NEW FORWARD FUND

Do you believe that artists have a vital role to play in addressing the most critical issues of our time?

Do you love the issue-focused, creative content we share in our digital publication, FORWARD?

Have you enjoyed the online programming in our FORWARD series of conversations and talks?

Please support FORWARD with a financial gift today.

Your gift today will support Forecast to continue to share compelling stories from the field, host engaging conversations,
and show decision-makers how artists are critical partners in addressing pressing civic issues, from public health to the fate of our climate.

Help us reach our goal to raise $25,000 to launch this new fund. Your support will help us tackle creative solutions together in 2023 and beyond.
Please make a gift today

With collections of case studies organized around Racism, Collective Trauma, Mental Health, and more, this inaugural publication guides potential collaborators through creatively approaching challenge areas in public health.

The FORWARD issue 1 welcome page shows a group of BIPOC folks wearing masks, waving and sitting on their front steps. That image is from a story in the publication. A headline reads, "How Artists Help Drive Better Public Health Outcomes"

about the fund

With this new FORWARD Fund, we will continue to engage anyone interested in working to advance justice, health and human dignity—architects, artists, arts administrators, city managers, community organizers, designers, funders, neighborhood organizations, public health workers, urban planners, and more creative, civic-minded people—to partner and learn with us.

Give today and ensure that FORWARD continues to reach people anywhere, without barriers to access.

why now?

Communities are seeking help in moving from intention to action to address pressing civic issues.

With continuing nationwide protests and calls for action around critical issues, awareness around public art commands attention from the media, taking root in cities and towns.

Desire for new approaches to creatively address critical civic issues has skyrocketed, and decision-makers are hungry to learn how to engage creative solutions.

Begun in 2020, the FORWARD publication and conversation series meets the moment, highlighting how artists partner with cities, institutions, and communities to courageously tackle the vital issues of our time. But, we can’t do it alone.

It is increasingly difficult for Forecast to produce the kind of high quality content that audiences are hungry for. Every day in our work we see artists and communities partnering on creative solutions; together they are redefining and reimagining as they create more responsive, equitable, and sustainable solutions.

what will this work look like?

After two years of five issues and six panel discussions helmed by five guest editors, seven featured essayists, and four guest curators—all uplifting the creative solutions of dozens of artists to a consistent audience of more than 3,000—we are just getting started.

There are as many stories of creative solutions as there are challenges. This content is relevant as long as we are collectively solving these issues. From public health, transportation, and community safety, to sustainable design, housing, climate concerns, and more—with this fund, we hope you’ll join us as we face these challenges with thoughtful solutions.

These partnerships are helping to drive better public outcomes and uplift new notions of art and place. This fund will allow us to continue sharing these stories with cross-sector creative changemakers nationwide. Your support will make this work possible.

What kinds of creative solutions are possible?

These are just a few of the topics we’ve covered with the help of cross-sector partners

How artists help drive better public health outcomes
How artists create more responsive, equitable, and sustainable transportation solutions
How artists reimagine public safety as community safety by prioritizing healing, expression, and community control
How the built environment can lift up a community’s notions of art, culture, and place

What kinds of conversations are relevant now?

These are just a few of the conversations we’ve held with practitioners and leaders across sectors

How artists can address public health challenges
How artists and the transportation sector are collaborating to solve intractable problems and envision a more just future of mobility & infrastructure
The role of artists in the future of community safety
How we can center artists & culture bearers alongside designers to overcome bureaucratic racism in the design field

Are you new to the FORWARD series? See this collection of creative solutions.

how to help?

FORWARD voices from Issues 1-5. Top row: Karen Olson, Dr. Mindy Fullilove, Ben Stone, Charles T. Brown; Row 2: Tricia Heuring, Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, Andrea Jenkins, Dr. André de Quadros, Amina Cooper; Row 3: Dr. Meghan Venable-Thomas, Joseph Kunkel, Jeremy Liu, Mary V. Bordeaux, Lynn M. Cuny; Row 4: Paul Singh, Dr. Lisa Yun Lee, Tiff Beatty, Scott Oshima, Jessica Mehta.

DONATE TODAY

What kind of future do we want to build together?

Artists are partnering with communities to tackle the vital issues of our time. The stories of this work can guide our collective futures.

We’re counting on you. Your gift to Forecast will allow us to share the stories of artists and communities partnering together to solve challenges we all face.

D O N A T E

EXAMPLES OF THIS WORK

These are some examples of the ways our FORWARD series approached challenging civic issues in just two years—with your help, we’ll be able to highlight even more creative solutions.

Jasmeen Patheja’s Talk To Me (2005 to present) takes place in an area of Bangalore where people feel sexually threatened. The project invites members of the public to have conversations about anything except sexual violence. Photo by Jasmeen Patheja, faciltator, Action Hero, and Vishaka Jindal, Yelahanka Action Hero.

Freedom From Harm

Artists reveal unjust social norms that harm vulnerable people, suggesting new ways of being together

In these projects from FORWARD Issue 3: Community Safety, we witness artists shining light into corners where others rarely venture: daring to confront social norms and suggest new ways of being together that do not cause harm. These can be important first steps—two of many.

Artist Tosha Stimage worked with San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit to pilot a community-informed intervention strategy to deconstruct racial prejudices worsened by COVID-19, and normalize the culture of mask wearing on transit. Photo courtesy Smart Growth America.

COVID-19

To help people make their way through space, cities enlisted designers and artists to address COVID-19 challenges

Featured in FORWARD Issue 2: Transportation, designers and artists used creative tactics to promote adherence to mask and social distancing requirements, to encourage riders to return to transit, and to help people make their way through space under rapidly changing rules.

Oakland’s Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company chose dance to address collective trauma. Its Black (W)hole project mourns the deaths and celebrates and honors the lives of six young people who died in and around Oakland before they reached the age of 32, and was written after conversations with their loved ones. DAYPC members Desmond O’Shea (left) and Theo Sanders’ (right) jump shot during Black (W)hole film production. Photo by Yoram Savion.

Collective Trauma

Art-powered community projects can change the narrative the community tells itself about itself—and real healing can happen.

Art-driven community projects aim to heal entire communities by working “upstream” against the negativity of trauma: building collective pride by creating places of beauty and sites or actions that celebrate community history, amplifying community voices, and crafting positive images of community people. Featured in FORWARD Issue 1: Public Health.