Seifert, Susan C

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  • Publication
    Culture and Community Revitalization: A Framework for the Emerging Field of Culture-Based Neighborhood Revitalization
    (2011-08-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This summary flyer provides an overview of the publications produced as part of the Culture and Community Revitalization project. The SIAP - Reinvestment Fund collaboration was undertaken from 2006 to 2008 with support by the Rockefeller Foundation. http://repository.upenn.edu/siap_revitalization/
  • Publication
    Institutional Networks Serving Artists: A Look at Philadelphia
    (2003-06-01) Seifert, Susan C; Fairbanks, Robert P.
    This paper is a preliminary sketch of institutional networks serving artists in metropolitan Philadelphia based on interviews with 13 organizations from June to August 2002. The approach was to develop a “cognitive map” of the network of institutions that support artists based in the region. That is, what are the nodes and functions in an artist-centered network? What types of links connect these nodes or functions? What nodes and links are the most important? The study found that Philadelphia’s institutional network appears to operate, by and large, on a market model with artists functioning as individual “buyers” in an environment of limited resources and imperfect information. Some parts of the network, however, operate more on a service model for categories of artists—including many low-income groups— who because of race, immigration status, or location are cut off from the mainstream cultural system.
  • Publication
    Individual Participation and Community Arts Groups: A Quantitative Analysis of Philadelphia
    (1994-10-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This paper presents SIAP's first attempt to develop methods to measure the non-economic impact of the arts. The best data available on individual participation--periodic surveys of public participation in the arts by the National Endowment for the Arts--provided a wealth of data on individual behavior and attitude, but the few attempts to link these data to larger social contexts focused on the economics of arts consumption. This paper uses the public participation data for one city--Philadelphia. Information on the arts and cultural behavior of a sample of 600 adults in 1992 was linked with databases on cultural groups in the city to examine the role of community context on arts behavior. The findings were startling. Simple information on the cultural environment in which individuals live was more powerful than traditional socio-economic variables like income and education in predicting participation in the arts. These findings, by challenging the narrow economistic perspectives that have dominated the debate on arts and culture in the city, suggest that we need a broader and more fine-grained appreciation of the role of urban arts and their social impact.
  • Publication
    Arts Resources for Children and Youth in Philadelphia
    (1997-04-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This report, commissioned in 1995 by The Pew Charitable Trusts, presents findings of a study of arts and cultural resources for children and youth in Philadelphia. The purpose of the project was to examine access to and opportunities in the arts for young people and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the citywide system. The project used two perspectives to assess resources. First, the research team developed a geographic data base of existing nonprofit youth arts providers and arts in the public schools. This was combined with US census data to examine the geography and socio-economic context of existing services. Second, the team conducted over 40 interviews with cultural organizations and city agencies to understand relationships among different providers as a network of children’s arts resources. Appendix A lists the 229 nonprofit youth-serving cultural organizations in Philadelphia and identifies the 47 providers that participated in the qualitative phase of the study.
  • Publication
    “Natural” Cultural Districts: A Three-City Study
    (2013-02-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    From 2010 to 2012, SIAP undertook a study of “natural” cultural districts in three cities—Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Seattle. This report presents findings of two sets of analyses: a citywide analysis of the social geography and cultural ecology of each city and a set of case studies of cultural clusters within the three cities. For each case study, in the following seven neighborhoods, a statistical overview was fleshed out by qualitative study: Baltimore—Highlandtown-Patterson Park and Station North; Philadelphia—Callowhill/Chinatown North and South Philadelphia; and Seattle—Capitol Hill, the Central District, and Chinatown-International District. The citywide analyses examined the relationship of cultural engagement to social and economic change in the three cities. The case studies focused on the character and evolution of “natural” cultural districts and the challenges posed to their sustainability, including the role of cultural space. The broader goal of the project was to understand the dynamics of the community cultural ecosystem, connections between cultural ecology and community wellbeing, and implications for policy and planning.
  • Publication
    From Creative Economy to Creative Society
    (2008-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    Public policy promoting the creative economy has two serious flaws: one, a misperception of culture and creativity as a product of individual genius rather than collective activity; and, two, a willingness to tolerate social dislocation in exchange for urban vitality or competitive advantage. This brief recaps current culture and revitalization research and policy and proposes a new model—a neighborhood based creative economy—that has the potential to move the 21st century city toward shared prosperity and social integration.
  • Publication
    Documenting Civic Engagement: A Plan for the Tucson Pima Arts Council
    (2009-06-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This 2009 report is the product of SIAP’s collaboration with the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC) on a plan to document TPAC’s impact on civic engagement in Tucson and Pima County, Arizona. The goal of the project was to develop a plan to enable TPAC to phase in systematic collection and analysis of data on various forms of engagement. The report begins with a review of the policy context in which the project was undertaken, including the findings of the Pima Cultural Plan. The report then discusses a strategy and recommendations for documenting civic engagement and outlines a staged implementation plan. Specifically, Stern and Seifert propose five strategies: improving organizational data gathering, telling stories, documenting artists and the informal cultural sector, identifying institutional networks, and using geographic information systems to integrate data for analysis.
  • Publication
    Civic Engagement and the Arts: Issues of Conceptualization and Measurement
    (2009-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This report focuses on one aspect of the social impact of the arts--their influence on civic engagement. The inquiry was undertaken during 2008 in collaboration with Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts. The purpose was to assess the state of knowledge about the relationship of the arts to civic engagement and to suggest ways that artists, cultural and community organizations, philanthropists, and public agencies could improve the quality of that knowledge. The approach was a review of literature drawn from the social sciences, the humanities, and public policy in an attempt to bridge theory with practice and research with evaluation. The authors structure the report as a conventional research design--that is, they define terms, conceptualize relationships among variables, identify methodological challenges, and assess data gathering strategies. Lastly, they propose a three-tier approach--with organizational or program-scale strategies, regional-scale strategies, and initiative-scale strategies--to improve the field's ability to document and understand the impact of the arts and culture on civil society.
  • Publication
    Knight Creative Communities Initiative (KCCI) Evaluation: Interim Report
    (2007-12-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    During the summer of 2007, SIAP was asked by the Knight Foundation to undertake a process evaluation of its Creative Communities Initiative (KCCI) underway in Charlotte, North Carolina; Duluth, Minnesota/Superior, Wisconsin; and Tallahassee, Florida. This memo reports on initial findings of the experience of KCCI participants from catalyst selection in March through October 2007. The memo begins with an overview of the logic of KCCI and then examines participants’ experience of the initiative using a chronological structure: the selection of catalysts, the initial two-day seminar, the organization of the action or initiative teams, and the history of the teams to this point. The memo closes with general observations about participants’ perceptions of the initiative.
  • Publication
    Arts-Based Social Inclusion: An Investigation of Existing Assets and Innovative Strategies to Engage Immigrant Communities in Philadelphia
    (2010-09-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan C
    This document reports on a study of the role that arts and culture play in Philadelphia’s migrant communities—that is, Puerto Rican and foreign-born residents and their families, including children born in the U.S. The project explored the concept of “arts-based social inclusion”—the idea that organizations and artists use culture and the arts as a means to improve the life circumstances of new Philadelphians and integrate them more fully into community life. The study confirmed that arts-based social inclusion is a productive perspective with which to make sense of this work. The report first examines the changing presence of the foreign-born in Philadelphia from 2000 to 2007 as a context for the study. The authors then discuss findings based on fieldwork conducted during the spring and summer of 2010. Two cross-cutting themes emerged from interviews with practitioners. One is that a cultural perspective provides a broader, multi-dimensional way—beyond economic need—of thinking about the process of social inclusion. At the same time, cultural practitioners working with migrant communities repeatedly run up against conventional notions about nonprofit organizational structure and capacity. The report describes a five-part typology of existing models pursued by cultural practitioners: cultural space development, community organizing, institutional networks, school-based programming, and culturally-sensitive social service. The conclusion offers guidelines for philanthropy interested in a holistic, bottom-up approach to building the arts' capacity to engage immigrant communities.