Artolution

Joel Bergner is a community muralist and the CEO and Co-Founder of Artolution, a non-profit organization that uses collaborative art-making to address issues of displacement and trauma. Joel’s community mural projects, spanning 12 years and 25 countries, provide vulnerable young people a creative platform to shape their own narratives, strengthen resilience and promote social inclusion. Joel developed his methodology based on his dual backgrounds as a counselor for traumatized youth and public artist. His work is unique in that it weaves together the dynamic energy of Street Art with the authentic expressions of the youth, cultivating hope in some of the world’s most desperate environments. He travels the globe with his wife, CJ Thomas, who leads Artolution’s performance projects, and their young daughter. They train and support local teaching artists to lead their own Artolution programs with children in refugee camps and crisis-affected communities, impacting thousands of lives each year.

Artolution is committed to addressing the emotional and creative needs of children and youth who have experienced displacement, violent conflict and social exclusion. We work in refugee camps and vulnerable communities in Uganda, Bangladesh, Colombia, Jordan and the US. Artolution provides capacity-building trainings and support (financial and logistical) to local Artolution-certified teaching artists, who implement collaborative art-making projects with youth in their communities, including muralism, performance, animation and musical sculptures made from trash. We aim to scale up our programming in order to provide a platform for 4,000 youth to shape their own narratives, strengthen community resilience, and build healthy relationships. Our methodology is intended as a new global model, demonstrating the critical role that arts-based programming has in humanitarian crises, which is now recognized by international agencies like UNICEF, UNHCR, Red Cross and IRC, all of whom partner with Artolution to impact the lives of young people in crisis.

According to the United Nations, over 70 million forcibly displaced people exist in the world– over 31 million of whom are children– more than at any time in documented history. Refugees are regularly denied access to education and social services, leading to high dropout rates, low employment rates, and adverse health outcomes, among other barriers to successful transitions to adulthood.  Our target population is youth who are isolated from mainstream society with few structured creative and educational activities available to them, and without positive environments where healthy relationships, self-expression and constructive dialogue can be nurtured. They are often re-traumatized in their new communities as they experience stigma and violence, often compounded by structural social inequalities, with implications for mental health and quality of life. Local leaders in the arts have the potential, the passion and the skills necessary to make life-changing impacts on the youth in their communities, but lack the resources and infrastructure to provide these programs on their own. Artolution seeks to address these challenges by identifying, training and supporting teams of local teaching artists to facilitate collaborative, educational arts programming with vulnerable youth, providing sustainable and long-lasting social impacts on the next generation of citizens.  

Artolution’s mission is to strengthen communities in crisis through the power of art. During our workshops, youth discuss critical social issues that concern them and collectively decide on the content of their artworks. Our curriculum is designed to build healthy relationships, connect young people to society and teach new skills. Participants create collaborative works of art in public spaces, from giant murals to street theatre; colorful sculptures to dance performances. Projects culminate in large public celebrations where youth present their work to their families and communities and are recognized for their accomplishments. This process creates a platform for vulnerable, isolated young people to become leaders who have the agency to affect positive social change and to shape their own identities. Our lead artists, many of whom are refugees, are locally-based and trained in the Artolution methodology. We invest in creative leaders who have the passion, character and skills necessary to make life-changing impacts on children in the communities where they live. My team and I support our teaching artists and staff by providing regular on-the-ground trainings and professional development; fundraising for programming; logistics through our partnerships with global organizations, and by spreading their voices to the world via online platforms.

We serve children, youth and families in vulnerable communities who have experienced displacement, violent conflict and social exclusion. For example, in the Azraq Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan, we have trained and certified 10 teaching artists– 5 men and 5 women– who are Syrian refugees themselves, and who now impact the lives of thousands of youth in the camp each year by leading mural projects and other arts-based activities. We have similar programs in the Rohingya refugee camps of Bangladesh, the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement for South Sudanese in Northern Uganda, and in displaced and stigmatized communities in Colombia and the United States. By building local capacity and leadership­– with a gender balance– our programs are sustainable and community-led, thereby ensuring that local needs and agency are built into the programmatic structure from the beginning. Artolution projects address the needs for positive relationship-building, constructive dialogue between groups in conflict and strengthening resilience and self-esteem. Each project provides a platform for community members to discuss critical social issues and solutions; shape their own positive identity as individuals and as a community; celebrate their culture; beautify their public spaces; and send social and public health messages to their fellow residents through public art.

Artolution programs elevate opportunities for crisis-affected youth and artists like Samir Ghafari, who was shot as he fled Syria with his wife and young children, arriving in a desert refugee camp traumatized and without opportunities. Samir is now an Artolution Lead Artist, impacting children’s lives in the camp while also making a living for his family. Also, our community projects and online platforms elevate public awareness for issues affecting vulnerable communities globally. Lastly, we utilize art-making to bring together rival ethnic groups to elevate their mutual understanding and humanize stigmatized people, including oppressed minorities, women and girls, and refugees. 

I developed my approach to community-based muralism while leading over 100 social projects in 25 countries based on my dual backgrounds as muralist and counselor for traumatized youth. While working with children in Syrian refugee camps following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, I partnered with inspiring refugee artists, and witnessed the transformational power that public art-making could have for communities devastated by war and displacement. However, there was no support to continue these projects long-term. I recognized that the biggest impact for these communities would be to build sustainable infrastructure and financial support for locally-based refugee artists to lead their own programs year-round. I joined forces with fellow community artist, Max Frieder, in founding Artolution to achieve this dream. We were joined by a small group of early supporters who became our Board of Directors and incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2016. Lead teaching artist, CJ Thomas (also my wife), developed the dance and theatre components of our methodology as Head of Performance Programming. We partnered with local leaders in each location, including Samir Ghafari from Syria, Suza Uddin in Bangladesh and Swizen Atwine in Uganda, who played pivotal roles in the early establishment of our programs.

Since I became an overwhelmed teenage father in the 90’s, struggling to gain control over my life, I recognized that the arts– drawing and painting, in my case– are a powerful outlet that provide people enduring emotional hardship the ability to express our feelings and connect with others in ways we may be ill-equipped to do otherwise. I soon became a muralist, but also dedicated myself to a career as a counselor for adolescents who had experienced severe trauma, neglect and abuse. Over 12 years ago, I began to experiment with merging these two passions of mine by organizing and leading mural projects with vulnerable groups, including incarcerated teenagers from Washington DC, a post-conflict rural village in El Salvador and street children in Rio de Janeiro’s City of God favela, where I returned year after year to visit my host family and make art with the kids in the neighborhood. I fell in love with the incredible artists and young people I met along my journey, and was inspired by their ability to remain resilient and spread joy to others despite the unimaginable pain and trauma they had experienced. They are the reason I remain passionate about this work.

As an artist and facilitator of collaborative public art projects in conflict-affected communities, I’ve had the unique opportunity to hone my craft with people who had extremely different cultural, economic and social contexts. Along the way, I gained invaluable knowledge about the field of Community-Based Public Art, learning innovative approaches from the many artists and educators who I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with. These experiences informed my writing of our 90-page training manual, the “Artolution Project Implementation Guide,” co-authored by our Head of Performance Programming, CJ Thomas, which we use in all our programs to build local capacity among our teaching artists. I also learned to navigate the complex international humanitarian system by partnering with dozens of institutions, including Save the Children, the IRC and UNHCR, as well as government agencies like the US State Department and the German Development Agency (GIZ). The relationships my colleagues and I have nurtured among leadership as well as field staff in these organizations significantly strengthen our capacity to scale our model. This year, I became Artolution’s first CEO, responsible for managing our HQ and international staff; strategic planning; funding proposals and negotiations; program development; and management of many of our in-country relationships. In this position, I have the honor of leading an extraordinary team of women and men around the globe who are working towards sustainability and responsible growth, ensuring that we reach thousands more vulnerable youth each year and that the quality of our programming continues to improve.

As one might expect, the COVID-19 lockdowns have put a damper on collaborative art-making. Suddenly, none of our teaching artists were able to continue their work. I quickly realized that we were facing an existential challenge, as our usual approach would not work during the pandemic. I sat down and drafted a plan: a new program called Virtual Bridges focused on online workshops, using art forms such as digital art, stop motion clay animation, collaborative storytelling and more. I led regular Zoom meetings with our staff and artists in order to introduce new skills and test experimental curricula. We sent our teams internet data plans to keep connected, even in remote environments. We produced a deck describing our new program and began pitching it to our partners to seek funding. Soon, our artist teams began to work again, reaching isolated communities through innovative art and technology platforms. Best of all, Virtual Bridges has given us the opportunity to achieve a longtime goal: we’ve been connecting children and artists across the world, using creative tech-based platforms to collaborate with one another and learn about each other’s cultures and lifestyles. This is the legacy that will live on beyond the pandemic.

Last year, I conceptualized and led an ambitious Artolution summer project in New York City with young asylum-seekers from Central America. Our mission: to facilitate the world’s first Augmented Reality mural created by youth, in which their painted characters would “come to life” when visitors aimed their smartphones at the mural. I organized a month of arts programming, culminating in a community “mural unveiling” event featuring a theatrical performance by our participants. I built a network of partner institutions, like creative agency We Are Royale, who provided the tech expertise pro bono; the non-profit KIND (Kids in Need of Defense) who supports asylum-seeking children; and a supermarket whose wall would be painted. I recruited and managed a team of three teaching artists, a project manager, interns and a documentary filmmaker. To be successful, I was required to delegate tasks and coordinate between stakeholders and partners. With the behind-the-scenes organization running smoothly, the social impact could reach its full potential: our incredible participants transformed from shy teenagers to young artists, painting and dancing and learning to share their stories through creative mediums. Our bonds became strong and relationships blossomed; many tears were shed when it came time for an emotional good-bye.  

Artolution’s work is innovative in that our methodology and programming have been designed to be positioned within the global response to humanitarian crises and enduring social problems, including forced migration, violent conflict and social exclusion. Normally, the arts are used to comment on social issues or provide instruction to marginalized groups (i.e. traditional art classes). Our work goes further: public art becomes a tool that brings vulnerable communities together to discuss issues that may be taboo or challenging to discuss, such as communal post-conflict trauma or gender equality within conservative cultures. Art-making becomes a vehicle for youth to make sense of their past and envision the future that they aspire to create. Collaborative creation become a way for isolated young people to form new friendships with their peers and connect with positive adults in their community, thereby promoting social inclusion. Many of our projects bring together groups in conflict for the purpose of reconciliation, including Palestinians and Israelis; the Dinka and Nur of South Sudan; and the refugee and host populations of Bangladesh, Colombia and Jordan. We are the only organization that focuses on collaborative public art-making to embed our programming within the humanitarian responses of global institutions like UNICEF, the Red Cross and UNHCR; government agencies from the US and Germany; as well as grass-roots community groups. Our objective is to make Community-Based Public Art a recognized element of crisis-affected communities globally, providing youth around the world a platform to become agents of social change in their communities.  

We developed Artolution’s theory of change with our partners at the Population Council as we were designing our programs (view diagram here). The most comprehensive evaluation of our programming was conducted by independent researcher Lisa Barthelmes for the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations in Germany, who studied 8 Artolution projects in 3 countries over a 3-month period. This report is available upon request.

One category of Artolution’s activities includes the identifying, training, hiring and ongoing support of our teaching artists from vulnerable communities. The outputs of these activities include a) local capacity-building and skill-building; b) employment of local artists and staff; c) an increased capacity for Artolution to implement projects with beneficiaries. The short-term outcomes are a) the economic benefit to these community artists and their families; b) for each trained artist, Artolution projects will reach an estimated 480- 550 beneficiaries annually; c) an improved quality of creative activities with youth. Long-term impacts include: a) improved learning and economic opportunities within the local community; b) artists develop locally-based platforms for expression, connection and constructive dialogue among vulnerable youth.

A second set of activities focuses on the programming itself: the implementation of collaborative art workshops in public spaces (mural-painting, theatrical performance, etc.) with crisis-affected beneficiaries. The outputs include a) youth participate in the creative process of art-making with others; b) the cultivation of spaces where community members trust each other and feel safe discussing critical issues; c) artworks made by beneficiaries, which tell their stories and communicate their messages, are publicly presented to the wider community and, virtually, to a larger global audience. Outcomes include a) an increase in social cohesion, as evidenced by participants reporting that they made new friendships and strengthened relationships in the community; b) a reported increase in attendance and participation in the host sites, such as schools and community centers; c) beneficiaries learn new skills related to the arts, tech-based platforms and teamwork. Long-term impacts are a) increased levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy among beneficiaries; b) higher rates of graduation and employment; c) increased community and global awareness of issues and stigma facing vulnerable populations.

In 2019, Artolution programs served just over 6,000 primary beneficiaries, defined as those who were direct participants in our public art projects. 2020 will have a reduced number due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in all of our regions, but our objective is to expand our capacity for our programs, scale up our Virtual Bridges online workshops, and train and certify new teaching artists to reach 40 full-time and 40 part-time artists. Therefore, by next year we will be serving over 25,000 primary beneficiaries annually. In 5 years, after expanding our reach within the countries we serve as well as founding programs in 3 additional countries, we will have 250 certified Artolution teaching artists globally, and our goal is to reach over 100,000 primary beneficiaries. These numbers do not include secondary beneficiaries, defined as the participants’ family members and other community residents who interact with the projects in meaningful ways. Typically, secondary beneficiaries represent 5- 10 times the number of primary beneficiaries.

My personal goal as the new CEO is how to best navigate this position in order to best serve Artolution’s mission. In the next year, we will grow our current programs in Uganda, Jordan, Bangladesh, Colombia and the US by expanding into new communities, allowing us to serve an additional 4,000 beneficiaries globally. In order to scale effectively, we will need to register in each country, which we are currently in the process of doing in 2 countries. Also, we aim to grow our professional development opportunities for our artists and staff in order to continuously improve the quality of services we offer to beneficiaries. We plan to hire full-time Country Managers in each country (currently, most are part-time) in order to improve the coordination of projects.

In five years, our objectives include launching new, sustainable programs in the locations where we’ve been active for years: Brazil, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Greece and Syria. We will grow our virtual programming in order to facilitate international exchange projects. We’ll improve our M&E and partner with independent researchers and universities to study the impacts of Community-Based Public Art in vulnerable communities. As Artolution aims to elevate the voices of youth in crisis, we intend to grow our global audience and produce quality content directly from our beneficiaries, including films, testimonials, photography and the community artwork itself, shared through online platforms and exhibitions.

As my new position of Artolution CEO did not exist previously, I must learn quickly and adapt during an intense period of change. The barriers to our one-year goals include short-term financial challenges (in particular, cash flow), as the pandemic has created delays in funding from agencies. This has required careful management, although we are through the worst of it now. In terms of legal barriers, we have come to recognize that we cannot scale from small contracts to larger ones without becoming a locally registered NGO in each country, which can be a challenging process– although it’s nearly completed in Uganda, as we have been supported by the Ministry of Education as a valid part of the Ugandan response to the refugee crisis.

To achieve our 5 year plan, our fundraising strategies must be adapted to the current economic recession and placed within the response to the pandemic in crisis zones. In terms of technical challenges, we will be scaling from the current small programs– with 10 to 20 artists in one geographic location per country– to larger, more complex programs in many locations, with over 40 artists leading multiple projects simultaneously. Therefore, we need to increase our capacity for coordination by restructuring each program and hiring program managers. Lastly, we have a need for improving our Monitoring and Evaluation in order to better understand our impacts, which will inform our evolving curriculum. Our training and artist accreditation program has been designed to make this possible.

As I adjust to my new position, I will seek professional development from organizational experts. To overcome financial barriers, we hired our Director of Development, John Infante, last year, who has greatly increased our capacity for fundraising, corporate outreach and grant writing. We will be stepping up our fundraising campaigns with individual donors, and plan to greatly increase this strategy in scope and sophistication over the next year. We’ll continue to build relationships at more senior levels than we have worked with to date with UN agencies, international NGOs and government agencies in order to secure larger multi-year contracts for our programming. Beyond this, we are pursuing new relationships with foundations and corporations in order to not be reliant on our one major corporate sponsor, Gucci’s Chime for Change campaign, whose 3-year contract with Artolution is now in its third year.

In terms of legal support for registering in each country, we will continue to work with our legal team at Paul Hastings law firm, who provides us with pro bono support. We are also coordinating with our coordinators in each country, who are familiar with the local context. Our barriers to an organized scaling-up of our programming will require consulting with experts in logistics and coordination of humanitarian and educational programs in crisis settings in order to craft a methodical, well- thought out strategy and restructuring. Finally, we’ll need to consult with experts in M&E in order to improve our capacity to measure our impact as we grow.

We partner with UNICEF in Bangladesh, where we’ve received multiple contracts to implement programing in the Rohingya refugee camps. In Jordan’s Azraq Syrian Refugee Camp, we have a relationship with UNICEF in which they pay our refugee teaching artists and organize their projects in schools and centers, while Artolution provides the methodology, the quality assurance, and the training and professional development to the artist team. UNHCR has provided logistical support, access to refugee camps and funds in Bangladesh and Uganda. Education Above All in Uganda has provided funding and staff trainings in Uganda. The International Rescue Committee has contracted our Artolution team to implement projects in their youth centers in Jordan’s refugee camps and host communities. We have an MOU with Windle International in Uganda in order to send funds through them to our program in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, where we also partner with Finn Church Aid on the logistics of the program. We have worked extensively with the International Federation of the Red Cross/ Red Crescent on public health-related programs in Bangladesh, and are currently negotiating a partnership with them in Colombia. Gucci’s Chime for Change campaign has provided support for our operational as well as programming budgets globally. In the US, we work with Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) who provide logistical and financial support to our projects with youth seeking asylum. Paul Hastings law firm has been transformative for us by providing pro bono legal support from pre-incorporation until now, even sponsoring several US-based projects annually.

Artolution projects engage youth and communities that have faced social exclusion and trauma, including refugees, street youth, the incarcerated, people with physical and mental disabilities, and young people living in areas of violent conflict or extreme poverty. We specialize in visual art mediums such as mural art and community sculpture, as well as performative genres like dance and theatre. In our workshops, participants explore important community issues and collectively decide on the subject and content of the artistic production, culminating in the collaborative creation of works of public art. Through this process, we emphasize the building of positive relationships among participants, skill-building, the sharing of knowledge and the promoting of community activism.

 Artolution projects have been identified as having an impact at the level of individual participants and the entire community, and over the very short to very long term.  Key areas in which we currently measure impact include:

• behavioral changes visible over the course of daily workshops, including learning, skill-building, and formation of new relationships;
• youth-expressed transformations in self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and sense of optimism about the future;
• benefits for the surrounding community, measured in terms of the long-term impact of the artwork remaining in the community, and the story of those who participated in its creation continuing to be told.

 Our business model focuses on scaling up by training teaching artists and coordinators on site and then supporting them with ongoing professional development, quality assuring their projects and supporting them in finding new funding to support their work. 

Artolution has five major revenue streams, all of which are to some extent established, and growing. Our revenues have exceeded expenses in each year of operations, and we aim for a diverse funding mix as a basis for ongoing sustainability.  Our current funding is drawn from:

(i)               Contracted support through humanitarian agencies

(ii)              Major CSR sponsors

(iii)            Individual major gifts over $10,000

(iv)            Regular giving through online fundraising campaigns

(v)             Art Sales

Our current funding mix is skewed towards the first three.  In 2020 we anticipate revenues in the region of US$1.2m, of which

(i)               $550,000 will derive from agencies who contract us to undertake specific work. This funding is ‘fee for service,’ therefore providing little or no margin for overheads.

(ii)              $300,000 will derive from one major CSR sponsor, Gucci’s charitable foundation Chime for Change, which has sponsored us for three years. Our fundraising strategies are focused on identifying up to three sponsors at this level.  This funding is substantially ‘untied’ and therefore contributes towards our corporate expenses.

(iii)            Around $70,000 - $100,000 will derive from individual major donors, most of whom are now annual ‘tax-time’ repeat contributors to our work.

 Our business plan takes us to a sustainable, diverse and profitable annual revenue of US$3.5m by 2023.  Our desired funding mix is: 28% project revenue (tied); 30% project revenue (untied); 26% major sponsors; 7% major gifts, 6% art sales and merchandise; 3% regular and individual gifts, and grants.  We believe we are on target to achieve this.

Artolution received US$300,000 from Gucci’s Chime for Change campaign, our largest single donor. This is a sponsorship for operations and programming. 

Funding sources in the past 12 months include:

·       Gucci’s charitable foundation Chime for Change has awarded Artolution $300,000 per year from 2018 to 2020, with this year being the final year of the contract (though we anticipate a continuation of support).

·       UNICEF in Bangladesh and Jordan have funded Artolution programming, equaling approximately $80,000  

·       UNHCR funding in Bangladesh is approximately $80,000

·       International Refugee Committee (IRC) in Jordan has provided $30,000 in project-specific funds.

·       Education Above All awarded us a contract of $45,000 to implement our program in Uganda.

·       International Organization of Migration (IOM) provided $25,000 in project-specific funds in Bangladesh

·       UNESCO contracted Artolution for conference activities and presentations: $18,000

·       Peer to peer fundraising (New York marathon 2019):$35,000

·       General fundraising: $260,000

·       Grants (e.g. the UNICEF and World of Children award: $60,000

·       Art sales: $25,000

·       Other:  $200,000

 We have also won the support of major US law firm Paul Hastings, which acts as our attorneys on all matters both US and international pro bono.  Our last audited accounts identified the value of this support to be in the region of $280,000 pa.  Paul Hastings has also supported specific projects in New York City, to the value of $30,000 per year.

In order to achieve our goal of scaling up our programs over the next 5 years, we aim to steadily increase our annual budget which, according to our business plan, sets growth targets of $1.2m in 2020 rising to $3.5m in 2023 – and we anticipate around $5m by 2025, although this stretches beyond our current planning cycle. We will expand our relationships with humanitarian agencies we haven’t worked with, as well as those that we partner with in one location but not others. For example, this year in Colombia we have been in talks with many agencies such as Red Cross, UNICEF and UNHCR in order to replicate the contracts and partnerships we have with them in our other programs. Second, we are actively seeking three new corporate sponsors by 2025 in order to raise $1.2m annually. This involves identifying major corporations whose interests and values align with ours, with which we can establish partnerships modeled on that we currently enjoy with Gucci.  Third, Artolution aims to increase our large individual sponsors from its previous level of $60,000 annually to $100,000 in 2020 and $350,000 by 2025.  Lastly, we are working to earn more funding from the following sources: individual small donors,  foundation grants, fellowships/ awards, merchandise and art sales.

Employee payroll:          $420,000

HQ expenses:                  $200,000

US projects:                    $46,000

Bangladesh:                     $94,000

Uganda:                           $75,000

Jordan:                            $90,000

Colombia:                         $58,000

Other Locations:                $40,000

Our business plan provides further details behind these numbers and is available for review.  We can also provide our audited financial statements for 2019.

Our budget for 2020 (developed pre-COVID) was for revenues of $1.2m and expenses of $1.17m.  We are on track to hit just under $1m, and with care we’ll break even.  Our major sponsorship from Gucci has remained through the crisis, but other anticipated revenues – for example, from the foundation Education Above All, fell through because of the pandemic.  To counter this, some of our NGO partners have funded additional COVID-specific projects, focusing on health and hygiene messages using art projects as the delivery mechanism, which has compensated for some of the shortfall.  Finally, our fundraising program targeting small donors has taken a hit, because of the increased competition in the US philanthropic sector – although a grant from the New York State Government to support NFP payroll early in the pandemic also compensated for this.

 Our board Treasurer produces a monthly profit-and-loss and balance sheet report which provides details on variations against budget for board review.  2020 has produced a fast-moving and highly changeable environment, so we have been very careful to watch this.  As with all small businesses in the NFP sector we have had to be particularly careful about our cash-flow, as the large agencies have recently had difficulty paying on time.

I am applying to The Elevate Prize because as we go through an intense process of scaling up over the next several years, Artolution would benefit in a deep and meaningful way from the relationship with MIT and with the access to the network, expertise, professional development opportunities and funding being offered. As I transition to my new role as CEO of Artolution during these uncertain times, a position that did not previously exist, I would be very interested in receiving organizational coaching, as I have not been in charge of an institution previously. Second, we would benefit from expert consulting in how to properly scale from our current small programs to the larger, more complex ones to which we aspire. We would be grateful for any opportunities in this area. Third, the financial benefit would be transformative for us, as much of our funding is project-specific, meaning that some of the critical needs remain unfunded. For example, each program requires us to hire a full-time Country Program Manager and staff for effective coordination and logistics as we grow in scope and complexity. Fourth, as we transition to larger programs, we would welcome support designing and implementing an updated M&E strategy. This is critical to our ability to understand our impact and the ways in which we can improve our curriculum in order to better serve our beneficiaries. Lastly, we would benefit from the network in order to amplify our message, identify new board members, expert advisors and funding opportunities.

Artolution delivers services in some of the most complex crisis environments in the world. In each location we partner with development assistance agencies and NGOs which have much more advanced monitoring and evaluation resources than we have yet developed.  In Bangladesh for example, we contribute to the UNHCR Joint Response Program (JRP), and our work is understood as part of the health, education and WaSH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) objectives of the JRP. Our measurements of our impact – in terms of improved social interactions, mental health, and relations with host communities, for example – are anecdotal rather than systematic. This will eventually hold back our contributions and our ability to understand our impact.  We would love to work with social scientists at MIT to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework that addresses this.

In addition, we’re always open to additions to our board and Advisory Council.

For our goals related to developing our updated M&E framework and recruiting researchers to study our programs, we’re interested in universities like MIT, Columbia and Stanford, as well as organizations like the Population Council. This type of partnership would support not only our M&E goals, but also the evolution of our curriculum, as we use the data to gain an understanding of what elements of our programming are most impactful and which need to be improved. We are also seeking long-term institutional partnerships with the global leaders in humanitarian aid and development, such as UNICEF, UNHCR, International Rescue Committee, Norwegian Refugee Council and Red Cross/ Crescent. We already partner with these agencies on a local or national level, but we currently only receive small contracts for short periods of time. By signing long term agreements with these agencies, we would have more financial stability in our country programs and would be also benefit more from their expertise. We are also interested in partnerships in the tech sector, like Google, in order to more fully develop our international virtual exchange projects, which utilize virtual reality painting programs, augmented reality and digital art platforms. In order to broaden our audience and influence, we are seeking a partnership with a PR firm. Lastly, we are always interested in partnerships with brands that are socially-minded and/or have a focus on children and creativity, such as Crayola, LEGO and Ben & Jerry’s.