News
New Grants
We’re pleased to announce more than $2 million in new grant awards by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy to the organizations listed below. You can also see the full list of our extraordinary grantees here.
Discovery Arts
East Side Arts Council
Northern Clay Center
Pillsbury House + Theatre
TU Dance
VocalEssence
Humanity Arts
Mateo Lodge
People Incorporated
Vitality Arts
Be That Neighbor
CommonBond Communities
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Metropolitan Opera Guild
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Rumriver Art Center
Speed Art Museum
Twin Cities Public Television
A Rapidly Growing Movement
Outdated language and narratives perpetuate ageism, often unintentionally. We can and must do better. This communications toolkit from FrameWorks Institute and this Quick Guide to Avoid Ageism in Communication provide practical, concrete examples and guidelines.
Prestigious institutions across the world are also championing the potential of older adults:
- The World Health Organization has prioritized the elimination of ageism in its Global Report on Ageism, which “outlines what strategies work to prevent and counter ageism, identifies gaps and proposes future lines of research to improve our understanding of ageism.”
- The Stanford Center for Longevity recently introduced its New Map of Life initiative, which will “define new models for education and lifelong learning… and advance a new narrative, which redefines what it means to be ‘old’ and values people at different stages of life.”
- Columbia University’s Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center “seeks to bring about a Third Demographic Dividend: a new stage of societal development in which all ages and society broadly can benefit from the opportunities of longer lives. This will require… enabling older adults to use their many assets to help solve unmet societal needs through roles with meaning and purpose.”
- The MIT AgeLab “applies consumer-centered systems thinking to understand the challenges and opportunities of longevity and emerging generational lifestyles to catalyze innovation across business markets.”
- New books showcase new attitudes about aging and ageism, including Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Ageism and How to End It by Tracey Gendron, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University; The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World's Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market by Joseph Coughlin, PhD, MIT; and Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live by Becca Levy, PhD, Yale.
We urge you to look into these resources and share with your networks.
Sages of Aging
A recent article from Next Avenue chronicles Age Wave’s Ken Dychtwald’s interviews with a dozen pioneers in the field of aging. In partnership with the American Society on Aging, Dychtwald initially produced a 12-part podcast series (watch/listen here or read excerpts here). The initiative has been made into a documentary, Sages of Aging, airing nationally beginning October 1, 2022 on public television. Tune in to hear from these leaders in the field of aging on wisdom, insights and legacy lessons about growing older. View the article here.
Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums Update
The Vitality Arts Project initiative has kicked off with several exciting updates:
Pilot cohort:
This summer, Lifetime Arts provided a customized two-day training to more than 30 staff from the nine cohort museums.
The initiative was featured in this article published by Artnet and referenced in this AARP article.
Request for Proposals:
A ‘How to Apply’ webinar is scheduled for AAMD members on Tuesday, September 27 at 11 am Central time.
Proposals are due by 5 p.m. Central Time on October 21, 2022.
New Grants
We’re pleased to announce more than $2 million in new grant awards by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy to the organizations listed below. You can also see the full list of our extraordinary grantees here.
Alive & Kickin
Brooklyn Museum
Craft Contemporary
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Pérez Art Museum of Miami
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Louisiana State Museum
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte
Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
New Orleans Museum of Art
Ohio History Connection
Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts
Utah Museum of Fine Arts at University of Utah
Request for Proposals: Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums
E.A. Michelson Philanthropy invites art museums across the United States to submit proposals to participate in its Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums initiative, which will help art museums reframe their relationships with older adults – to view them as essential, competent, creative and contributing participants in the life of the museum, and to develop Vitality Arts programs to engage them. View the full request for proposals and grant guidelines here. Frequently asked questions can be viewed here.
Members of the Association of Art Museum Directors are eligible to apply for this competitive national grant opportunity. A diverse cohort of up to 20 museums will be selected to receive grants of up to $250,000 to develop Vitality Arts programs, which create opportunities for older adults to experience the joy of learning an art form while building community. The cohort will join 9 art museums that are currently part of the Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums initiative. Current cohort members include Brooklyn Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, LACMA, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Pérez Art Museum of Miami and Utah Museum of Fine Art. Since early 2021, museum consultants Brian Kennedy and András Szántó, have been advising E.A. Michelson Philanthropy on expanding the foundation's work to address ageism in American art museums. You can view the full press release here.
In addition, funded organizations will become thought leaders and advocates for a new relationship with older adults within their museum, in their community and among professional colleagues by speaking, writing and providing visibility for the work. Funded museums will also investigate and address the implications of ageism for their museum from a holistic standpoint while developing new programs that actively engage older adults.
“In just a few years, Americans older than 65 will outnumber those younger than 18 for the first time in the country’s history,” said Ellen Michelson, founder and president of E.A. Michelson Philanthropy. “Overall, across all demographic groups, people are living longer and staying mentally and physically healthy as they age. Yet the number of inspiring programs and activities for older adults is not expanding at the same rate. Investing in these creative aging programs is about recognizing this major demographic shift, and leveraging the power of art and art museums to do so. We have had tremendous success with these programs to date, engaging thousands of participants who consistently tell our grantees how grateful they are to be able to participate. Now, I am excited to expand our vision with an outstanding array of new museum partners.”
Proposals can be submitted starting August 1 and are due by 5 p.m. Central Time on October 21, 2022.
Report on Older Americans & the Arts
We are pleased to announce the release of Untapped Opportunity: Older Americans & the Arts, a collaboration among LaPlaca Cohen, Slover Linett and E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.
This groundbreaking report sheds light on older generations’ distinct preferences and behaviors to provide relevant insights for cultural engagement. The corrosive ageism that permeates our culture leads us to see older people as “other,” but it turns out that older and younger adults want the same things from life: we all have a deep desire to have fun, to connect meaningfully with others, to create and to learn.
This report provides new data on people over 55 years of age. Importantly, it reveals older adults’ priorities in engaging with the arts: opportunities to belong, to learn something new and to feel a sense of accomplishment. The findings in this report align with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy’s $20 million commitment to support creative aging programs in more than 100 organizations over the past decade.
It’s time to change the narrative around aging. The report joins a growing but overdue body of research investigating how engagement with arts and culture activities evolve over our lifetimes. It challenges arts and cultural organizations to recognize something that has been hiding in plain sight—an enormous opportunity to develop and deliver quality programs of relevance to the fastest-growing segment of our society.
You can view this important and fascinating report here.
New Grants
We’re pleased to announce more than $2 million in new grant awards by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy to the organizations listed below. You can also see the full list of our extraordinary grantees here.
Discovery Arts
Children’s Theatre Company
Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts
Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies
MacPhail Center for Music
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Humanity Arts
MacPhail Center for Music
Vitality Arts
MacPhail Center for Music
Lifetime Arts
2022 AAM Annual Meeting
E.A. Michelson Philanthropy is thrilled to see creative aging included in the 2022 AAM Annual Meeting and Museum Expo in Boston. Two exciting sessions discussed the impact of creative aging in museums:
Thursday, May 19 from 9 – 12:30 pm EDT
Creative Aging: Paving the Way for Lifelong Learning in the Arts
This session featured our colleagues at Lifetime Arts as well as three E.A. Michelson Philanthropy museum grantees from our Seeding Vitality Arts initiative.
Saturday, May 21 from 9:10 – 10:10 am EDT
The Funders Perspective: Museums & Society
Lifetime Arts Launches New Creative Aging Resource
Lifetime Arts recently launched a new online creative aging resource that provides a browsable directory of hundreds of hand-curated creative aging research, media, and case studies, along with profiles of experts and organizations in creative aging. The resource serves as a hub for the field and invites organizations serving older adults to share information about their own creative aging work. To learn more, visit creativeagingresource.org.