Skip to main content

WHAT WE DO

CultureSource is a nonprofit member organization that helps ensure the vitality and sustainability of creative activity, artists, and the over 170 arts and culture institutions we represent in Southeast Michigan.

WHAT WE DO

Provide resources to our membership
Connect creatives with jobs and grants
Offer training for seasoned and rising leaders
Collect and share cultural sector data
Help philanthropists distribute funding
Facilitate artistic use of digital tech
WHO WE SERVE

Our resources are accessible to arts organizations, artists, and collaborators in the seven counties of Southeast Michigan: St. Clair, Macomb, Oakland, Livingston, Washtenaw, Wayne and Monroe.

HOW WE WORK

Our core focus areas are supported by three pillars around which we
center our programmatic focus: Convening, Funding, and Research.

Convening

We connect leaders, organizations, and ideas

We Connect Leaders, Organizations, and Ideas

Through regular professional development and leadership convenings both virtual and in-person we bring people, organizations, and ideas together to build skills and foster collaboration among the sector.

With discussions on special topics, regular roundtables with arts leaders, and biannual member meetings, our programs provide a space for members to share commonalities in their work and develop new strategies for advancing their missions.

Funding

We help fund creative projects and people

We help fund creative projects and people

Through funding, regranting and fiscal sponsorship initiatives, we collaborate with partners to expediently provide needed funding to bring people, organizations, and ideas that will support our vision of a flourishing cultural sector in Southeast Michigan and beyond.

We have partnered with funders in the sector to provide audience-building opportunities to art organizations, and relief grants to artists suffering financially due to Covid-19. We are also the Wayne County regrantor for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs minigrants program.

Research

We share knowledge to advance the sector

We share knowledge to advance the sector

We regularly engage in practices of research and learning in order to build field knowledge and enhance our work of convening and grantmaking.

In our portfolio of research activities, we are partner of the AEI Lab at Indiana Universtity and have partnerships with arts research firms locally and nationally, including WolfBrown, with whom we participated in the Audience Outlook Monitor of Southeast Michigan.

Our Big Next Step

To better position arts organizations to embrace the difficult demands of adapting to complexity, we’ve acquired the national consulting nonprofit EmcArts. We’re excited to bring their unique program model to Southeast Michigan and empower our peers to create sustainable structure to realize new models of programming.

CultureSource and EmcArts have previously offered learning experiences centered around building the skills needed for adaptive re-imagining through our Innovation Week symposium, and workshops for organizations that train them to do mission-driven work in tandem with rigorous reflection, and strategic investment.

FOCUS AREAS

TECH + ARTS

In an effort to prepare for and thrive in blended artistic environments, we have outlined a programmatic response to address challenges that come with curating hybrid arts experiences.

Through our Digital Access for the Arts program, in partnership with Rocket Community Fund, we issued 20 grants to member organizations to fund their digital evolution and investment. The program also included a research component that surveyed the needs of arts organizations as they work to adapt their programming to online environments, and recommendations for integration.

CREATIVE EXPRESSION

Creative activity of all scopes and scales is fundamental to the vitality of our communities. We aim to nurture a more diverse ecosystem in which a wider variety of creatives are able to craft new narratives about culture.

Our Creators of Culture and Flourish Fund programs are designed to fund artist-led projects that are experimental, embrace contemporary and creative possibilities for the future of arts and culture. By improving access to capital and funding grassroots creative initiatives, we hope to counterbalance access possessed by large, established institutions.

CULTURAL COMPETENCY

We believe in uplifting voices historically oppressed by privilege, and working with our sector partners to develop more equitable practices.

With our partners at Team Dynamics, we convened arts leaders to explore the challenges of creating inclusive workplaces and support them in building skills and practicing application. And we collaborated with the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation to launch CultureMakers, a program for young leaders of color to explore contemporary practices in the arts sector and shift dominant narratives about culture.

PRESS

Press Inquiries
Contact our communications director, Robert Swetlic, at rswetlic@culturesource.org.

Stay in Touch
Subscribe to the CultureSource newsletter and follow us on social media

Knight Foundation Announces Investment in the Digital Future of the Arts in Detroit
 

Knight Foundation

February 6, 2023

Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan announces $23M in new grants
 

Detroit Free Press

August 3, 2022

CultureSource moves into national arts group consulting with EmcArts acquisition
 

Crain’s Detroit Business

July 20, 2022

Omari Rush and Ruth Ellis Center honored at Community Foundation Annual Meeting
 

The Detroit News

June 28, 2022

Wilson Foundation gift creates new narrative for nonprofits

 

Crain’s Detroit Business

December 12, 2021

New $100 million arts, culture initiative creates partial safety net for local orgs

 

The Detroit News

December 2, 2021

Mackinac Policy Conference 2021: One Detroit interview with Omari Rush

 

One Detroit

September 22, 2021

More arts, culture groups requiring full vaccination, negative COVID test, masks

 

Crain’s Detroit Business

September 2, 2021

Read More

Omari Rush on coming out of a pandemic into the digital age

 

Crain’s Detroit Business

July 18, 2021

Accent Pontiac awarded $55,000 grant to support music education for children

 

The Oakland Press

January 29, 2021

Innovative new CultureSource partnership builds resilience through arts

 

Rocket Community Fund

January 14, 2021

The Art of Collaboration

 

Natural Collisions

January 8, 2021

CultureSource secures $100,000 in out-of-state grants to support local artists

 

Crain’s Detroit Business

November 12, 2020

Capacity limitations strain arts, culture organizations even as patrons come back

 

Crain’s Detroit Business

August 30, 2020

Survey: First look at comfort levels for arts and culture consumers in southeast Michigan

 

Detroit Free Press

June 21, 2020

Southeast Michigan arts groups get $500,000 injection from relief fund

 

Detroit Free Press

June 4, 2020

Relief and Resiliency Grants from the COVID-19 Arts and Creative Community Assistance Fund Distributed

 

CFSEM

June 3, 2020

Art And Cultural Connections Can Bring Light To Our Current Troubling Situations

 

WEMU

May 28, 2020

Weekly teleconference is lifeline for Michigan’s struggling arts nonprofits

 

The Detroit News

May 18, 2020

While foundations fund the frontlines of coronavirus response, Detroit arts and culture nonprofits are left hanging

 

Detour Detroiter

May 7, 2020

CultureSource Promotes Art and Culture Across Southeast Michigan

 

Detroit Is It

May 6, 2020

Helping artists and arts organizations survive

 

OneDetroit/Detroit Public TV

April 27, 2020

$1 million fund to support region’s arts and culture groups to launch Friday

 

Crain’s Detroit Business

April 16, 2020

Detroit’s arts and culture groups find unity, shared mission amid pandemic

 

Detroit Free Press

April 6, 2020

Call Me Anytime…No, Really, We’re All Answering the Phone Again

 

Wall Street Journal

March 26, 2020

Meet the CultureMakers, the young leaders working to define culture in Washtenaw County

 

Concentrate

March 11, 2020

Omari Rush, Executive Director, CultureSource

 

BLAC Detroit Magazine

March 4, 2020

Detroit arts in the national spotlight as acting NEA chair visits the city

 

Detroit Free Press

June 20, 2019

Stay Current With CultureSource!

Subscribe Now
X