Funding Areas: Arts Education

Ryman Arts teaches classical drawing and painting to talented and motivated high school students as a bridge to a lifetime that expresses and appreciates the arts.

Santa Monica Youth Orchestra (SMYO) offers tuition-free music programming to young people of all ages and backgrounds, facilitating their access to music education, musical instruments, and the experience of performing with an orchestra and choir. The program encourages diversity, cross-cultural understanding, cooperation, and peer mentorship in the Santa Monica community.

Scholarship Application Performance Preparatory Academy (SAPPA) is a music and arts preparatory and outreach program designed to increase community awareness and transform the lives and minds of at-risk youth through music training and personal development. Through the Watts Willowbrook Conservatory, SAPPA focuses on areas of the community with high percentages of at-risk youth who are often unable to afford formal music instruction.

The GRAMMY Museum mission is to explore and celebrate the enduring legacies of all forms of music; the creative process; the art and technology of the recording process; and the history of the GRAMMY Awards. We seek to educate all Museum visitors and members on the continuing cultural significance of popular and classical music. Beyond this, our education mission uses music as a gateway to learning; inspiring and cultivating creativity, critical thinking and self-expression.

The Harmony Project’s mission is to promote the positive development of children through music, to build healthy communities, to develop children as ambassadors of peace, hope, and understanding. Since 2010, as part of the Take PART initiative, the Foundation has provided increased support to establish and maintain the Harmony Project Regional Youth Orchestra, which brings students together from the Lennox, Lawndale, and Wiseburn school districts and provides instruments, music instruction, and the opportunity to perform together as part of an orchestra.

Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community. Support from the Foundation has enabled Homeboys to sustain a range of arts education programs and build capacity of its social enterprises.

Contra-Tiempo creates physically intense and politically astute Urban Latin Dance Theatre work that moves audiences to reimagine what is possible, and to engage communities as active participants and witnesses of arts experiences tied to their humanity.

Dream A World Education provides a unique, high quality early childhood arts education that supports academic development, social-emotional learning and an understanding of cultural diversity. Serving schools in low-income communities.