Community Music Center of Boston
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Arts education agencies face urgent calls to better support students to thrive through artistic participation. For too long, youth arts programs have proven exclusionary and unresponsive to community needs. In particular, students of color, with disabilities, and from lower economic backgrounds tend to be underrepresented and excluded from full participation to their true potential. This gatekeeping has left our cultural institutions both less equitable and less excellent—and COVID has only exacerbated inequalities. While 85% of BPS' students are students of color, not even a handful of works displayed in our largest museums or performed on our largest stages are. In the Boston Creates Cultural plan, youth reported feeling unwelcome at cultural institutions—that many are simply "not for them". At the same time, the plan noted: "Boston youth seek opportunities to create, socialize around arts activities, and enliven public spaces in innovative ways." We view this as a call to action.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
School Programs
CMCB is proud to be one of the largest outside providers of arts education to the Boston Public Schools—providing rigorous, relevant, and culturally-inclusive musical instruction for one of the oldest and most diverse school districts in the nation. Each week CMCB teachers support school-day participation for 2,000+ students across over a dozen public schools, including general music, music therapy, strings, drums, songwriting, music production, and more. CMCB's historic partnership with the public schools began in 1978 at the height of Boston's busing crisis, supported by Chapter 636 funding, designed to foster integration and belonging through arts and culture initiatives. Over the years, our school program has been nationally recognized and used in part as the basis for major philanthropic initiatives like EdVestors "BPS Arts Expansion" program, which brought the number of K-8 youth receiving weekly, year-long instruction in BPS from 67% to 97% over 2009-2020.
Music Therapy
Since the 1950's CMCB has used music therapy to help groups and individuals with social, cognitive, physical and/or emotional challenges achieve clinical goals and quality of life. Music Therapy is the use of music to achieve non-musical goals, like well-being, communication, social-emotional development, and more. Our experienced professionals support over 500 individuals per week, both on-site at CMCB and in partnership with social services agencies and schools. In recent years, CMCB has begun a hybrid model placing music therapists and general music teachers side-by-side, which has proven extremely valuable for meeting the needs of our public school students. CMCB is now moving to a model where all our instruction can be positively influenced by board-certified music therapists, whether in the co-teaching models described above, or individual instruction in which teachers can benefit from the occasional guidance or expertise of their music therapist colleagues.
Community Music School
CMCB offers group and individual music instruction for students all ages and abilities, in over 30 instruments and in every style of music, including classical, pop, jazz, music theatre, hip hop, production, and more. We provide performance training, ensemble and orchestra coaching, technique classes, music theory and composition.
Arts-Sector Youth Workforce Development
Our Community Music School has become an important site for youth leadership development and arts-sector workforce development initiatives. We employ dozens of youth at a living wage of $18/hr to learn key workforce skills in administration, teaching, project design, finance, fundraising, and more. Our students play key roles in informing program design, sit on a student leadership council, serve on governance committees, and participate in job training programs. By helping youth equip themselves with in-demand skills in the arts sector, we ensure that our young people can blaze a trail into the arts—a sector accounting for $800B in GDP and over 5 million jobs in the US economy, but one that has struggled to attract and retain talented youth of color like the majority of CMCB’s staff and student body
Early Childhood & Summer Programs
Our Early Childhood Program is designed for children ages 5 months-7 years and supports the development of cognitive and social skills. Classes provide fun and formative programming, ushering in a lifelong love for music and preparing student for private instruction. Offerings include: LittleNotes (ages 5 months-2 years), Music and Movement (ages 3-5), and Beginning Instruments (ages 4-7), which offer group instruction in beginning piano, strings, or recorder. CMCB's summer programs offer daily instruction in music, dance, drama and visual arts plus a culminating final performance for kids and C.I.T.s ages 4-14.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts - Member 1937
Accrediting Commission for Community and Precollegiate Arts Schools (ACCPAS) 2008
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
CMCB is an arts education nonprofit, committed to providing supportive, joyful, inclusive arts experiences for 3,000+ students every week, with a network of 20+ partners throughout Boston. Acting as the largest outside provider of arts education to the Boston Public Schools, CMCB is frequently a first touchpoint in arts education for thousands of children and an indispensable part of the city’s artistic infrastructure. We are proud to be a leading provider of learner-centered, culturally-inclusive, and rigorous arts education for BPS—one of the oldest and most diverse school districts in the nation. We are honored to fulfill such an important artistic and pedagogical role, and prioritize caring and inclusive instruction for all.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To support young people’s growth and development, we deliberately center their voices and leave them room to influence projects. An important way for young artists to foster their leadership skills is to facilitate conversations where they are empowered to lead. This learner-centered model is so unusual that at first it can be unfamiliar and even unsettling for youth and adults alike, requiring intention and care. Done well, youth recognize the skills and assets they already bring as well as those they wish to nurture; they name their desired outcomes and are empowered to achieve them. This process alone proves extraordinary for heightening young artists' aspirations.
While there are many arts education nonprofits who can work with students with established skills and resources, CMCB stands out in our capacity to support every student in a school building to participate in music with joy and equity. Often acting as the first arts education touchpoint for thousands of students each year, at CMCB we prioritize cultural inclusion and a learner-centered approach to teaching.
An important part of our current work is to clarify our unique role in Boston’s arts ecosystem as a learner-centered arts education nonprofit that bridges opportunities between creative youth development opportunities and arts mastery-focused conservatory-style training models. CMCB’s new vision statement explicitly focuses on the importance of both performance and non-performance based post-secondary music careers, and CMCB is standing out as unique in our capacity to support students on a path to an arts conservatory or to roles in administration, arts policy, or leadership.
Millions of Americans have good livelihoods as artists; the problem is that artistic training is too narrow, and fails to equip young artists with the entrepreneurial skills necessary for it. With few-to-no workforce development programs supporting youth to forge their own entrepreneurial careers as artists, our arts sector fails to live up to what it could be. And, as often happens, haphazard and unreliable training only deepens existing disparities: students from marginalized backgrounds, who are least likely to benefit from existing networks of privilege, are pushed off a pathway to vibrant futures as cultural storytellers.
We believe the arts can be a driver of greater economic growth for all Bostonians, a supportive cultural industry that makes Boston a more attractive home, and an empowering force in the healthy social-emotional development of all young people—especially those from marginalized backgrounds.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
CMCB has long been an anchor for arts education in greater Boston—in fact, we were an original founding member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education—and in recent years our work and our people have become increasingly prominent on a national scale. For example, as a result of our work in arts education, social justice, and racial equity, staff and faculty leaders at CMCB are frequent invited speakers at national conferences or events led by agencies like the Sphinx, Juilliard, Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music America, the League of American Orchestras, YOLA, Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, Mass Cultural Council, and more. We have a talented and dedicated staff of 15 and a corps of 50 teaching artists, faculty, and music therapists. Faculty Instructional Leads play a supervisory role to help lead our team of teachers, and we invest over $20,000 annually in professional development and training. Our board is supportive and engaged, with active committee structures, robust participation and attendance, and a 100% give-or-get participation.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Community Music Center of Boston
Board of directorsas of 06/08/2023
Mr. Martin Thomson
James Piatt
Piatt Associates Inc., Architects
Martin Thomson
Board President
Brenda S Ross
Berklee College of Music
Andrea Kaiser
Bird Street Community Center (retired)
Kurt Hakansson
Haddad Hakansson Design Studio
Margaret Lam
Richard Dougherty
President, DMA Health Strategies
George Blount
Founder, nBalance Financial
Janet Bailey
Professor, BU School of Arts Management
Liz Beckhardt
Product Manager, IBM (retired)
Luke Blackadar
Deputy Director, Arts & Business Council Greater Boston
C. Thomas Brown
Partner, Ropes & Gray
Erica Brown
Chief of Policy & School Supports, Mass Charter Association
Betsy Hall
Executive Director, Associates of the Boston Public Library (ret)
Lynn Collins
Associate General Counsel, BlueCross BlueShield
Jill Hatton
Managing Director (retired), BlackRock
Tom Kuo
Investor; Partner (former), Berkshire Partners
Sandra Larson
Freelance Journalist
Cheryl Lu
Senior Manager, HubSpot
Myran Parker-Brass
Executive Director of the Arts (retired), Boston Public Schools
Ann-Marie Pucillo
VP, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Jonathan Saxton
Executive Search & Communications Consulting, SaxtonUS
Devon Wilson-Hill
Director of Annual Fund Giving, Shady Hill School
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 03/30/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.