Mission
Urban Gateways engages young people in arts experiences to inspire creativity and impact social change.
Ruling year
1964
President & Chief Executive Officer
Eric Delli Bovi
Main address
1637 N Ashland Ave Ste 1
Chicago, IL 60622 USA
EIN
36-6083080
NTEE code
Arts Education/Schools (A25)
IRS filing requirement
This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.
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Communication
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Artist-in-Residence Programs
Professional dance, music, theater, literary, digital, and visual artists provide direct arts and arts integration instruction in schools and community centers.
Touring Programs
Touring Performances provide assemblies in dance, music, and theater for student and community enrichment activities. Over 40 shows are available, exploring cultural and historical themes and contemporary performance art that inspire and encourage students to engage in a personal exploration of the arts. Tours are accompanied with lesson materials to help teachers provide context to the program. Performance options include the Dances of West Africa, Chinese Folk and Classical Dance, History of Rock-n-Roll, Fandango, Bluegrass, Folktales, Puppetry and many more.
Teacher Professional Development
Teacher Professional Development sessions offer training for teaching artists, teachers and administrators to engage in collaborative, integrated curriculum development by working with teaching artists, arts specialists, and community partners to enrich children's learning. Urban Gateways professionals work with the principal and leadership team for each school to develop optimal learning experiences.
Art Apprenticeships
Art Apprenticeships provide college to career readiness opportunities for high school students, working alongside master artists to explore relevant contemporary issues, produce works of art, and cultivate the skills pivotal to attaining future career goals. Instruction includes hands-on art making, active civic engagement, literacy development, teamwork, public speaking, problem-solving, and other skills. Interested students are also encouraged to pursue a college and career path in the arts field, recognizing that most students do not yet perceive the arts as a potentially viable profession.
Street-Level Youth Media
Our multimedia center promotes self-expression, communication, and social change by offering free year-round digital arts learning opportunities for Chicago youth.
Workshops
Youth, Family, and Community Workshops are designed for people of all ages to engage in the artistic process together. Workshops are offered in multiple art forms and can include a central idea or theme, such as relationship-building through an art project or exploring world cultures through music making.
Immersion Workshops are designed to pair with a Touring Performance to extend and deepen the audience experience. Through interactive arts activities, Immersion Workshops typically take place just before or after a show, creating hands-on connections to the Touring Performance.
Where we work
External assessments
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of administrators and staff who plan and experience professional development activities together
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Age groups, Ethnic and racial groups
Related Program
Artist-in-Residence Programs
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of free registrants to classes
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Ethnic and racial groups, At-risk youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Urban Gateways serves nearly 70,000 participants with arts learning opportunities that are free of charge. Programs include arts residencies, performances, workshops, and apprenticeships.
Hours of expertise provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Artist-in-Residence Programs
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
On average, students gain about 20 hours of arts learning per student.
Total number of performances
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Touring Programs
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Touring Performances were held for thousands of youth, families, and community members throughout 2015.
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?
Particularly in under-resourced neighborhoods with deep-rooted challenges attributed to poverty, gang activity, and under-performing schools, Urban Gateways strives to create alternative and positive experiences as a means to a brighter future for children and their communities. The organization's extensive reach enables Urban Gateways to produce multi-disciplinary artist-in-residence programs, live performances, community projects, professional development and teen apprenticeship opportunities for the under-served youth of Chicago.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
In a city with vast cultural wealth, arts engagement should occur within and beyond the school walls and in partnership with the broader community. By utilizing the city as a classroom, Urban Gateways seeks to build upon its community engagement strategies over the next several years by expanding residencies, apprenticeships, touring performances, and matinees. Program expansion will also be achieved by building a stronger presence in parks, libraries, neighborhood festivals, and other locations beyond the school setting for broader youth engagement. The organization is working to establish a baseline for future enhanced community engagement as the organization broadens this strategy to intersect residence, apprenticeship, and performance programs through the local priorities and strategies of partnering neighborhoods.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Urban Gateways has invested in Artist recruitment, increased staffing, new technical and logistics support, professional development and other resources to meet the growing needs of school partners. Urban Gateways has recently finalized a multi-year Strategic Plan process that will build upon recent successes in youth engagement, artist cultivation, community and partnership development, and organizational strength by leveraging opportunities both within and beyond the four walls of the school classroom.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
The organization has already experienced recent success in launching several community-based initiatives, such as the Night Out in the Parks concert series, the Traveling Classroom art commission, Art Options and CoCre8 apprenticeship programs, a ticketed public performance through The Children of Willesden Lane project, and Crosswalk, the inter-generational arts residency pairing teens and seniors. As Urban Gateways' local and national profile expands, new and promising opportunities for arts partnerships continue to present themselves.
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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Who are the people you serve with your mission?
Urban Gateways engages youth and communities across Chicago and surrounding suburbs, with a high concentration of programs historically occurring in South and West side neighborhoods. Arts instruction and performance programs focus on supporting youth grades K -12, and all teens aged 13 – 19 years old, regardless of residency or school enrollment status, are eligible for Teen Arts Pass membership. Concerted efforts are made to engage youth in South Side and West Side communities through multiple community-based partnerships in an effort to mitigate barriers to participation related to longstanding systemic inequities across large areas of the city. Street Level participants are youth ages 16-24 and reside in multiple communities across Chicago.
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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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What significant change resulted from feedback?
Urban Gateways’ Teen Advisory Council is comprised of program participants who earn stipends for their participation, guidance, and leadership towards increasing participation among youth with relevant and engaging arts programming, particularly during COVID-19. The Teen Council recommended, developed, and helped to implement a series of specific virtual programs available for free to all participants, including “Hello, I am… Conversations with Arts Professionals”. Professionals in the arts are engaged by teen hosts in a 30-minute interactive dialogue about their work in the arts and their journeys to their career path. Other program recommendations include college readiness workshops and events, a Teen Arts Showcase, and a Teen Arts Leadership Summit.
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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 engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response
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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, 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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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
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URBAN GATEWAYS
Board of directorsas of 03/01/2022
Mick Thompson
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
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 03/01/2022GuideStar 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 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 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.
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