An example of a rural project that excites regional collective impact by connecting community powered media and convenings to ne media strategies and digital research.

1. Leveraging Change:
Increasing Access to Rural Arts Education

2. What is Leveraging Change?
Our long-term goal
is to increase
access to arts
education in rural
areas.

3. What makes the Berkshires like
other rural areas?
● Shrinking population
● Small schools
● Economic
disadvantages
● Geographic barriers

4. What distinguishes the
Berkshires?
● Significant cultural
assets
● Higher education
institutions
● Tourism industry

5. Research:
Original Conception to New Reality
•Research to identify
promising practices
and exemplars
•Scan of literature
•Shift to interviews with
key stakeholders
PROJECTSTEP1:
RESEARCH

6. Creative Youth Development
Convening April 2015

8. Issues for Arts Education Access
in the Berkshires
Insufficient:
• communication
mechanisms
• regional focused
collaboration
• Public
transportation

9. Themes from the Literature/Interviews
Challenges
• Geographic distance (getting from place to place for opportunities, for
training, for access to programs)
• Poverty and lack of economic opportunity
• Lack of access to funders/funding
• Lack of public transportation
• Out migration of youth
• Out migration of industry
• Technology challenges (lack of broadband)

10. Assets
• Rural Areas also have assets that set them apart from more urban areas
• Strong relationships
• Space
• Environmental beauty and features
• Unique contextual features

11. Promising Practices
The creation of networks
• Collective Impact focused
• Built on local contexts (cultural, etc.)
• Cross sector collaboration
• Innovative backbone organizations (higher education, business, state
agencies, collectives)
• Professional development as a method of relationship and capacity building
• Development of leadership as a catalysts
• Strong communication mechanisms to relevance

12. Build on rural assets
• Environmental features
• Strong relationships
• Cultural context
• ,Area offerings
Promote the facility and comfort with collecting and analyzing data
Use of Data
• Understand trends
• Advocate
• Engaging multiple stakeholders in reviewing, understanding data

13. Rethinking the backbone organization
in rural areas:
• Identifying single organizations with capacity to serve in this role can be
challenging
• Networks need to share the work and make the commitment to
“collaboration of a different kind”
• Collaborating backbone partners Should emerge from the specific context

15. Local as Lever for Larger Impact
“The Berkshires
have terrific
assets. We need
alignment.”
-Jake Eberwein, Graduate Dean, MCLA
Former Superintendent, Pittsfield MA
COMMON
AGENDA

16. Leveraging Higher Education“Collaborating”
BACKBONE
ORGANIZATION

17. MCLA’s Important Role in
Communication
• Convenings
• Student involvement
(blogs, etc.)
• Creation of training
participant network
• Connecting to other
Berkshire initiatives
CONTINUOUS
COMMUNICATION

18. Convening & Connecting
Stakeholders
• Teaching artists
(Upcoming)
• Creative Youth
Development Providers
• Professional Learning
Network
• Berkshire Arts Education
Network
MUTUALLY-REINFORCING
ACTIVITIES

20. Short-term indicators
•Identification of baseline data
• Increased cross-sector
collaboration in support of
arts education in Berkshires
• Increase in convenings and
communication about arts
education
SHARED
MEASUREMENT

21. Long-term outcomes
• Increase in access to arts education in
region
• Increase in financial support for arts
education in the region.
• Increased cross sector collaboration in
support of arts education.
• Connect/share findings with rural arts
leaders
SHARED
MEASUREMENT

22. Identifying
Pilot Participants
•Invited participants
–District level
–Regional
PROJECTSTEP2:
PILOTTRAINING

23. Activating Research in Pilot TrainingPROJECTSTEP2:
PILOTTRAINING
Theoretical
Frames
• Design Thinking
• Collective Impact
• Arts partnership stages
of development
• Asset-based arts
development

24. We have invited a select group of participants, including yourself, to explore cross-sector collaboration as a
tool for increasing access to arts education in rural Berkshire County. Representatives of arts
organizations, educational districts, transportation, business, and social services in the Berkshires have
been invited to participate in this cross-sector exploration based on their experience with rural arts education
or commitment to the region.
We will tap your expertise to:
• activate strategies and develop a plan of action to leverage cross-sector approaches at the district and
regional levels in the Berkshires.
• invite and engage multiple perspectives to understand the opportunities/challenges for advancing arts
education in rural Berkshire County
• identify a variety of mechanisms for creating greater access to arts education in the rural Berkshires.

25. EMPATHIZE
DEFINE
IDEATE
PROTOTYPE
DESIGN THINKING
The process:
TEST

35. Nonprofit Collaborations
• Berkshire Nonprofit Business Network
• Berkshire Nonprofit Solutions
• 1Berkshire
• Berkshire Initiative for Growth (BIG)
• Berkshire Innovation Center (BIC)
• Berkshire Funders Roundtable
Children Youth and Family Support
• Berkshire Priorities (Pittsfield Promise, Chapter one, Our Towns, Our Kids, Our
Future):
• Face the Facts: Reduce Teen Pregnancy
• Berkshire Youth Development Project
• Berkshire Bridges Transformational Movement/Working Cities
Berkshire Strategic Work Group
Countywide Initiatives and Associations

36. Education
• Berkshire County Education Task Force
• Berkshire County Superintendents Roundtable
Health
• Berkshire Opioid Abuse Prevention Collaborative:
• County Health Initiative/ Berkshire Partnership for Health:
• Berkshire Public Health Alliance
Berkshire Strategic Work Group
Countywide Initiatives and Associations

37. Next Steps
•White paper summarizing results
•Presentations at regional gatherings
•Seeking continued funding for
expansion of program
PROJECTSTEP3:
IDENTIFYINGNEXTSTEPS

41. References
Berkshire Population Declining Rapidly
http://www.iberkshires.com/story/45538/BRPC-Berkshire-Population-Declining-Rapidly.html
Collective Impact by John Kania & Mark Kramerhttp://www.uw.org/our-work/collective-impact-article.pdf
Local as Lever image of Berkshire County: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=22285
Design Thinking Image: http://createdu.org/design-thinking/
Map of Berkshire, MA:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Map_of_Massachusetts_highlighting_Berkshi
re_County.svg/2976px-Map_of_Massachusetts_highlighting_Berkshire_County.svg.png
Change Just Ahead Image: https://rixxblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/change-is-inevitable/
Convening Stakeholders slide: http://www.artisteducators.org/
Collective Impact Images come from “Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work” Stanford Review.