Creative Art Works
Equip. Connect. Inspire.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
New York City youth, and particularly in under-resourced communities and communities of color, lack equitable access to meaningful arts education and artistic experience that contributes to the development of the whole child.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Out-of-School-Time Programs
Out-of-school-time (OST) programs provide students with enriching, educational, dynamic arts-based activities outside of the regular school day. Programs are designed to build confidence, while enhancing creativity and critical thinking, thereby encouraging greater engagement in school, including stronger attendance and improved academic performance. Encompassing after-school, weekend, and vacation programs our youth develop and stretch their artistic, technical, and social-emotional skills in safe, creative, and engaging environments. CAW served over 300 participants with 11 out of school time programs with 7 partners during OST programs in FY23.
Public Art Youth Employment Program
Young adults 14-24 years old are given full-time summer jobs and part-time after-school jobs to create large-scale public art works and multimedia projects including videography, photography, and creative writing for a digital audience. In addition to technical art-making skills our youth apprentices gain tangible employment skills and experience as well as general life skills such as leadership, teamwork, responsibility, and problem-solving. By the end of the program, our young artists feel empowered seeing the permanent accomplishment that is their mural or multimedia project and its positive impact on the community. In FY23 CAW provided 263 Youth Apprenticeships.
In-School Programs
CAWs in-school programs aim to mitigate the lack of arts education in many NYC public schools by providing an arts-based or integrated curriculum during the school day. Professional teaching artists collaborate with school teaching staff and administrators during semester- or year-long residencies to help them meet mandated arts education requirements and align lesson planning with core curriculum, with demonstrated impacts on school engagement, attendance, and performance. Curricula are designed in accordance with the National Core Arts Standards, New York State Learning Standards for the Arts, and the New York City Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts. CAW served more than 1100 students with arts integration and arts education programs during 13 programs with nine partners in the 2022-2023 academic year.
Community Art-Making
CAW provides youth-oriented, interactive art-making projects in the context of larger public events with partner organizations. Workshops and public art tours are designed to empower youth to connect with their communities, to explore unique perspectives, and to allow them to experience and celebrate the power of art. In FY23, CAW facilitated six in-person community art-making events, serving over 220 participants.
Where we work
Awards
Civic Betterment Award 2012
BOMA
Affiliations & memberships
National Guild for Community Arts Education 2023
NYC Arts in Education Round Table 2023
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of children served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Young adults, Adolescents, Children, At-risk youth, Economically disadvantaged people
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Participants aged 4-24 in our four core programs.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
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?
CAW seeks to improve and enhance the lives of underserved, under-resourced New York City youth by leaving them more civically engaged and better prepared for college or career, with greater confidence in themselves and with optimism for the future. Working in underserved neighborhoods of New York City in public schools, community centers, juvenile detention facilities, parks, and libraries, CAW provides dynamic creative youth development opportunities for young people who otherwise lack access. CAW operates four key programs, serving a range of ages from 4-24, all designed to build self-confidence, unlock a love of learning, enhance creative and critical thinking, improve cooperation, leadership, public speaking, and job skills; and to deepen the relationship between art, youth, and community. These core programs, serving approximately 3,700 participants per year under normal operations, include out-of-school time programs (after school and on Saturdays), in-school programs (integrated learning as well as art education), community art-making events, and our renowned Public Youth Art Employment Program.
Our participants are from the underserved neighborhoods of New York City, primarily in Upper Manhattan including East Harlem, West Harlem, El Barrio, Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, and Inwood, and recently include select programs in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. 99% of the youth we serve are of color and over 97% are living in poverty. They struggle with challenges of illiteracy, recent immigration, foster care, homelessness or transitional housing, language barriers, incarceration (prior, current, or that of a parent or close family member), an overall lack of resources, and/or a cycle of low expectations. CAW works to leverage the benefits of arts education and creative youth development to give our students and youth employees the tools they need to succeed in the face of these challenges.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
CAW seeks to improve and enhance the lives of under-resourced NYC youth through our four core programs: Public Art Youth Employment, Out-of-School-Time, In-School, and Community Programs. As a creative youth development organization, our programs are developed, planned, and executed as a combination of a strengths-based approach to youth development and deep engagement and skill building in the arts. By combining practical job skills and social-emotional learning with quality arts education, we give our students and youth apprentices a unique set of tools they can use to succeed in school, their communities, and the workforce. Whether teenagers are creating large-scale commissioned public artworks or elementary school students are learning techniques in printmaking for the first time, young people involved with CAW are exposed to responsive, student-led curricula; artistic expertise; strong mentorship; and high expectations. Research into similar models of creative youth development has shown cognitive and linguistic benefits to arts participation as well as an association between arts involvement, academic success, and pro-social behaviors.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
CAW has been improving the lives of underserved NYC youth since 1986, when our organization was founded as Creative Arts Workshops for Homeless Kids." Our founders developed workshops emphasizing creativity, building self-esteem, and fostering powerful mentoring connections between children, their communities, and the volunteers. This guiding philosophy has endured over the course of 38 years and informs all of CAW's current initiatives, and our continued presence in the NYC creative youth development field manifests itself in lasting partnerships and relationships with the education, non-profit, government, and for-profit sectors.
In the past decade, CAW has refined its mission and program efficacy; improved its corporate governance, infrastructure, operations, and financial reporting; and diversified sources of funding. The organization currently operates out of donated office space with ten full-time core staff members who administer and help implement programs, managing dozens of professional part-time teaching artists, student interns, youth employees, and a network of hundreds of volunteers. CAW recruits its teaching artists and teaching artist assistants from the vast pool of talent in New York City, placing an emphasis on identifying those with education and/or youth development experience in addition to being accomplished in their respective disciplines. Many are bilingual English/Spanish.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Evaluations have consistently shown that participants develop art skills and enhance academic behaviors and/or increase professionalism; perceive that they make a contribution to the workplace and larger community; develop a positive relationship with adult role models; and report learning how to solve or examine problems.
Demonstrated outcomes include improved job skills (proven track record and increased employability, punctuality, teamwork, public speaking, understanding of client services, and positive work ethic); social-emotional skills/academic behaviors (persistence through set-backs, communication/collaboration skills, engagement); technical art skills (creative thinking, giving and receiving feedback, increased artistic ability and appreciation for the arts); and community engagement (benefits of earned income, pride, community beautification, and perception of community stakeholders as an asset). Communities benefit from the activation and beautification of public spaces as well as a frequently-seen reduction in crime in the immediate area.
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
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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 aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome
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.
Creative Art Works
Board of directorsas of 03/04/2024
Mr. Andrew Levin
BXP
Mr. Brian Ricklin
Creative Art Works
Term: 2007 -
Andrew Levin
BXP
Mosley Chaszar
Microsoft
Neil Goldmacher
Newmark Knight Frank
Julia Sanabria
Lowenstein Sandler
Steven Soutendijk
Cushman & Wakefield
Andrew Stern
Gensler
Angela Pennyfeather
Gail Holcomb
JPMorgan Chase
Tiffany Theriault
Apollo Global Management
Janet Woods
Savills
Brian Ricklin
Creative Art Works
Lauren Cascio
Meta
Cary Levy
J.T. Magen
Charmaine Murray
Newmark Knight Frank
Scott Corneby
Structure Tone
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 ? No -
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? Yes
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
Disability
We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.
Equity strategies
Last updated: 11/12/2021GuideStar 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 disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- 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 help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- 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.