 Symposium Planning Committee
Kate Allen, Committee Chair: Vice President, Institutional Advancement & Government Affairs, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park
Stacy Barnes: 547 Arts Center, Greensburg
Lindsay Benacka: Director, Division of Arts & Cultural Services, Wichita
Allison Bowman: Administrative Assistant, Arts Council of Johnson County, Overland Park
Natalia Herrera: Director of Communications, ArtsKC, KCMO
Kathy Liao: ArtistINC Program Officer, Mid-America Arts Alliance, KCMO
Anna Pauscher Morawitz: Operations & Development Manager, Salina Arts & Humanities, Salina
Veronika Nelson: Arts & Humanities Programmer, Hutch Rec, Hutchinson
Karl Pratt: Executive Director, Main Street Arts Council, Hoxie
Liandro Rodriguez: Director of Marketing, Garden City Arts, Garden City
Sam Smith: Director of Communications, Kansas Leadership Center, Wichita
Sarah VanLanduyt: Executive Director, Arts Council of Johnson County, Overland Park
Kate VanSteenhuyse: Chief Programs Officer, Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, Topeka
Jennifer Wampler: Chief Development Officer, Kansas City Ballet, Lenexa