VAF programs are on hold until February 2025!
Thank you to everyone who has supported us — and the amazing artist community in Vallejo — this year.
We can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up.
Welcome to the Vallejo Arts Fund
information page!
The Vallejo Arts Fund emerged from listening sessions and convenings with Vallejoans and is grounded in the belief that the city’s art is urgent and that resources need to be prioritized for communities that have historically been excluded from funding opportunities. The Fund centers Black, Indigenous, People of Color artists, culture bearers, arts organizers, and their broader communities. In 2023, we distributed $501,500 to support arts & culture by Vallejoans.
ABOUT THE FUND
OUR PURPOSE
The Vallejo Arts Fund (VAF) will distribute $500,000 to support arts & culture in Vallejo by beginning to address structural inequities that have impacted the Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) artists, culture bearers, arts organizers, and their communities. The Fund seeks to support artistic and cultural work within the performing arts, visual arts, digital and media arts, traditional folk arts, and oral/written storytelling. VAF deeply appreciates the healing aspects of art and that many of us are in fact healers. However, we are not currently seeking applications for healing arts practices.
OUR VALUES
The Vallejo Arts Funds respects and values Vallejoan artists and cultural bearers. The Fund is grounded in the voices of BIPOC Vallejoans and their lived experiences as artists, culture bearers, and arts organizers. Many have shared the impacts of gentrification and racist practices within the city and lack of support for BIPOC arts and culture. Therefore, VAF values diversity, inclusion, and equity around race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, ability, socio-economic status, artistic genre, experience, and regional lived-experiences. Just as important is VAF’s approach - we enter this opportunity with humility, centering respect for all, an environment of mutual learning, collective and deep relational practices, transparency and action-based care. VAF recognizes that any new effort takes patience, time, and care.
-
…and artist organizers to be included in the outreach, grantmaking, and decision-making processes.
BIPOC Vallejoan artists, culture bearers, and artist organizers are a vital group of innovators who add tangible value to Vallejo, and must be invested in, nurtured, and cultivated.
Vallejo’s art is urgent and should be more widely funded across the city and within the various BIPOC communities to mitigate the threat of displacement.
Indigenous and local BIPOC ways of being, knowing, and creating ground the cultural practices and expansive artistic expressions that are necessary for communities resiliency and self-determination.
Vallejo artists have a right to accessible spaces to practice their artistic/cultural work locally and safely.
The struggle is real.
MEET OUR TEAM
Reach out if you have questions. We’re here to help!
ser luna
-
sergio (ser) marín luna (he/they) is engaged in the reorientation of philanthropy in support of wellness, equity, and power-building in communities historically and systemically excluded from shaping society and sharing in its rewards and freedoms.
ser’s education began in his/their family and neighborhoods - an inheritance from a long line of migrants, luchadores, and compassionate justice-seekers. In his/their youth they learned valuable lessons about displacement, belonging, immigrant scapegoating, gender, queerness, and individual and structural racism. He/They found hope and empowerment by connecting to communities committed to dismantling systems of inequity. Through these connections, he/they began to develop the tools and discernment necessary to engage historical, institutional, geographic, and systemic factors exacerbating communities’ opportunities for real change.
He/They have lived out these values, practice, and inheritance as a Math & Science Teacher in a historically under-resourced city of color; a Program Specialist with the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ); a Program Manager with Public Allies-Los Angeles; an Assistant Director of the Draper Center for Community Partnerships at Pomona College; a Program Officer at the Hyams and Marguerite Casey Foundations; and a Philanthropic and DEI consultant & facilitator.
ser was privileged to receive a couple of degrees that shaped their journey - a Master’s in Education Policy and Management from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Loyola Marymount University.
Alison De La Cruz
alison@3palmsgroup.com OR
707-200-7858
-
Alison De La Cruz (she/he/they/DeLa) is a senior artivist leader, facilitator, cultural organizer, multi-disciplinary theater artist, educator, contemporary ritualist and elder. De La Cruz has over thirty years of experience facilitating circles and spaces for youth, strangers, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and collaborators to explore diverse communities and break down bias and systemic inequity. De La Cruz has collaborated with local artists and produced community events of all sizes, developing Los Angeles’ world class cultural ecosystem for over 20 years. They have raised over $3.2 million throughout their career to capacitate artists, communities and the organizations that serve them.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS
-
The Vallejo Arts Fund will launch applications for Microgrants for Individual Artists on Monday, February 6, 2023 at 3pm.
Join us for a Happy Hour Info Session on Zoom to learn more about the Microgrants Application and how to apply. Join us 2/8/23 @ 5pm, RSVP to join us in the Zoom or receive the link of the Info Session Video.
Microgrants Applications close on February 28, 2023 at 3pm.
The Vallejo Arts Fund will launch information and applications for all Program Grants: Youth Arts; BIPOC Arts & Cultural Practices; Arts Cultural Space; and Next Level Artist Grants on Friday, February 10, 2023.
Program Grants Applications are due on March 18, 2023 at 3pm.
-
Yes. Three Palms Group is actively designing a structure that will allow Outreach Ambassadors, Graphic Designer, Social Media Coordinators, and even the Grant Panelists to be able to collaborate with us and apply to the FUND. The only restriction is that Panelists cannot review in a category that they have applied in.
-
The Fund will offer grants in 5 separate categories: Individual Artist Microgrants; Youth Arts; Black, Indigenous, People of Color-Centered Arts & Cultural Practice; Arts Cultural Spaces; and Artist Next Level Projects.
The Fund seeks to support artistic and cultural work within the performing arts, visual arts, digital and media arts, traditional folk arts, and oral/written storytelling. VAF deeply appreciates the healing aspects of art and that many of us are in fact healers. However, we are not currently seeking applications for healing arts practices.
-
The Vallejo Arts Fund will be distributing $500,000 total. Gifts will range between $3500 and $30,000 depending on the specific grant.
There will be $100,000 available in Individual Artist Microgrants. More info dropping on 2/6/23 at 3pm.
Sign up for the 2/8/23 @ 5pm Microgrants Info Session on Zoom HERE
-
VAF is led by priorities from Vallejoans, supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, facilitated by Three Palms Group, and administered by Center for Cultural Innovation.
Three Palms Group (TPG) is a woman of color-owned consulting firm that offers capacity-building services and technical assistance to social, environmental, and educational justice organizations. In the Summer of 2022, we expanded our team to include arts and cultural work and began our work with the Vallejo Community. TPG serves as the stewards of the Vallejo BIPOC Arts & Cultural Communities priorities and values towards the launch and implementation of the Vallejo Arts Fund. More at 3palmsgroup.com
The Center for Cultural Innovation’s mission is to support individuals in the arts—artists, culture bearers, and creative entrepreneurs—to realize greater self-determination so as to unfetter their productivity, free expression, and social impact, which contributes to shaping our collective national identity in ways that reflect the diversity of society. You can learn more about them at cciarts.org
-
In 2019, the Hewlett Foundation held a listening circle with a small group of Vallejo artists, culture bearers, administrators and community members. The 3 things that the community wanted out of a fund was funding, outreach, and a seat at the tables.
In the summer of 2022, Three Palms Group engaged with over 46 Vallejoans artists, cultural bearers, and arts organizers in sharing, listening, prioritizing, and processes to address systemic inequities impacting Vallejo’s BIPOC artists, culture bearers, cultural organizers, and their communities. They collectively contributed over 235 hours of conversation, reflection, and thought.
The work of the Summer ‘22 Cohorts helped to define some of the keystones to this fund while taking necessary steps to move with urgency and intention on the community’s behalf. Three Palms Group served as the first stewards in this part of the process and is glad to work with our partners the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) to launch the Vallejo Arts Fund in February 2023.
Send us a message!
