Funder Focus: Terri Whetstone and the 4Cs Foundation
January 3, 2006
By Elisa Birnbaum
This month in our Funder Focus we feature the 4Cs Foundation, a private foundation established in 1998 with a mandate of building meaningful relationships between public schools and their communities through fine arts projects of lasting significance. Over the years, the foundation has supported more than 90 community arts projects, providing financial assistance and support through all stages of project development and delivery. CharityVillage spoke with executive director Terri Whetstone about the foundation's goals and how the arts can help establish significant relationships in the community.
CharityVillage: What was the impetus behind the creation of the 4Cs Foundation? How did the background of the funders influence its establishment?
Terri Whetstone: The trustees work in the medical community and also work a lot with children. They are passionate about the well-being of children and are very committed to Halifax's regional municipality, to which this foundation specifically provides funding. So they are medical professionals and yet they are looking to work through fine arts projects. As individuals they are very passionate about the arts; they are culture consumers, they purchase art and go to plays and musical events etc. It's very interesting because they are stepping out of their profession with a philanthropic drive and want to encourage the arts as well as enhance the lives of children. Furthermore, the funders have a strong belief in fine arts as a way to connect children with people in their community. So the foundation is really grounded in community development ideas and in using fine arts as a vehicle to make that connection.
CV: Your mandate is to build meaningful relationships between public schools and their communities through fine arts projects. What is it about art that you feel can help sustain and promote stronger communities, as well as help children build self-esteem?
TW: I think primarily that art activities at a community level have the potential to reflect what's important to the individuals in that community. And it's in a non-judgemental way - it's not in class and I'm not going to get a mark on it - and so of course what comes from that is a sense of feeling good about oneself, feeling good about one's skills, self-expression, collective expression. It can be used to express the community's history, it can be used to express their sense of identity and it can be just for pure fun. When a group produces something, it reflects them, their values, their feelings, and their interpretation. So there's a real empowerment that can come through art at a community level in that way.
For example, we live in a city where a lot of money is spent trying to get rid of graffiti. And if you're doing a community-based project that reflects the community, you can include graffiti as one of the ways of expressing the people in that community. The interesting thing is that several schools have had problems with vandalism so they've approached the foundation for funding to do certain kinds of outdoor public art projects on the school grounds, things like doing a wall mural or painting benches. So if something was vandalized, like a bench, they have a project where students paint whatever they want to express on there; they determine what it's going to be. And those pieces haven't been vandalized in the least. So there's a real sense of ownership: "We did that so we're not going to mess with it."
CV: How do you get the community involved? And what does strong community involvement mean to you?
TW: It means that people in the community who wouldn't normally be involved with something going on at the school would be taking part. And they have a real belief that their presence and their contribution is going to make a difference in the lives of the children.
A project, for example, can involve a retired woodworker who makes Adirondack chairs and he comes and teaches kids how to do that. And maybe the neighbour is a painter and she teaches kids how to paint and they all work together to make these benches. We have a project going on right now where we have community members helping to build wooden planters for big raised garden beds for a school. They will then work with the students to plant the garden and there will be a range of herbs and vegetables that the community members can then harvest throughout the summer as well. It is all part of a bigger fine arts project, but obviously art is defined broadly.
CV: Why is working with the community so important?
TW: What we are really trying to do is to create opportunities within the community so that individuals must work at defining what their community is. Then they work with the school in that community on a fine art project. And through this working together, they build new links that wouldn't have been there before. We usually think of community development as a kind of grassroots thing that comes from the street up, so it's a little bit different to be a foundation that's saying 'wouldn't community development be great in your neighbourhood?' Basically we're enabling communities to explore some issues and to build links between children and artists and other community members.
Oftentimes it's cross-generational stuff that happens and some of the stronger projects have been where teenagers worked with seniors and hung out together, played games, went bowling, and played cards. And through that getting to know each other, they have shared stories and the elders shared their experiences. Then the youth create artworks around those individuals and their stories.
CV: Who can initiate a funding proposal and where are the majority of applications coming from?
TW: It can be a teacher, a student, a community member - any of those people have been initiators. We are hoping to see more ideas coming from youth and they can then go to their teachers, their basketball coach, someone in their community, or a parent who can help them do research to find out what needs to happen and to build the group that way.
However, most of the applications these days do come from teachers. One of our missions is to support the development of projects that are cooperations between the community and the schools. The projects are, therefore, primarily housed in the schools, so we often see teachers taking the initiative to apply for the project. But there has to be a community connection otherwise it's not meeting our mandate.
CV: What is your application process like? On average, how many proposals do you receive each year and how many projects do you end up funding?
TW: We usually get between 30 and 70 applicants in a funding year. That's quite a range but it varies and we have a deadline for the application, which is the first Friday of October. We encourage anyone with an idea for a project to call first so that we can explore the idea together and I can help them develop their proposal. Once we get in all the applications, we come up with a short list and we invite those project teams to come and meet with us.
We then take on between 10 and 15 projects every year, providing each with between $2,000 and $10,000, although there have been cases where the project has been funded beyond that amount. We also let those people who haven't received funding know what they can do differently in their next proposal; we make a commitment that I'm available to work with them to develop proposals that have a greater chance to succeed next year. The trustees really want people to succeed with their proposals so that's why they make my time available and we help them through all the various stages.
CV: Many foundations have a tough time getting the word out, especially at the initial stages. How did you overcome that obstacle and establish a strong reputation in the community so quickly?
TW: So much of the credit for that goes to the first executive director who was with the foundation from the beginning and who did a lot of legwork to get the ball rolling. She did such an amazing job of promoting the foundation. I think one of the things that really helped is that we are specific to the Halifax Regional Municipality, so even if the foundation is large in scope or in vision, it's dealing with a small population and a small area. We've also been able to build good relationships with the schools and with other cultural organizations in the city and we have the support of local media. We just use regular resources to get the word out, such as creating posters, brochures, postcards.
I think the success of the foundation also speaks to the need for these kinds of opportunities. Obviously, if we were getting three applicants a year then you would have to question the need for the foundation.
CV: Speaking of success, since 1999 the foundation has supported more than 80 projects. How do you define success?
TW: We define it by seeing the big grins on the kids' faces, and we see that a lot. We have a showcase in May where people have the opportunity to present what they've been doing with their projects and we have a visual art exhibition as well. So success for us would be seeing the objectives outlined in the proposal being met, and in hearing back from the community members, the students and the teachers, hearing how they felt about it.
We also have an evaluation process that allows us to measure our success. And we know we're successful as a foundation because we get schools or groups who come back more than once because they've obviously had a good working relationship and they've had success with the project. So they're coming back saying, "here's our new idea can we go again?"
CV: What are your future goals?
TW: First, we are looking at encouraging more youth-initiated projects. Second, we're hoping to encourage more projects that have as their outcome a lasting piece of public art. Because often the art project is either a production that happens once or twice in the community and that's it, or it's a mural or some other kind of concrete object that stays inside the school and isn't seen outside in the community.
Lastly, we want to continue to strengthen those connections between the community and the students. It's hard for people to wrap their head around that. Schools are communities too, that is true, but we're trying to move beyond the walls of the school.
Terri Whetstone is a visual artist who spent 20 years working in community development in Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Her experience has been focused primarily on the women's community as well as on youth and cultural organizations. Terri's professional experience and artistic qualifications made her a perfect fit for her new role as executive director of the 4Cs Foundation, a position she began in 2005. For more information about the foundation, visit: www.4csfoundation.com.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance print and broadcast journalist living in Toronto.
