Performing Arts

The Destiny Arts Center mentors at-risk youth through dance, martial arts, and theater.

For forty years, the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program has played a leading role in nurturing the San Francisco Bay Area’s rich cultural diversity, from the San Francisco Symphony to local community arts groups. The Program’s grantmaking supports organizations that use the power of the arts to reduce barriers for low income and diverse communities in the Bay Area to access and participate in the arts.

More specifically, in recent years, we have made nearly $3 million in grants to organizations that focus on serving young people in low-income communities throughout the region.

The San Francisco-based Bay Area Video Coalition teaches at-risk young adults aged 18 to 23 to use technology like video and the World Wide Web to tell compelling stories. The skills they learn offer both a means of self-expression and marketable talents to help launch a career. In addition to offering general operating support, the Hewlett Foundation provided a grant so the Coalition could expand its introductory training programs in digital media community based sites throughout the Bay Area.

At Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco, the staff offers a comprehensive suite of support services to help homeless youth gain confidence in their creativity and realize their potential so they can exit street life permanently and become self-sufficient adults. The multi-year grant from the Hewlett Foundation supports Larkin Street’s efforts to attract additional financial support as it increases both the number and quality of its workshops, including one that shares new client-created media work online. Another Hewlett grant has helped Larkin Street expand from its traditional focus on visual arts and offer performing arts workshops.

The Young Musicians Program at the University of California, Berkeley, provides youth from low-income families throughout the Bay Area with year-round musical instruction from the region’s leading classical, jazz, and musical theater teachers. With Hewlett Foundation support, the Young Musicians Program offers a summer camp and weekly classes for free to admitted students and provides academic tutoring, preparation for SAT exams and college conservatory auditions, mentoring opportunities, and access to psychological counseling. Founded in 1968, the Young Musicians Program successfully prepares young people to excel on stage and off, routinely sending graduating seniors to college with scholarships and a strong sense of identity and confidence.

The Performing Arts Program is not accepting unsolicited Letters of Inquiry for its Serving Bay Area Communities grantmaking at this time. We encourage Bay Area performing arts grantseekers to explore funding opportunities provided with intermediaries and regranters with which we partner.