BIHL HAUS ARTS
Creating Community through the Arts
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
As a community-based 501(c)3, Bihl Haus Arts (BHA) has developed and sustained programs that support its mission of “Creating Community through the Arts.” Each of its 3 primary programs nurtures artistic excellence & engagement in service of individual & community well being. The Gallery Series of exhibitions, performances, literary events and lectures highlights San Antonio’s diverse cultures, with a strong focus on women, Latin@ and LGBTQ communities. The annual On & Off Fredericksburg Road Studio Tour, a creative placemaking project, champions local artists & supports neighborhood development. BHA offers 2 arts education programs: Its pioneering nationally recognized “creative aging” GO! Arts program (f. 2007) provides art classes to older adults, yielding documented improved wellness in 2 published university studies (2012, 2017). In 2018, BHA launched Forward, Arts! for Veterans with PTSD, MST and depression, offering healing, wellness & community through arts engagement.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
GO! Arts Program
Creative Aging. During the week, free classes in diverse art disciplines are offered in the gallery to seniors (55+), mostly Primrose residents. This program, which we call GO! Arts after our affectionate term “Goldens” for the elderly participants, was begun at the suggestion of a resident who saw the isolation of many of her neighbors. We found an instructor to teach a painting class, launching what turned out to be a pioneering and now nationally recognized program in the burgeoning field of “creative aging.” Each year, 160 mostly low-income Hispanic women participate at the Bihl Haus. About 450/wk, totaling 1,000+ unduplicated clients/year at all sites, participate at 17 senior centers and residences citywide. Two studies by academic researchers, both reported in peer-reviewed publications, have demonstrated the wellness benefits of arts engagement through GO! Arts classes. The program continues to grow as these benefits are increasingly recognized. In the last year, BHA trained its instructors to work with older adults with Alzheimer’s disease; we now provide classes at the three Grace Place Centers.
Gallery Exhibitions
Contemporary Art. The historic George Bihl house at the Primrose Apartments at Monticello, on Fredericksburg Rd, is the venue for 5-6 exhibits each year. Since 2005, when the gallery opened, more than 700 artists, 65% of them women, have displayed work in over 100 exhibits. Each show is accompanied by gallery talks and performances. Total attendance is about 15,000 annually.
On & Off Fredericksburg Road Studio Tour
Cultural District. BHA organizes and presents the annual On & Off Fredericksburg Rd Studio Tour, featuring almost 80 artists who live and work in the seven adjacent neighborhoods along Fredericksburg Rd. Visitors are guided on the tour by a 100+ page catalog. The Tour helps fill a geographic void in San Antonio’s cultural life and enhances local neighborhood development. Bihl Haus has great potential to grow as a comprehensive cultural arts center, helping to anchor this emerging cultural district.
Forward, Arts!
Bihl Haus Arts launched “Forward, Arts!” in October 2018. This innovative program offers professionally taught drawing and painting classes free of charge, including all art supplies, to Veterans experiencing depression, Militry Sexual Trauma (MST) or who are clinically or self-diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The program is designed specifically to help Veterans transition out of the military to return to their homes, their missions and families. It is overseen by a 10-member steering committee of veterans and veteran service providers. Forward, Arts! is the only program exclusively serving Veterans through the visual arts in San Antonio.
The pilot phase of the project began in October 2018 with a core group of nine Veterans who attended weekly two-hour classes taught by a highly experienced Bihl Haus teaching artist. The initial program documented improvements in overall mental health. The spring and summer semesters serve(d) an additional 25 Veterans. Currently, participants are selected by our collaborating partner, Vet TRIPP (Veterans Team Recovery Integrative Immersion Process, http://www.vettriip.org/), from Veterans served through their programs. Our goal is to offer 10 classes in 50-week sessions to 360 veterans in 2020 in collaboration with additional veteran service organizations--we're currently in discussion, for example, with the Pink Berets serving women Veterans with PTSD and MST.
Where we work
Awards
Historic Preservation Award for innovative reuse of a historic building 2006
San Antonio Conservation Society
Programs of Excellence Awards-Expressive & Creative Arts 2013
NCOA National Institute of Senior Centers
Corporate Philanthropy and Nonprofit Award 2018
San Antonio Business Journal
Affiliations & memberships
National Guild for Community Arts Education 2017
SALSA (Successful Ageing and Living in San Antonio) 2017
The Nonprofit Council 2018
Texans for the Arts 2018
SA2020 2021
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 free registrants to classes
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Seniors
Related Program
GO! Arts Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Number of registrants is approximate.
Total number of classes offered
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Seniors, People of Latin American descent
Related Program
GO! Arts Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
In 2019, 38 art classes were offered in various art disciplines and multiple locations (senior centers and residences; Alzheimer's centers, veterans orgainzations) over 50 weeks annually.
Total number of exhibitions
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Exhibition sites include BHA's gallery (5-7/yr; due to COVID-19, only 4 exhibits were mounted); and semiannual exhibitions at multiple sites where education programs are offered; & off-site exhibits.
Number of veterans who report a decrease in depression
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Veterans
Related Program
Forward, Arts!
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Program of visual art classes (hands on art engagement) for veterans with PTSD, TBI, MTS and/or depression.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn 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?
By being agile and flexible, BHA managed to not only survive COVID-19, but to thrive. We explored new technologies, moving quickly from in-person to virtual realms. We focused first on GO! Arts and Forward, Arts! programs to help older adult and veteran clients maintain communication and support healthy practices. Now that the pandemic threat, we offer a new hybrid in-person/remote program to serve both independent-living and home-bound clients.
We postponed gallery exhibitions until late summer 2020 to study available tech solutions and establish a strategy for the way forward. Our first virtual exhibition, which featured four online events, including a virtual opening,and a 3D tour accessible on the BHA website, titled “Hot Pursuit” by Sabra Booth on climate change and gender identity, ran Aug-Oct. “Love & Death in Times of Pandemic" by artist and gay rights activist David Zamora Casas opened on Nov. 2 (Dia de los Muertos). It drew parallels between the HIV-AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics.
Long term, BHA will increase its organizational capacity and physical footprint in order to expand the successful core programs into new and emerging markets. Since it began at BHA in 2007 with a single art class, GO! Arts has expanded to 17 locations around the community serving 750+ unduplicated older adults a year. It is easy to envision BHA being part of an expansive landscape of therapeutic, artistic and community-based programs that have positive effects on seniors’ health and well-being. In five years, demand suggests it could be offered at virtually every senior community center and housing complex across San Antonio and South Texas.
Similarly, we anticipate tremendous demand for programming for veterans now being developed with the Forward, Arts! program. More than 2.6 million veterans have served in the Middle East since 9/11. Overall, an estimated three in ten have PTSD, MST (Military Sexual Trauma), TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and/or major depression. During the past two years, more active service men and women have lost their lives from suicide than from combat. BHA’s Forward, Arts! program helps ease vets’ emotional and physical pains through arts immersion. To further this aim, BHA collaborates with veteran service organizations, including Vet TRIIP, The Pink Berets (Boerne) and Art Spark Texas (Austin) who refer their clients to our program.
BHA aims to lay the organizational and funding groundwork to acquire an additional building close to the Bihl Haus. This would make an ideal site from which to offer expanded as well as new kinds of programming—additional education classes, and inter-generational programming with resident seniors and area at-risk children. It would provide urgently needed space for growing office needs (not available at the gallery) plus a second art gallery/performance space allowing BHA to expand the Gallery Series and related literary/music/film events (capacity in the Bihl Haus gallery is limited to 60 people).
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
1. Continue to produce and expand critically acclaimed Gallery exhibitions, education programs and On & Off Fred Road Studio Tours, making them more accessible through expanded remote programming.
2. Support artists economically by increasing the number of part-time local professional teaching artists employed by BHA's education programs and increasing stipends/honorarium to artists featured in exhibitions and associated activities.
3. Select diverse visual and cultural content by collaborating with renowned artistic advisors. Since 2005, when the gallery opened, more than 750 artists, 65% of them women and/or Latinx, have displayed work in over 100 exhibits. BHA also hosts workshops, lectures and literary gatherings, and music, dance and theatrical performances, most of them free and open to the public.
4. Run the education program and related activities with professional teaching artists identified through networking. In 2021 weekly 2-hour remote and in-person classes are offered at 17 senior service centers and residences across San Antonio. These include Advanced and Basic Painting; Drawing and Printmaking; Collage Journal; Creative Writing; Mixed-Media; Crafts; and Yoga.
5. Stimulate economic revitalization by continuing to operate our unique nonprofit public Gallery in Monticello Park, which is surrounded by vibrant neighborhoods of artist residents and cultural entrepreneurs. BHA promotes creative placemaking in surrounding neighborhoods (Jefferson, Woodlawn Lake, Los Angeles Heights, Keystone, Beacon Hill, and Alta Vista) through its signature annual On & Off Fredericksburg Road Studio Tour. More detail are on the BHA website.
6. Continue to develop fruitful collaborations by participating in city-wide events like Fotoseptiembre, Poetry Month SA (April) and Contemporary Art Month (March).
7. Leverage relationships with social service nonprofit partners, such as Vet TRIIP, the Pink Berets and Meals on Wheels.
8. Build on the success of the Forward, Arts! program to garner additional support, add classes to serve more veterans, and collaborate with academic researchers to evaluate the ability of arts engagement to reduce stress in veterans with PTSD, MST and depression and bring measurable benefits to participants.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
1. BHA is spearheaded by experienced leaders and staff.
2. Experienced professional teaching artists, many with MFAs, ensure the quality of the curriculum for both education programs.
3. A large cadre of volunteer workers. More than $136,000 worth of in-kind services in 2020 enabled BHA to amplify the value added from donated dollars and grant funding.
4. Effective governance from an active, committed Board of Directors. In 2018, the board participated in Strengthening Nonprofits activities supported by a grant from the SA Area Foundation. These included board training and strategic planning.
5. BHA's stability is enhanced by an identifiable historic location within a burgeoning cultural destination located in a Downtown gateway. BHA has helped stimulate these improvements through its ongoing operations.
6. BHA’s continuing funding through the City of San Antonio’s Departments of Arts & Culture and Human Services demonstrates confidence in our fiscal management.
7. BHA uses the social enterprise business model–seeking revenue streams through fees for service and sale of artworks–to increase earned income to support operations and programming. BHA receives fees for services from WellMed to provide GO! Arts activities for its clients at 3 senior centers, the City of San Antonio Dept. of Human Services at 9 centers and Merced Hosuing Texas. Effective collaborative partnerships with social services agencies and interdisciplinary networking allow BHA to maximize return on a donors’ or funders’ investment.
8. BHA enjoys strong support from San Antonio city officials, city and state arts council evaluators and other arts-related nonprofits.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
1. Accomplished: A small paid staff of full-time ED plus seven contracted teaching artists earned the 2013 NISC Programs of Excellence Award in the Expressive and Creative Arts category for GO! Arts. In 2018, BHA won the San Antonio Business Journal award for Small Nonprofits.
To do: BHA needs to add three new members to the board of directors, providing professional expertise, relations in the community, capacity to provide financial support, and making possible the organization of functional committees within the board such as in fund development.
Likewise, BHA needs to expand paid staff, especially add a full-time Director of Education to manage the expanding education programs, an operations manager, and a development manager.
2. Accomplished: In 2006, the project to create the Bihl Haus Gallery as part of the construction of The Primrose at Monticello Park Senior Housing (now called The Sorento) was awarded the SA Conservation Society Award for restoration and innovative reuse. An eyesore became a vital community arts center. It also continues as a motivating force in community efforts to revitalize the Deco District business corridor on Fredericksburg Road where Bihl Haus Arts is located. Essential renovations to the Bihl Haus building were completed in 2020-21.
To do: Take advantage of networking with city planners and developers to: a) enlarge our physical space through capital purchases to house an expanded gallery, studio work areas, and showrooms, and b) after additional staff have been hired, expand inter-generational programming.
3. Accomplished: A research study by UT Heath SA and UTSA faculty of GO! Arts, published in 2012, overwhelmingly proved positive impacts, including reduction of isolation effects and mental health challenges. The study concluded that funding policy for senior residential complexes and nursing homes should explicitly include ongoing opportunities for creative arts classes. A second published study in 2017 confirmed these findings.
To do: Build new cross-funding partnerships. BHA envisions being part of an expansive civic landscape of therapeutic, artistic and community programs. BHA plans to extend the GO! Arts model to other senior centers and independent senior living complexes by utilizing existing relationships and developing new ones with social service providers and interested for-profit businesses. BHA will also expand its remote programming to home-bound older adults and for veterans in partnership with Vet TRIIP, The Pink Berest of Boerne and Art Spark Texas (Austin).
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?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, It is difficult to get honest feedback from the people we serve, It is difficult to identify actionable feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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.
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.
BIHL HAUS ARTS
Board of directorsas of 01/12/2023
Dr, Adelita Cantu
Univerity of Texas Health San Antonio
Term: 2022 - 2025
Adelita G Cantú
University of Texas Health Science Center of San Antonio
Jill Fleuriet
Department of Anthropology University of Texas at San Antonio
Michael Imbimbo
Michael Imbimbo Architects, Inc.
Philip Valente
UTHSCSA Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Pathology
Ed Acuna Cody
Retired
Rey Garza
Rey Garza Real Estate
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? 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
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 08/30/2019GuideStar 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 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 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 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 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.