NASAA Leadership Institute Features Creative Aging Experts

Teresa Bonner, Maura O'Malley and Diana Champa are pictured sitting at a conference table talking to one another.
Pictured from left to right: Teresa Bonner, Executive Director, Aroha Philanthropies; Maura O’Malley, CEO, Lifetime Arts; and Diana Champa, Director of Literacy Engagement, School One. Credit: Jennifer Borman

On September 18-20, Aroha Philanthropies and Lifetime Arts presented, “Collaborations in Creative Aging,” at National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ 2019 Leadership Institute, hosted by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts in Providence, RI. 

In 2016, Aroha Philanthropies developed a major multi-year initiative, Seeding Vitality Arts (SVA), to seed creative aging programs nationally. Using a learning cohort model, Aroha and its partner Lifetime Arts are equipping 50 grantees from Alaska to Puerto Rico with the tools needed to develop and share these programs. Through this initiative and others, museums and other arts and cultural organizations are creating successful cross-sector collaborations with myriad state agencies and organizations serving active older adults, including state and local agencies on aging, state libraries, YMCAs, public libraries, senior centers, senior housing providers and more.

The speakers included; Teresa Bonner, Executive Director, Aroha Philanthropies; Maura O’Malley, CEO, Lifetime Arts; and Diana Champa, Director of Literacy Engagement, School One. This high school in Providence, RI has developed a collaboration with a senior housing provider to provide intergenerational arts learning among its students and older adults. In this session, the group of experts discussed; the outcomes reported by participants; what it takes to develop successful collaborations; and how the arts ecosystem is being strengthened by engaging older adults as art makers.

“The heads of 25 State arts agencies responded enthusiastically to our presentation on the importance of strategic partnerships to support Creative Aging work,” said Maura.  “A lively questions and answer session left us with the impression that these important colleagues are ready to dive deep into Creative Aging.”