Young Audiences of Indiana, Inc.
We empower youth in learning through the arts.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Arts for Learning values the right of every child to have access to the arts and the participatory creative experiences that unlock minds and expand lives. We believe that all young people need the opportunity to engage in quality arts learning experiences that nurture creativity, cultural awareness, and the development of critical thinking and creative learning skills. We are particularly committed to serving children who are culturally at-risk because of limited access to arts education. These children come from a variety of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, from both rural and urban communities throughout the state.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
ArtForce
ArtForce is a three-week summer apprenticeship program that introduces teens to the arts as possible collegiate and career paths. Through ArtForce, teens are exposed to a local college, where they participate in studio classes, connect with faculty and students, and engage in campus life prior to high school graduation. They also gain marketable skills by building portfolios under the guidance of professional, practicing artists. The program activities are led by veteran teaching artists, with special workshops and seminars are presented by college faculty, visiting artists, and guest speakers. During the third week of the program the apprentices connect the knowledge and skills they have been building and present their work in a gallery exhibition. The teens graduate from the program having built their capacities as artists as well as agents of change in their community, while earning a stipend and with the opportunity for future employment with Arts for Learning.
Wolf Trap
Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts is the flagship education program of Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. A nationally recognized leader in early childhood arts-based learning, Wolf Trap Institute trains early childhood educators to use the performing arts as a teaching strategy to engage children in active learning across curricula. Arts for Learning is proud to be Central Indiana Wolf Trap affiliate.
Wolf Trap residencies are 11-session workshops with teacher professional development. During a Wolf Trap residency, the teaching artist works in partnership with the classroom teacher, planning and delivering arts-integrated lessons in the classroom. The classroom teacher learns how performing arts strategies and techniques foster young students’ growth in all development domains. After the completion of the residency, the teacher will have acquired the skills necessary to embed arts strategies within their daily practices and apply them in their classes.
Fresh StART
Fresh StART is a youth-led, arts-based program to improve areas in and around school communities through art. One primary objective of Fresh StART is to strengthen a community’s sense of pride by stabilizing and improving an underused area, within or around the school, through the installation of public art inspired by ideas generated by students at local schools. Through project-based learning and design thinking, students engage in the full creative process to realize a permanent public artwork.
Target audience: Schools with little to no Arts programs.
third space
In the inaugural installment of third space, Arts for Learning partnered with six schools in the Indianapolis metropolitan area over the course of the 2019-2022 school years, interjecting art not only into the physical space but also into the curriculum. At each school, an artwork, created by an established local artist, was on display for one week, and served as provocation for students to discover, uncover, and construct their own meaning. The students, guided by their teachers and Arts for Learning teaching artists, were challenged to see things—from the space in which the artwork is sited to how learning typically occurs in the classroom—in new ways and to reflect and share their individual perspectives, to acknowledge the extraordinary and to experience surprise, wonderment, and curiosity.
Target audience: Arts for Learning is committed to serving all children, no matter their place, race, or identity, with quality creative learning experiences.
Summer Enrichment Through the Arts
Inspiring Scholars is a four-week summer enrichment program presented in partnership with Summer Advantage USA. The creative activities are designed not only to complement Summer Advantage academic curriculum but also to raise the students' teamwork skills and self-confidence in their abilities.
School Partnerships
School Partnerships are supported through grants and school matching funds. We work with educators to design a plan that combines our Signature Core Services (performances, workshops, residencies, and teacher professional development opportunities) to meet each school’s specific needs.
Arts & Literacy
Arts & Literacy is a year-long residency that utilizes a school’s reading and language arts curriculum as the basis for artist-led workshops, reinforcing reading and literacy goals. Teaching artists connect learning in the arts with students’ literacy lessons in the classroom, reinforcing student understanding of grade-level specific reading and ELA standards, increasing literacy growth, and emphasizing SEL competencies.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning 2020
Young Audiences Arts for Learning 1961
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of organizational partners
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of schools visited at least once
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of participants engaged in programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Number of unduplicated children served. 2020 total is reflective of decreased programming due to COVID-19. (Prior to 2016, numbers are duplicated.)
Average number of programs experienced per participant
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric relates to our total attendance. For example, in 2017 when we counted 49,703 unduplicated children, our total attendance was 91,548. On average then, each child experienced 1.8 programs.
Number of clients reporting increased knowledge after educational programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We began tracking this metric along with unduplicated attendance in 2016.
Average number of dollars per person served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Calculated by dividing program expenses by the total attendance.
Hours of expertise provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Dollar price per hour of expertise
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Excluding supplies, for visual artists, and cartage, for musicians.
Total number of performances
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Total number of workshops
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Excluding residency workshops.
Total number of residencies
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
A residency is defined as 4+ workshops at a site.
Percent of participants who come from low-income households
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We only began to track low-income (free/reduced price school meals) demographics in 2016.
Percent of participants who are racial/ethnic minorities
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Decreasing
Context Notes
We only began to track racial/ethnic demographics in 2016.
Number of teaching artists contracted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Average number of dollars received per donor
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
People with learning disabilities, People with physical disabilities, Ethnic and racial groups, Children and youth, Young adults
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Gift amounts and number of donors vary by year and whether or not there is a special event.
Number of donations made by board members
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Board members are requested to make an annual gift of at least $1,000 and purchase tickets for all Arts for Learning fundraising events. Number of board members dropped during Covid.
Number of grants received
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
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?
We have engaged with the national Young Audiences Arts for Learning office and other affiliates to create a platform from which all Arts for Learning programs are developed. Our Signature Core Services (performances, workshops, residencies, and teacher professional development) are participant-centered, outcome-based and measurably effective. Each of our programs are carefully constructed around the following Four Essential Elements: Those who participate in an Arts for Learning program will 1) experience the work of professional artists, 2) understand the art form in relation to the world around them, 3) create the art form themselves, and 4) connect the art form to other academic learning and life skill development.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We convene resources, provide programming, and work collaboratively with others to make the arts a part of every child's life and assure a significant presence for the arts in every educational environment. Our mission is focused solely on arts in education, allowing children not only to experience and create various art forms with instruction from trained teaching artists but also to utilize the arts as a tool for learning in other curricular areas.
All Arts for Learning programs are curriculum-based and designed to meet state and national standards in the arts discipline and other subjects presented. Over the past decade, we have developed more in-depth residencies and stronger school- or district-wide relationships in order to enrich student experiences and increase lasting impact. Programs have a companion guide highlighting the state standards, suggested pre- and post- activities, logistics of the program, a page for parents/guardians, and the artist's biography.
Arts for Learning selects artists based on their excellence in artistry, educational relevance, and communication skills. Our rigorous audition process includes the submission of an application, an interview, an audition with the Program Committee of the Board of Directors and an in-school audition with students.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Arts for Learning's artistic visioning is led by President and CEO, JoEllen Florio Rossebo, and Senior Director of Programs, Ploi Pagdalian. In 2015, JoEllen was appointed to the Community Arts Team for Any Given Child Indy, an initiative of the Kennedy Center, and named President of the Indianapolis Consortium of Arts Administrators. Ploi recently became a certified Dimensions of Success (DoS) observer. DoS is an observation tool developed by the Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency that is used to assess STEM program quality in out-of-school time.
Arts for Learning currently employs six additional full-time and one part-time staff as well as seasonal interns. The Programming Department includes two Program Directors who manage assigned regions of school and community partnerships and a Director of Artist Programs who recruits, trains, manages, and evaluates the roster of teaching artists. The Development Department is comprised of a Director, who is charged with designing and implementing a comprehensive development plan, and a Grants and Stewardship Manager, who is responsible for researching and applying for competitive grant opportunities from federal, state and local agencies and organizations, and a Marketing & Communications Specialist, who manages all public relations, marketing, and social media efforts. Our staff also includes a part-time Accountant.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Perhaps the biggest ongoing challenge we face is our ability to convey the value of not only our programs but arts in education programs in general to potential partners, namely schools, given the fierce competition for their diminishing resources. Arts for Learning recognizes that data, such as academic or developmental data, and qualitative and quantitative results are increasingly important to conveying the value of our programs to potential partners and funders. JoEllen Florio Rossebo, President and CEO, and Ploi Pagdalian, Senior Director of Programs, met with Dr. Khaula Murtadha, Vice Chancellor of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Family, School, and Neighborhood Engagement, IUPUI Office of Community Engagement, in November 2016 to discuss introducing a participatory evaluation plan at Arts for Learning. Participatory evaluation is a collaborative method of evaluation in which partners, program beneficiaries, and key decision makers actively engage in developing the evaluation and all phases of its implementation. Through this partnership approach, those who have a stake in the program—from Arts for Learning staff and teaching artists to school and community partners—work together to identify relevant questions; plan the evaluation design; select appropriate measures and data collection methods; gather and analyze data; reach consensus about findings, conclusions, and recommendations; and share results and prepare an action plan to improve program performance. As we continue to weigh the benefits of using a participatory approach to evaluation at Arts for Learning, we recognize such a model would revolutionize the way we collect data and assess our programs.
We continue our efforts to build a presence in other areas of the state, outside of the Indianapolis metropolitan area, despite the dearth of funding opportunities in small town and rural locations. We are also mindful of educator feedback, which has voiced a need for more flexible, innovative programming options tailored to the individual schools. For example, with a grant from the Indiana Arts Commission's Partnering Arts, Communities, and Education program, we collaborated with teaching artist Melli Hoppe to create and implement a three-year residency at Pine Elementary in Michigan City. The residency focused on dance integration with literacy concepts as third graders learned about the Indiana Dunes, wrote their own books about the landscape, and created their own dances inspired by their research. This program is unique to the school it serves, and presents a model that could easily be replicated in other communities.
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 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 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 look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive
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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
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.
Young Audiences of Indiana, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 05/20/2023
Ms. Susan Oliver
Salesforce
Term: 2020 - 2023
Allison Meta
Chubb Group of Insurance Companies
Susan Oliver
Salesforce
Susan Gran Michal
Children's Museum
Kate Appel
community volunteer
Todd Clevenger
Hamilton County
Alex Avtgis
Attorney
Teresa Baker, PhD
Community Volunteer
Kate Beatty, JD
Fifth Third Bank, N.A.
Molly Earnest
Gregory & Appel Insurance
Kurt Green
Axis Architecture + Interiors
Dom Gregory
Gregory & Appel Insurance
Carrie Hagovsky
Fifth Third Bank, N.A.
Anitra Harris
Community Volunteer
Bill Mahoney
Gregory & Appel Insurance
Stephanie Robertson
Ivy Tech Community College
Mary Siefert
Indianapolis Public Schools
Erica Metz
Amazon
Kelly Teller
Park Tudor School
Lisa Waite
Choices Coordinated Care Solutions
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? 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: 03/14/2023GuideStar 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.