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Why Arts in Health?

The mission of my foundation is straightforward. We aim to improve access and opportunity for all New Yorkers and foster healthy, vibrant communities. When I established my foundation in 2007 and was shaping our giving strategy, I knew that my efforts would be centered in New York given my family’s deep roots and philanthropic engagement with the City.

My family believes in doing what we can to help other people. My parents set a great example for me — from my mother’s leadership in the Gay Men’s Health Crisis to my father’s role in creating a public/private partnership to rebuild athletic fields at all of New York City’s public high schools.

In New York City, as in so many other places, zip codes and circumstances of birth can determine someone’s likelihood of a healthy life, good education, access to the arts, quality health care, good jobs, parks, and safe, clean, affordable housing. We look at philanthropy through an equity lens. I started the Illumination Fund because every New Yorker deserves access to what they need for a better life.

Decades of research have shown that the arts are a powerful tool to improve people’s lives and can play an important role in healthcare. We’re not an arts foundation, but the arts are an important part of my life. Rick Luftglass, Illumination Fund executive director, also has a deep engagement with the arts and came to the Illumination Fund from Pfizer, where he led important health philanthropy. With that experience, both of us saw firsthand how the arts can help people and improve their health and their lives overall. So, it felt natural to expand our arts funding and expand our health funding by connecting the arts and health.

Laurie M. Tisch

President
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund

We brought important lessons from our ten years of food insecurity work to bear as we planned our new initiative, especially the concept of creating a cohort of grantees, convening them, and fostering partnerships and collaborations amongst them, as well as engaging in public/private partnerships to magnify and multiply the effects of our giving.

Since 2018, with an initial $10 million commitment, the programs we support are flourishing, expanding, and seeing real results in the communities they serve. The research base is growing, exciting new organizations are mobilizing the field, new programs are being developed, and there are more and more opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives and health through the arts. We decided to create this report now to provide a snapshot of the first six years of that work and its impact so far, and to inspire health organizations, arts organizations, foundations, public agencies, and philanthropists to expand the field by exploring opportunities at the intersection of the arts and health.

What role can the arts play in healthcare?

Developing
the Arts in Health
initiative

When the Illumination Fund began to plan for its Arts in Health initiative in 2017, we immersed ourselves in the issues, researched the landscape, spoke with experts, identified trends, and assessed needs, gaps, and opportunities where we could have a significant impact. And we put our findings through our lens — alignment with our mission of “increasing access and opportunity for all New Yorkers and fostering healthy and vibrant communities” — which is fundamentally about identifying disparities and promoting equity.

One of the challenges is that “Arts in Health” can mean many things. The power of the arts extends to a wide range of health and societal issues. We needed to determine our focus.

Based on our research and mission, we decided to focus on three issues where the arts could have a great impact:

• As a vehicle to combat mental health stigma
• As a resource in recovering from trauma and building resilience, and
• As a means to help improve quality of life for people with aging-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, other forms of dementia, and Parkinson’s disease.

We were inspired by new research and reports that identified the potential of the arts to address mental health stigma and trauma, and moved by personal experiences. Scrape the surface, and everyone has a story — whether it’s about experiencing mental health challenges and being reluctant to seek help, or having friends and family suffering from mental illness, or seeing our parents age and experience memory loss.

Rick Luftglass

Executive Director
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund

Launching Arts in Health

The Arts in Health initiative was designed to catalyze the use of the arts to address these and other health issues. Our goal is to help organizations that are doing important work to increase their ability to reach more people, advance their strategies, and build awareness of the role the arts can play in healing.

In 2018-2019, we supported about 15 organizations spanning the areas of mental health stigma, trauma, and aging-related diseases. We did not limit ourselves to particular artistic disciplines; we saw that visual art, theater, dance, filmmaking, music, and other disciplines have distinct benefits.

The types of grantees also varied widely. Some were arts organizations while others were social service, advocacy, and mental health service providers. Most were community-based nonprofits, and two were public agencies, including NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal health system in the country. We prioritized communities and populations with health disparities and those disproportionately affected by issues of mental health stigma, trauma, and aging-related diseases.

During those first two years, we saw our grantees flourish. Our up-front plan was paying off.

But of course, when COVID hit in 2020, we learned that even the best-laid plans can’t anticipate some scenarios. There’s a Yiddish saying — “Man plans, God laughs.”

“We see evidence that communities that engage residents and have a high degree of social cohesion tend to be healthier than those who do not. Arts are part of the narrative of what makes a strong and healthy community.”²

Cara James, Ph.D.,
President and CEO
Grantmakers in Health

The Pandemic

Post-Pandemic

A Roadmap for the Future

As we look to the future, the Illumination Fund remains committed to deepening its engagement and expanding impact within the arts in health community in New York. Building on the success of the initiative over the first six years, based on lessons learned, we aim to amplify the transformative power of the arts in healthcare through several key strategic directions:

1. Scaling Successful Programs and Fostering Creativity: While the initiative has helped to expand access to the arts to address key health issues, the need for services is even greater today. We will foster innovation in the field of arts in health as well as help organizations with proven programs expand services to touch more lives and promote health across diverse populations.

2. Innovative Partnerships: Partnerships are critical for sustaining and enhancing impact in the field. We will help our grantees create collaborations with healthcare providers, arts organizations, community-based organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions to develop innovative projects at the intersection of arts and health. These partnerships help pilot new approaches and broaden the scope of issues being addressed through the arts.

3. Research and Evaluation: To better understand and communicate the impact of the arts in healthcare, we will invest in robust research and evaluation of grantee programs and models. By helping our grantees partner with leading research institutions, we gather empirical data on the health benefits of arts integration into healthcare. This evidence not only informs the work of the grantees and their partners, but also helps us refine our strategies and provides evidence for the broader adoption of arts in health practices.

Together with arts organizations, healthcare organizations and other philanthropists and foundations, we can create a future where the arts are an integral part of healthcare, enriching lives and transforming communities.

4. Building Awareness: Increasing awareness of the importance of arts in health is essential for long-term sustainability. By sharing success stories and best practices, we inspire other organizations and stakeholders to embrace the arts as a vital component of healthcare.

5. Community-Centered Approaches: Ensuring that the programs we support are inclusive and culturally sensitive is a priority. We encourage grantees and community members to create programs that reflect their community’s needs and preferences. This grassroots approach helps build trust and fosters a sense of ownership among participants.

6. Sustainability and Capacity Building: To ensure the longevity of our efforts, we will focus on sustainability, professional development, staff support, and capacity building within the organizations we support. We learned during COVID that burnout among nonprofit staff is a serious issue and one that the arts can help address. In addition, providing training and resources to healthcare providers, administrators, and artists empowers them to continue delivering high-quality, arts-based health interventions independently.

The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund’s Arts in Health initiative is poised to make even greater strides in the coming years. By increasing investments in successful programs, and research; fostering innovative partnerships; embracing community-centered approaches; helping to grow the field of the arts in healthcare; and building sustainability through staff development and capacity building, we are committed to enhancing health and well-being through the power of the arts. Together with arts organizations, healthcare organizations and other philanthropists and foundations, we can create a future where the arts are an integral part of healthcare, enriching lives and transforming communities.

The Power of the Arts to Build Strong Communities, Improve Health and Healing, and Foster Flourishing

Today, we stand on the verge of a cultural shift in which the arts can deliver potent, accessible, and proven health and well-being solutions to billions of people. The ability to experience the arts and aesthetic experiences is among the defining characteristics of being human. We take in the world through our senses; smell, sound, taste, touch, and vision are powerful pathways into the brain. Science is now proving what artists have known for millennia — our brains and bodies are wired for art.

Allied with the growing research base, a vast number of arts practitioners are drawing on an arsenal of modalities to advance health and well-being. Validated by a combination of professional experiences and quantitative and qualitative evidence, practitioners are using arts interventions to improve mobility, memory, and speech; relieve pain and the after-effects of trauma; ease the course of chronic and degenerative diseases; enhance learning outcomes; build resilience; lessen the stigma associated with mental health disorders; and address other challenges that sometimes seem intractable. [LINK]

Beyond their capacity to lessen the toll of discrete medical conditions, the arts are playing a somewhat less easily measured — but no less crucial — role in advancing well-being, fostering social cohesion, and forging the more equitable, resilient, and economically viable communities that can grow and sustain health. [LINK] By showcasing and supporting coherent, culturally distinct communities, the arts provide ingredients that are vital for collective health.

While these findings are helping to shape new approaches in healthcare, education and public health, Laurie Tisch and Rick Luftglass at the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund were already ahead of the science. In 2018, the Illumination Fund launched its Arts in Health initiative, providing a point of intersection for multiple fields that are perhaps not accustomed to working together. The idea of community is central to Arts in Health, and the initiative supports organizations that are focused on health and wellness issues and that use the arts as a tool and resource, with the hope and intention of building opportunities for underserved communities and addressing disparities.

Susan Magsamen

Founder and Executive Director
International Arts + Mind Lab
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Insights:

Trust, Innovation and Impact

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is a global nonprofit dedicated to accelerating philanthropy in pursuit of a just world. Through deep collaboration with our projects and the broader philanthropy ecosystem, we lead efforts to address complex global challenges. With a diverse and experienced team, we advance impactful solutions across a wide range of issue areas through audacious philanthropy. Since our founding in 2002, RPA has grown into one of the world’s largest philanthropic service organizations, committed to sharing knowledge and driving meaningful change.

RPA has been working with the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund since 2008, providing strategic advice, facilitating planning for new initiatives, and benchmarking impact. In our 2022 global philanthropy study, Operating Archetypes: Philanthropy’s New Tool for Strategic Clarity, [LINK] RPA spotlighted the Illumination Fund as a leader in transformative, long-term support for crucial institutions in New York, and its willingness to take risks and forge new directions in philanthropy.

In 2023, RPA was engaged to assist with the Arts in Health Progress Report. We spent six months interviewing grantees, attending convenings, listening to experts, drafting materials, and managing the project timeline to keep things moving. Through this process, we gained new insight into the Illumination Fund’s approach to developing and implementing its initiatives. We offer our insights below to highlight the innovative strategies and adaptive methods that have defined the Illumination Fund’s impact.

Latanya Mapp

President and CEO
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

Thoughtful
Program Design

The Arts in Health initiative is distinguished by its deliberate approach to program design. In 2017, the Illumination Fund identified the growing trend of integrating arts into healthcare and spent a year researching evidence-based practices and consulting experts to pinpoint current needs, gaps, and promising developments. They chose to focus on supporting underfunded organizations addressing mental health stigma, trauma, and aging-related diseases.

By targeting organizations with great potential but limited resources, the Illumination Fund tailors its support to address specific gaps and challenges, offering a strategic framework to help these organizations achieve their

goals and expand their impact. The program includes a robust feedback mechanism, allowing for ongoing adjustments based on grantee input and evolving needs. This iterative approach enhances the relevance and effectiveness of each grant, fostering continuous improvement and responsiveness.

The Arts in Health funding framework showcases how a thoughtfully designed program can drive meaningful, adaptable solutions in complex environments, and can serve as a model for others who wish to fund emerging fields.

Grantmaking
Grounded in Trust

From the beginning, the Illumination Fund approached arts and health grantmaking with an open mind and a foundation of trust. They recognized that trust was essential for the initiative’s success. Our interviews revealed that grantees viewed the Illumination Fund as a supportive and accessible thought partner, instead of imposing top-down decisions. Grantees reported that when challenges arose, the team provided practical assistance and troubleshooting support rather than adding more requirements and additional hurdles. This trust was essential during the pandemic, when grantees faced unprecedented difficulties. In these trying times, the Illumination Fund offered crucial support, helping partners adapt and continue serving their communities amidst new and significant challenges.

Strategic
Flexibility

The Illumination Fund’s flexibility is another key differentiator. The Illumination Fund listens carefully to their grantees and is actively engaged in assessing needs and adjusting grants accordingly. In the very early days of the pandemic, they demonstrated this flexibility when the tremendous need for mental health services, especially among healthcare workers, and the negative stigma in seeking out this form of health care came to the fore. During this uniquely devastating, isolating, and unpredictable time, the Illumination Fund adjusted its support so grantee partners’ programming and services could truly meet the needs of the moment. The Illumination Fund provided additional funds for its grantees, and also launched its first open call for proposals to expand their giving — focusing on mental health needs in communities that were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This thoughtful decision not only met immediate needs, but resulted in exposure to innovative organizations and fostered new partnerships and insights it might not have had with an invitation-only grant application.

Beyond
the Dollars

One of the most striking aspects of the Illumination Fund’s strategy is its emphasis on fostering connectivity among grantees. By creating a collaborative cohort experience, the Fund has enabled valuable exchanges of knowledge and resources, transforming isolated organizations into a network of synergistic partnerships. This approach not only enhances collective impact but also builds deep, meaningful connections, often overlooked in traditional funding models.

“Coming together fosters community, allowing for collaboration, troubleshooting, and shared learning. That is the magic of the cohort.”

David Leventhal,
Program Director
Dance for PD®

“The cohort provided us with an opportunity to reflect together. We were all working towards an opportunity to talk about mental wellness; we were each using a different approach and working with different communities. To know that there were peers out there provided us with a sense of community and a sense of strength.”

Jorge Merced,
Associate Artistic Director
Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater

Non-Grantmaking Strategies

Conclusion

This report conveys the arts’ ability to transform human health and wellness in ways we’ve rarely seen so vividly before. As philanthropy advisors, it’s promising and, indeed, exciting to imagine the possibilities of what comes next in this growing field. It often takes a courageous and fearless pioneer to take risks and create future funding opportunities for others. The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund is a trailblazer in this field, setting a high standard for others to follow.

We believe this report will serve as an inspiring and valuable resource, showcasing the extraordinary possibilities that lie ahead in the realm of arts and health.

What Does Impact Look Like?

by Rick Luftglass

Every funder faces the question of how to measure the impact of its work — both in terms of the success of individual grants and the cumulative impact of its grants, programs, and initiatives.

Foundations and nonprofit organizations talk a lot about evaluation, impact, outcomes, and metrics. There are many ways to try to measure impact. There are theories of change, logic models, cost-benefit analyses, pathways maps, social return on investment, and some use rigorous scientific study models such as randomized controlled studies. All of these are important on a case-by-case basis, but there is a lot of jargon and you can get lost in theories.

There is great variety in strategies to assess impact. Some grantees conduct rigorous studies. Others look at basic numbers — counting participants, workshops, events, and other activities in order to assess reach and touchpoints. Many use surveys or focus groups to learn about the experiences of the participants. Yet for some programs, anecdotes about the lived experience of their program participants are the best way of determining impact. These may be entirely subjective but get to the heart of impact on individuals.

These are all valid ways to assess impact. We’ve adopted a phrase from Susan Magsamen of the Johns Hopkins University International Arts + Mind Lab: there are “many ways of knowing.”

Funders need to be judicious about resources. Almost anything can be measured, if you have enough money and time, but that doesn’t mean that it should. In all cases, we ask:

• What is meaningful?
• What is reasonable given the size of the organization?
• What is useful, and for what purpose?
• What is actionable?

We also are cautious about one-size-fits-all approaches to defining impact, as the resources required to conduct assessments pose structural impediments for small, grassroots organizations, many of which are led by and serve marginalized communities.

This Progress Report is not a formal evaluation. It is a synthesis of multiple ways of considering what impact looks like and sharing what we and our grantees have learned.

“How is a funder to compare the impact of a social justice dance group working with survivors of domestic violence to a Latinx theater company providing connections to mental health care through interactive theater, or a mental health organization using filmmaking as a medium to combat stigma, or a hospital system that is using the arts to promote wellness and help frontline staff who are at risk of burnout?”

Kira Pritchard,
Program Officer
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund

A Pioneering Partnership: NYC Health + Hospitals

This chapter was compiled from interviews conducted by Rick Luftglass, Kira Pritchard, and Jan Rothschild in the summer of 2024.

Dr. MITCHELL KATZ, President and Chief Executive Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals

NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) is the largest municipal hospital system in the country. It’s important and different than all the other municipal systems because it’s the only one which is large enough to reach everyone in New York City who wants to be seen at a public hospital. We have the most powerful mission. We are the only system in New York City that cares for people regardless of their economics under a single standard. And central to us is this idea that everybody gets the same level of care.

LAURIE TISCH

My family supports many important hospitals in New York, but when we launched Arts in Health in 2018, it was natural for us to make the City’s public hospital system an anchor for the initiative. It aligns perfectly with our mission. NYC Health + Hospitals seeks to serve all New Yorkers, no matter their ability to pay, gender identity, or immigration status — without exception. That’s truly access, opportunity, and community.

Public hospitals are not typically on the radar of most philanthropists, but they have many excellent and essential programs and services that necessitate philanthropic support. With the arts, NYC Health + Hospitals couldn’t afford to dream big. With our support they can. Our partnership has been transformative. Along with delivering great programming, they are measuring impact, innovating, and expanding the field of Arts in Health.

Dr. ERIC WEI, Senior Vice President, NYC Health + Hospitals, and Chief Executive Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue

When Dr. Katz and I came to NYC Health + Hospitals, we immediately saw that the staff was hurting. People had been operating under this black cloud of a $1.8 billion deficit. Which hospitals are going to close? Which services are going to be cut? How are we going to reduce head count?

We said, ‘no, no, no. We’re going to bring something for the staff.’ And so really putting the focus back on our most precious resource, which is our people — providing support for emotional and psychological trauma, figuratively refilling their tanks so that they can provide the highest quality, safest care and the best care experience possible. That was our first priority. So we implemented Helping Healers Heal, a peer-to-peer employee wellness program Mitch and I had piloted in Los Angeles to support the emotional and psychological well-being of our healthcare workers.

Dr. MITCHELL KATZ

When I joined Health + Hospitals in 2018 there were many surprises, but I think one of the biggest surprises was that there was this huge art collection. And I was hearing suggestions that we build a humidified storage area for the art and fund programs for the art. I’m like, whoa, if I had money, I’d be building something for my patients and staff, not for the art. But I thought there must be a way to bring these two things together to form a bond of using the art collection in a way that furthers our mission. And that’s where philanthropy, and in particular the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, came in — because we needed a way to bridge this gap.

RICK LUFTGLASS

In 2018, in our initial meetings with CEO Mitchell Katz and his team, we explored H+H’s needs, priorities, and ideas. Was there an interest in connecting the arts to their healthcare mission? Were there existing programs? And they told us “We have an enormous art collection; we have arts programs that benefit patients, but they are disparate and not coordinated centrally. We have arts programs that are community facing, not system wide. But we have nothing for staff. If the arts can help our staff, that would be our priority.”

That was a crystallizing moment for us. Since mental health was already a major focus of the Illumination Fund’s Arts in Health initiative, the issue of mental health of the hospital staff resonated with us. Physician burnout is well known, but the stigma of getting mental health support is also an impediment for seeking help. Their expressed need inspired us to move forward.

Dr. ERIC WEI

After our initial conversations with Laurie and Rick at the Illumination Fund, we put together a plan to create the Arts in Medicine department. We recruited Linh Dang, who worked at Kings County and had previously managed the arts in medicine program at Stanford University, Medical Center, to build the new department and develop the programming at H+H, not only for more patients in more facilities, but also programs specifically designed to address staff burnout and compassion fatigue to go alongside Helping Healers Heal (H3).

RICK LUFTGLASS

Linh came back to us with a system-wide strategy. The plan outlined two overarching goals:

• To replicate and expand specific arts-based programs to reach facilities that were otherwise underserved.
• To create new programs to engage staff in activities that would relieve stress, foster collaboration, improve the work environment, build organizational pride, improve patients’ experiences, and increase community engagement.

Our initial $1.5 million grant was the largest in our Arts in Health initiative. In February of 2019 we announced the partnership at a press conference with former First Lady Chirlane McCray.

Dr. MITCHELL KATZ

Art is one of the things that causes awe. Awe is good for people’s mental health. Awe makes people enjoy their workplace. Coming to work feeling good about your job makes you a better caretaker. You want happy patients, you need happy doctors, happy nurses, happy social workers. So, part of the answer to that was to get the art collection out of storage, get it into the facilities and use it now. I think that was big goal one. The art provokes thought, the art makes people feel like they have a common vocabulary.

But big goal two — and again, I give a lot of credit to Laurie and the Illumination Fund for helping us see this — was to bring people together to make new art. The collection is large and important, but it was not relevant to everybody in Health + Hospitals. It was not a living collection. It was not growing. To make the collection relevant we had to find a way to involve everyone in it, including our hospital communities.

Art for the Public Good: Keith Haring created murals at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull.
Credit: NYC Health + Hospitals

Art for the Public Good: Keith Haring created murals at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull.
Credit: NYC Health + Hospitals

Arts in Medicine – HHArt of Medicine

Conclusion

Dr. ERIC WEI

The impact up to this point has been beyond anybody’s wildest imagination and expectations. But I think there’s still so much more that we can do. I don’t think all 43,000 staff across NYC Health + Hospitals have formally been part of any of the programming. What we want is to fully penetrate the system, to reach all the staff.

And it’s not just like a one-time thing. This is just part of how we take care of our own. It’s part of how we create a healing environment for our patients, for the visitors to our facilities, and for our system, so we need to develop more and more programming that has the highest impact. We want to be able to study the impact and increase those that have the biggest impact.

And to put our Arts in Medicine programs in context, I think we’re unique. Many hospitals have arts programs, but I have not met anyone else doing what we are doing. And I go to many conferences and speak to people who work in safety net systems, private systems, nonprofit systems. I think we’re really pioneering things here. And that’s what drew me to coming across the country from California to New York City and H+H. In an era where many cities are losing their safety net systems, people in the most vulnerable patient populations and communities are suffering. So it means a lot to us to be able to make a difference in this city for these communities, these patients. And what we do sets policy across the country — Washington, DC, the White House, Congress, the state, everyone’s paying attention and saying, well, if they could do it, why can’t we do it? We are on the cutting edge, and we hope to see programs grow all across the country.

Section of Together We Heal (2023) by artist Kristy McCarthy, in the waiting room of the adult emergency department at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health
Credit: NYC Health + Hospitals

Chapter 2. The Role of the Arts in:

Combatting Mental Health Stigma

Although mental illness is common, the perceived stigma associated with it can produce a sense of hopelessness and shame, undermine personal accomplishment, negatively impact individuals and families, and keep people from seeking help. According to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, “40% of adult New Yorkers with a serious mental illness acknowledged that although they needed treatment, they either did not receive it or delayed seeking help.” [LINK] There is public stigma, which is the bias from the public, and self-stigma, which is the internalization of negative attitudes. Untreated mental health conditions can contribute to substance abuse, incarceration, homelessness, unemployment, and suicide.

The arts can have a significant effect on diminishing stigma and building understanding and engagement. A leading expert on stigma, Dr. Patrick Corrigan, has identified several key ingredients of effective anti-stigma initiatives, including sharing stories about personal challenges, hearing from people with “lived experiences,” face-to-face contact that includes a common goal, and having an uplifting message. Those ingredients undergird programs that the Illumination Fund supports through the Arts in Health initiative.

• Teens and young adults in 95 countries submitted 4,600 films to a mental health film competition to foster discussions combat stigma.
• Events with Broadway stars connected 9,000+
• people of color to free mental health resources.
• Interactive theater sparked culturally relevant dialogue about mental health in Latinx communities.

Addressing Trauma

Trauma can be caused by experiencing or witnessing life-threatening or violent events. It can also be the result of prolonged or repeated exposure to injurious conditions. Trauma has a profound effect on individuals, families, and communities, with a disproportionate impact in low-income and communities of color. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated and amplified longstanding health and mental health disparities, and brought new ones driven by high rates of infection, hospitalizations, deaths, unemployment, domestic violence, homelessness, and pre-existing unmet mental health needs.

Creative expression can be a tool to help individuals and communities by aiding with coping and recovery, building understanding of critical issues, promoting wellness and resilience, developing social bonds, connecting to services, and reducing stigma so barriers to care are decreased.

In a nationally representative poll that the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund commissioned, 87% of Americans surveyed said they believe that the arts can help people recovering from a traumatic event such as abuse, a serious accident or injury, or violence, compared to 13% who did not think the arts would be helpful.

• Intimate partner violence contributed toward reductions in PTSD symptoms and psychological distress, improved mood, and reduced tension.
• Healthcare providers who participated in The Nurse Antigone and Theater of War Frontline reported that they gained new insights about their experiences during the pandemic and that post-performance discussions made it easier to talk about difficult topics.
• Refugee women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence who participated in group therapy and the making of story cloths demonstrated a reduction of depression, anxiety, and trauma-related stress.

ARTISTIC NOISE

Art & Entrepreneurship and Arts & Care

Youth impacted by the justice system face challenges in nearly every aspect of their lives—from employment and housing to education and mental health. An estimated 90% of system-involved youth have experienced serious trauma in their lifetimes. This is also true for others impacted by the carceral system, including family members of the incarcerated, and those impacted by the juvenile court system, shelter system, probationary system, and mental health care system.

Based out of their Harlem studio, Artistic Noise provides arts activities, employment opportunities, wraparound services, and arts therapy for system-impacted youth. Participants develop their creative abilities and business skills through arts workshops, arts education, and exhibitions of their work in a variety of youth-led art shows throughout the year. Youth are given a stipend and full access to programming, including opportunities with Artistic Noise’s partner institutions: School of Visual Arts, Studio Museum in Harlem, Pace Gallery, Kasmin Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Prior to the launch of the Arts in Health Initiative, the Illumination Fund supported the Art & Entrepreneurship program at Artistic Noise, recognizing that the organization provided important tools, access to the arts, and economic opportunities for a vulnerable population.

“When they added a full-time art therapist to their staff to better meet specific mental health needs of the youth in the program, Artistic Noise naturally evolved to an Arts in Health grantee,” said Rick Luftglass on inviting Artistic Noise to join the Arts in Health cohort in 2019. “We also understood that their staff would benefit from the peer support and collaborative opportunities available in the Arts in Health cohort, and that other cohort participants would benefit from learning about Artistic Noise’s arts-based mental health strategies for their client population.” [LINK]

“We’re committed to working with young people, not just for one session, two weeks, five weeks, or one year, but three, four, and even five years […]”

Calder Zwicky,
Executive Director
Artistic Noise

“We look at art therapy from a community-based lens rather than from your typical medical model lens. […] It’s more therapy on the young people’s terms and in a way that feels accessible, non-stigmatizing, and really holistic.”

Victoria Hristoff,
Director of Art Therapy and Youth Services
Artistic Noise

Additionally, each youth participant who works within the space for an extended time receives a stipend for their work.

“We’ve witnessed when young people return to the program a little bit later, they’re willing to engage with the younger community in a way that is really organic,” said Hristoff.

Impact

“They lean into their leadership and that, I think, is one of the best ways that we measure impact.”

Calder Zwicky,
Executive Director
Artistic Noise

Participants develop creative abilities and coping skills through workshops, exhibitions, and supportive environments.
Credit: Artistic Noise

Artistic Noise connects the power of artistic practice with system-impacted youth

COMMON THREADS PROJECT

New York City Program

“Common Threads Project works with marginalized women who have experienced trauma, sexual violence, exploitation, displacement, and poverty,” explains Rachel Cohen, Ph.D., founder and clinical director. Most of the participants are refugees from war or displaced from conflict-affected regions. “They have experienced the loss of home, loved ones, workplace, community, identity, and hope. The impact of these traumatic experiences on individuals, families, and communities is profound and lasting.” Cohen describes the ramifications of these experiences: “Often survivors struggle with severe depression, stigma, social isolation, family conflict, shame, and distress. Without an opportunity for true recovery, trauma sequelae may get passed on to the next generation.”

Rachel Cohen developed a new — but historically rooted — arts-based recovery methodology — a group process of sewing “story cloths,” coupled with best practices from trauma therapy.

“I stumbled into this ancient practice where women come together in groups and sew story cloths. They stitch together, they support each other, and they find a way to speak the unspeakable,” said Cohen. “They gain understanding, insight, and strength, and they heal from doing this simple practice. It’s something that women have done throughout history in all kinds of cultures, and we’re just borrowing that practice and adapting it, and it turns out to be very powerful.”

While the practice is ancient, the science is new and evolving. This integrative therapeutic process is rooted in current neuroscientific understandings of trauma.

“We’re committed to working with young people, not just for one session, two weeks, five weeks, or one year, but three, four, and even five years […]”

Calder Zwicky,
Executive Director
Artistic Noise

“We look at art therapy from a community-based lens rather than from your typical medical model lens. […] It’s more therapy on the young people’s terms and in a way that feels accessible, non-stigmatizing, and really holistic.”

Victoria Hristoff,
Director of Art Therapy and Youth Services
Artistic Noise

Common Threads Project uses story cloths to heal the trauma of gender-based violence among refugees

COMMUNITY ACCESS

Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Competition and Festival

The majority of mental illnesses begin early in life. Half of all lifetime cases begin by age 14 and three quarters by age 24. 24 [LINK] Too often, there are not enough resources available to help young people and their families to have a healthy, open, and honest dialogue about mental health issues, and in turn, they remain all too prevalent. For young people, mental health challenges can be difficult to navigate, especially alone, fearful of being misunderstood and marginalized. By sharing and discussing short films about mental health, made by young filmmakers, Community Access’ Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Competition and Festival (Changing Minds) aims to positively change how we think and talk about youth mental health issues.

Founded in 1974, Community Access is one of the oldest nonprofits in New York City dedicated to helping people living with mental health concerns access housing, education, job training and placement, and mental health crisis services. Community Access core programs serve 3,500 of the hardest to reach and most vulnerable New Yorkers, the majority of whom are from communities of color, coming off the streets, and out of shelters. In addition to providing direct services, Community Access is also a leading advocacy organization for the rights of people living with mental health concerns. Through anti-stigma initiatives — including the NYC Mental Health Film Festival and Changing Minds — they shine a positive light on mental health and create safe spaces for people to share their authentic mental health stories.

“Our collective experience over the years is that mainstream media — film and television — portray stereotypical images of those that struggle with mental health concerns,” said John Williams, who leads the organization’s development and communications work. “These images perpetuate and fuel stigma around mental health in ways that put up many roadblocks for people that we love. We wanted to change that paradigm and use the media to offer positive messages about mental health.”

In 2015, after nearly ten years of running the NYC Mental Health Film Festival, which had grown to the largest mental health film festival in the country, the Community Access team launched Changing Minds for young people ages 15 to 25. The initial call for submissions asked young filmmakers to share their stories and experiences dealing with mental health. In 2016, the first year of the competition, the team received 22 submissions. The following year, it was in the hundreds.

“The Illumination Fund team reached out in 2017,” Williams said, “and started a dialogue with us about our hopes and dreams to scale up the program so that we could get the message out to more young people. With their support, we have been able to do that.”

“There was a need and an opportunity to help scale Changing Minds. That’s why we got behind Community Access as one of the first grantees in our Arts in Health Initiative,” said Rick Luftglass.

Williams went on to say the Illumination Fund was “the first foundation that recognized how vital the Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Program and Festival could be.”

The films address a wide range of mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, bullying, loneliness, and issues related to gender identity, among many others.

“We talked a lot about our own creative journeys while we were storyboarding the film,” shared one young filmmaker. “We opened up to each other a lot about the insecurities we had and the kind of processes we go through to overcome them. Seeing the thousands of views my film got on Changing Minds’ YouTube channel, along with reading the comments — that made me feel a lot less alone.”

“Young people report that the process of making their film is healing and important to their social and emotional well-being. The filmmakers assemble larger teams to bring the idea to fruition, which multiplies the direct impact.”

John Williams,
Chief Development and Communications Officer
Community Access

Peer stories and contact matter. In an article in the International Review of Psychiatry, the authors reported that:

The key active ingredient identified by all intervention groups and workshop facilitators were the testimonies of service users. The statements… about their experience of mental health problems and of their contact with a range of services had the greatest and most lasting impact on the target audiences in terms of reducing mental health stigma. [LINK]

Community Access team shares these films in as many ways as possible. In addition to the annual film competition and festival, Community Access hosts programs each May to mark Mental Health Awareness Month and runs active social media channels aimed at combating mental health stigma, reaching a growing number of teens and adults. In addition, the team created free discussion guides to enhance conversations around mental health and films. Throughout the process, young people are at the center — reviewing the submissions, selecting films for the festival, managing social media, and more.

Since the Illumination Fund’s first grant, the festival has grown by leaps and bounds and inspired festivals in other places, including a mental health film festival in Singapore. Changing Minds provided guidance and materials to their colleagues in Singapore to help them shape their work and shared key learnings.

Changing Minds Young Filmmakers Competition and Festival combats mental health stigma

DARKNESS RISING PROJECT

Darkness RISING: Live

Stigma around mental health is particularly significant in the Black community, where cultural barriers and financial constraints often prevent individuals from seeking necessary care. According to the American Psychology Association, only 5% of psychologists are Black, and about 10% of Black Americans are uninsured — factors that contribute to just one in three Black individuals who need mental health care actually receiving it.

Darkness RISING Project aims to improve the health and wellness of the Black community, raise awareness of mental health issues, empower and engage community members, and erase the negative stigma of mental health issues through resources, events, and services. Serving not only the Black community but also other communities of color, formerly incarcerated individuals, and the LGBTQIA+ community, Darkness RISING partners with mental health professionals, educators, and Black Broadway performers with personal mental health experiences to create workshops, events, and seminars that reduce stigma and connect people to mental health services.

Founder and Executive Director Carlita Ector shares that “I was experiencing mental health issues, but I was afraid to reach out for help because I’m Black. And once I did begin to seek help, I got fed up with all of the red tape, how expensive it is, and then how hard it can be to find someone who can meet our needs culturally,” Ector continued. “We often don’t know about them, or we don’t have access to these resources. So I wanted to create more access to resources for us.”

In 2018, Darkness RISING Project launched Darkness RISING: Live, a block party with performances by Broadway artists and musicians, food and apparel vendors, an African dance class, yoga, and information on available mental health resources. While on the surface the event might seem to be merely a performance, the audience members experience so much more.

“People think that they’re just coming out for a show, but we are also doing in-person signups for all of our free resources. We connect people with other wellness organizations in the neighborhood. We have a Black therapist speak about the importance of mental health support,” Ector said.

“We have different resources such as the Find Me a Therapist program,” says Antuan Byers, Darkness RISING Project’s operations director. “Anybody can log onto Darkness RISING Project and find a culturally competent therapist and tons of different resources to break the stigma in the Black community around mental health.”

“Stigma is one of the main reasons why I started the Darkness RISING Project”

Carlita Ector,
Founder and Executive Director
Darkness RISING Project

In 2018, Darkness RISING Project launched Darkness RISING: Live, a block party with performances by Broadway artists and musicians, food and apparel vendors, an African dance class, yoga, and information on available mental health resources. While on the surface the event might seem to be merely a performance, the audience members experience so much more.

“People think that they’re just coming out for a show, but we are also doing in-person signups for all of our free resources. We connect people with other wellness organizations in the neighborhood. We have a Black therapist speak about the importance of mental health support,” Ector said.

“We have different resources such as the Find Me a Therapist program,” says Antuan Byers, Darkness RISING Project’s operations director. “Anybody can log onto Darkness RISING Project and find a culturally competent therapist and tons of different resources to break the stigma in the Black community around mental health.”

“Darkness RISING live events help reduce the stigma oftentimes associated with seeking mental health support through music, dance, and the activation of public space. They use joy as a tool to bring communities together,”

Kira Pritchard,
Program Officer
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund

After reaching more than 5,000 participants at Darkness RISING: Live events before the pandemic, and then seeing the collective trauma of the pandemic and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, Darkness RISING Project experienced a surge of interest and need. It was time to expand.

A colleague connected Ector to the Illumination Fund’s open call for proposals.

In 2022, with support from the Illumination Fund, Darkness RISING: Live expanded to all five boroughs of New York City, which brought about more local partnerships for the organization and attendees alike. The block parties resulted in more than 100 downloads of Darkness RISING Project’s Black Mental Health Resource Packet and more than 150 people seeking a therapist through Darkness RISING Project’s Find Me a Therapist program.

In 2022 Darkness RISING launched its REBUILD program, which provides formerly incarcerated people of color with ten free therapy sessions with culturally competent therapists. Many of the people who help link participants to therapists, are also formerly incarcerated who share their experiences with mental health to better connect with and reassure participants.

“We are one of the few mental health nonprofits that provides free therapy sessions for formerly incarcerated Black people,” said Collin Howard, director of creative content.

“When we reviewed the proposal, we saw that Darkness RISING Project has such a deep understanding of the needs of the Black community and mental health […] Also, the integration of mental health care and the arts really shone through in its strategy to connect people to resources and facilitate access.”

Rick Luftglass

Darkness Rising Project provides mental health resources and referrals

Fountain House Gallery & Studio provides supports careers and growth of artists with mental illness

GIBNEY

Community Action

Founded in 1991 as a dance company by Artistic Director and CEO Gina Gibney, the organization’s mission is to tap into the vast potential of movement, creativity, and performance to effect social change and personal transformation. Intimate partner violence emerged as a key area of need early in the trajectory of the company’s programming.

“Back in 1999, I read a statistic that really changed my life: that a woman is safer on the streets than she is in her own home,” [LINK] Gina Gibney explained. “I started to think about what domestic violence survivors were facing. The deep emotional scars, the utter loss of self-confidence, the trauma at the hands of someone that you love. You’re paralyzed.” [LINK]

Intimate partner violence cuts across all communities and gender identities, but women are disproportionately impacted. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in four women have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime. [LINK] The reported victimization rate in New York City is highest for Black women. Black women account for 12% of the city’s population, but a 2021 report indicated that they accounted for 34% of reported intimate partner felony assault victims. [LINK] The pandemic exacerbated the problem. In 2022, the number of domestic violence victims increased by 8.5% in New York City relative to 2019. [LINK]

The trauma of intimate partner violence leaves lasting effects that are difficult to address. It is strongly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.[LINK] Fear and stigma attached to intimate partner violence prevents many people from seeking help.

For survivors of intimate partner violence, dance becomes a way to reconnect with and reclaim one’s own body.
Credit: Gibney

PREGONES / PUERTO RICAN TRAVELING THEATER

Abrazo/Embrace for Mental Health

“The first year of COVID-19 brought unprecedented and familiar challenges to our theater and the communities we serve,” said Jorge B. Merced, Associate Artistic Director of Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT). “The pandemic deeply affected working families and people of color in NYC and the Bronx, leading to increased mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.”

Founded in 1979, Pregones and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT), established in 1967, have long empowered underrepresented Latinx artists and audiences. Merging in 2014, they have collectively premiered over 200 plays, hosted 700 guest artists, and conducted 1,500 tours.

In 2021, the team at Pregones/PRTT applied for a grant through the Illumination Fund’s open call for proposals to launch Abrazo/Embrace for Mental Health, to raise awareness about post-COVID mental health crises and connect Bronx residents with services. Abrazo/Embrace builds on Pregones/PRTT’s history of issue-based theater. The theater group launched AIDS prevention education programs in the 1980s and ‘90s and has tackled domestic/relational violence across generations with a cadre of short plays. This interactive forum theater model allows audiences to suggest alternative actions for characters, helping them confront issues they might otherwise avoid.

“One of the reasons we decided to make mental health one of the focuses of the programming this year,” said Merced, “had to do with coming out of COVID and the pandemic and the isolation that many of our communities were experiencing.”

The team selected playwright Alejandra Ramos Riera to spearhead the initiative.

“Interactive theater is a way to address issues that are pressing in the community,” said Arnaldo J. Lopez, PhD, managing director of Pregones/PRTT. “This project is a way to help us all move forward in health.”

In the Forum Theater model, the actors perform a short play in which a central character encounters an obstacle. After the performance, the audience suggests alternative options for how the character might have addressed the obstacle.[LINK] The model helps audiences surface an issue or tension that they may not have otherwise been comfortable addressing.

“Interactive theater is a way to address issues that are pressing in the community,” said Arnaldo J. Lopez, PhD, managing director of Pregones/PRTT. “This project is a way to help us all move forward in health.”

Abrazo/Embrace for Mental Health

The process is designed to be iterative — and healing. Because the team had successfully used the forum theater model with HIV/AIDS, there was already a tool in place through which to delve into the issue of mental health, Merced said.

In the first year of the process, Pregones/PRTT, in partnership with Alejandra Ramos Riera, convened community playwriting workshops that named and explored cultural biases around mental health. They surfaced potential issues and storylines for Abrazo/Embrace and engaged local groups whose mission and/or practical orientation already touched on pertinent subject matter. Community partners included:

• Bronx Sole, “the run/walk network for health, neighborhood, and history.”
• CAMBA, Inc., “a multi-service agency promoting strong families and healthy lives.”
• Destination Tomorrow, “preparing the LGBTQIA+ community today for a better tomorrow.”
• Fountain House, “fighting for people most impacted by mental health.”
• Urban Justice, “mentoring the next generation of social justice leaders.”
• VIP Community Services, “addressing the consequences of extreme poverty.”

According to Merced, “Part of this project was also connecting and engaging community partners throughout the entire process, not just at the end to get audiences but to seek their feedback. From the get-go, there was ownership in the process.”

The company deployed live micro-theater performances to begin raising awareness about mental health and existing resources for the community. Ramos Riera translated four of her original short plays from Spanish to English, and partnered with fellow theater-maker Leyma López to co-direct them for the series Abrazo: The Embrace–Four Pieces of Micro-Theater.

The community partners were thrilled to participate. “Initiatives around mental health and wellness are extremely important in the Bronx community,” said Felipe Balado, employment and education specialist at CAMBA, a multi-service agency serving the local community. “I know the struggles our residents are facing. More work loss and impairment are caused by mental illness than many other chronic conditions. Pregones/PRTT’s Abrazo/Embrace provides hope and helps carve additional space and awareness for taking care of ourselves.”

Abrazo/Embrace was also positioned to be a resource at a time of rapid change in the community. In the South Bronx, where Pregones/PRTT is an arts and cultural anchor, displacement of working families and individuals accelerated during the pandemic, and the demographics of the area will continue to be significantly reshaped in the coming months and years.

“This project is essential and vital because it helps in healing from the trauma of separation and assimilation,” says Isabel De La Rosa, of Bronx Sole, a wellness organization whose motto is Your Health, Your Hood, Your History. “The project can further strengthen and enhance the resilience that has made the Bronx community a force to be reckoned with.”

Kaleena Clarke, also of Bronx Sole, adds that “Abrazo/Embrace allows the Bronx community to process their feelings and emotions surrounding the pandemic and its effect on their lives, in a safe space. It helps them see that they are not alone and to feel empowered to not only seek help but to learn where to find it.”

The work culminated in ten live performances at Pregones/PRTT’s Bronx theater — each featuring all four of the original micro-theater pieces. For performances, the team reconfigured the theater to create four discrete but interconnected performance spaces. Seating was capped at 40 people so audiences could move around the space in and out of performances.

Following each performance, Merced facilitated community dialogues to surface audiences’ own experiences and perceptions around wellness and mental health, the stressors that aggravate them, and the practices as well as resources to counter them.

For the general audience performances, Pregones/PRTT engaged more than 20 outreach partners.

Post-performance dialogues varied depending on the audience, with frequent testimonials from people of color about declining quality of life at home, work, and in their communities. Health and education professionals confirmed rising levels of depression, anxiety, trauma, food insecurity, and financial hardship, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. These discussions highlighted a lack of public awareness about available mental health resources.

In 2023, building on previous experiences, Ramos Riera wrote BURNED, a forum theater play about a burned-out Bronx native and former hospital worker struggling with mental health issues. Performances were limited to 45 attendees, with mental health professionals present to offer support and referrals.

According to a study of The Bronx in the American Journal of Psychiatry, “Latinx health care workers had significantly higher probabilities of pandemic-related distress and post-traumatic stress than White colleagues.”[LINK]

“We saw how impactful these performances were in how passionately the audience responded to them,” said Rick Luftglass. “The evolution of the project, from the first workshops to the finished play, was remarkable.”

Abrazo/Embrace directly engaged 3,500 community members, including those who participated in the experiences as well as their immediate circles.

Additionally, Pregones/PRTT hosted special sessions for philanthropy organizations — Creative Responses to Crisis: A Theatrical Performance & Discussion on the Role of the Arts in Improving Mental Health — as part of two national philanthropy conferences held in New York City.

• In 2022, the Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) national conference included an off-site session that included a performance of Symphony Nº 1 and featured panelists Irfan Hasan, Deputy Vice President for Grants at the New York Community Trust; Madaha Kinsey-Lamb, Founder of Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center; and Pregones/PRTT’s Lopez, moderated by Rick Luftglass.
• In 2023, Grantmakers in the Arts and Grantmakers in Health co-hosted an expansion and encore for the national conference of United Philanthropy Forum, an association of philanthropy-serving organizations. The United Philanthropy Forum session included not only an Abrazo excerpt, but also participation by Yasemin Özümerzifon of Gibney and a performance featuring women from Gibney’s Move to Move Beyond® Storytellers.

“It was very rewarding to understand that yes, you can join health services and art services in a way that they can coexist – the two can join in the same arena without overshadowing each other.”

Jorge Merced,
Associate Artistic Director Pregones/PRTT

Partnerships

Pregones/PRTT engaged 6 Bronx-based community mental health and social service organizations as partners for engagement during workshops and for targeted audiences, and more than 20 additional organizations for outreach

Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater’s Abrazo/Embrace project supports mental health in the Bronx