The Chicago Community Trust Provides Consultation and Financial Support to Arts Organizations
We are very excited to announce that ITA is one of 30 recipients of The Chicago Community Trust (CCT) SMART Growth grant. A signature program of the Trust, SMART Growth helps small arts organizations like ITA “engage their board and staff in strengthening management practices that effectively support their missions.” ITA is looking forward to continuing our ongoing partnership with the Trust through this unique opportunity to participate in and benefit from a thorough assessment of our operations, thereby maximizing our nonprofit’s resilience and well-being as we grow our services.
One of thirty local organizations participating in this cohort, ITA will work alongside an appointed consultant from the Arts and Business Council. With the consultant’s assistance and shared expertise, new strategies will be developed to nourish the long-term health of our nonprofit while we maintain our reach to positively impact the cultural makeup of the region. ITA hopes to attain a new level of stability that will allow us to exercise our clinical and artistic mission without encountering potential crises. The program’s timeline is arranged in four separate phases, each lasting seven weeks with the first having begun early in July 2018 and the last wrapping up the second week of November.
Sandra Aponte, program officer for arts and culture at the Trust, emphasizes the value of making art experiences accessible in Cook County communities. “Arts and culture play an important role in making neighborhoods throughout our Chicago region more vibrant places to live, work and visit,” says Aponte. “The strength of our region’s cultural vitality is rooted in the diverse landscape of community-based arts and cultural organizations like the ones that participate in SMART Growth.”
ITA wishes to publicly thank The Chicago Community Trust for selecting our non-profit to benefit from their generosity. With the help of the SMART Growth program, ITA will expedite its mission — to empower and energize individuals, families, and communities to grow and heal through the creative arts therapies. We are honored to have been selected to participate in this four-year endeavor and look forward to the reverberations that are sure to result from the grant’s help in making ITA even stronger.
For more information about The Chicago Community Trust and their offerings, visit them online at www.cct.org