Grantees
and Partners

Jerusalem Culture Unlimited

Overview

Jerusalem Culture Unlimited (JCU) provides capacity building and professional development through knowledge sharing, tools and skills to Jerusalem based early career artist initiatives and mid-sized artist-led organizations from all social sectors and across all artistic genres represented in the city. Annually JCU delivers hundreds of hours of strategic management training through group sessions and individual mentoring with its team of professionals who have experience and passion working with artists. The goal is to ensure that the work of Jerusalem’s artists and arts groups is viable, visible, and sustainable. JCU envisions a healthy arts ecosystem where their creative production supports Jerusalem as a world class creative city.

 

Grant

Purpose: To provide operational support in order to reach a broader range of artists and to continue programs that build the capacity of next generation artists and the agency of their emerging
organizations oriented to social issues.

JCU has been assisting artists within all social sectors in Jerusalem — Jews from Misrachi and Ashkenazi backgrounds, Haredi, religious, and secular, Palestinians — and within diverse artistic genres, including theater, dance, visual arts, music and interdisciplinary work. Programs include:

• Deep-dive seminars and training on professional development topics such as governance, board development, and developing presentations to work internationally
• An Open-Door Clinic through which JCU staff provide targeted professional consultation for JCU alumni and new groups
• Organizational mentoring for artist initiatives
• Jerusalem Cultural Leadership Network for artists, directors of culture institutions, philanthropists and local stakeholders to share knowledge and learning to deliberate on how Jerusalem arts and culture will be resourced more effectively
• Partnerships to build new spaces and programming for artists and community in E. Jerusalem
• JCU Giving Circle for the Arts and Artists Relief Fund that provide micro-grants to support new independent artist initiatives or within existing organizations

 

Impact

In partnership with Jerusalem-based sister organization Bar-Kayma, this past year, JCU’s Hama’alit Olah! brought together 15 artists for six, half-day professional development workshops. The Cultural Leadership Forum’s topics ranged from “Moving from ‘Temporary’ to ‘Permanent'” to “Between Renewal and Heritage,” both creating an open platform for dialogue, resource sharing, collaboration, and networking amongst JCU graduates and, as such, the larger Jerusalem cultural ecosystem. JCU also piloted the East Jerusalem Artist’s Residency at the Albright Institute, hosting two artists, with prospects of growing the pilot program in 2023.

 

Additional Resources:

Jerusalem Culture Unlimited