Our Projects

No two projects are alike. We excel at working closely with our clients to take their unique ideas from inspiration to outcome. We optimize clients’ time and financial resources, while creatively responding to the new possibilities that are generated as projects unfold.

project: creative aging — multi-year public-private partnership
client: The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA)

Meeting the needs of America's 58 million older adults is an important part of state arts agencies’ missions to make the social, educational, economic and health benefits of the arts available to all communities. Evidence supports creative aging as an approach to healthy aging. Susan Oetgen, ArtsAspire Consulting Founder & Principal, has directed the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ groundbreaking multimillion-dollar public-private partnership with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy and state arts agencies to advance lifelong learning in the arts across the country since its inception in 2019. Under Susan’s strategic leadership, NASAA’s three national initiatives — Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging, States Leading Creative Aging, and Creative Aging, Creative Futures — have catalyzed and cultivated state arts agencies’ creative aging expertise through direct grants, professional development and national issue education.

Project: New MExico arts & the military initiative planning
client: New MExico arts, new mexico department of cultural affairs

The state of New Mexico is home to a strong community of veterans and active-duty military personnel and their families. New Mexico’s state arts agency (New Mexico Arts) wanted to rethink and re-energize their Arts & the Military program after the Covid-19 pandemic paused all public programming. In 2023, New Mexico Arts engaged ArtsAspire Consulting to co-design and facilitate a series of participatory, interdepartmental ‘tactical planning workshops’ for New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs’s museums, historic sites and other members. These workshops jumpstarted an arts and military community of practice and helped build New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs’ capacity to sustain coordinated, statewide arts and cultural programming for military-connected individuals and communities.

Project: mississippi teaching artist collaborative
client: mississippi arts commission

Mississippi Arts Commission saw an opportunity to convene a new ‘Teaching Artist Collaborative’ to support the growing workforce of Mississippi arts learning professionals. In 2021, ArtsApsire Consulting and collaborating teaching artists Valerie Branch and Renée Benson offered a series of four facilitated, ‘foundational’ workshops to support the newly-convened Teaching Artist Collaborative in cultivating a community grounded in shared purpose, inclusion, sustainability and learning goals. By connecting with like-minded dreamers and doers, teaching artists stakeholders across the state laid the groundwork for the new Mississippi Teaching Artists Collaborative to take root and thrive.

project: National Arts Education Policy and practice research summary report
client: Cultural advocacy coalition

ArtsAspire Consulting Founder & Principal Consultant Susan Oetgen collaborated with arts consultant Laura Forbes to research and write the National Arts Education Policy and Practice Research Summary Report (The Report) (commissioned in 2019) on arts education policy initiatives and best practices at the state and national levels, with an emphasis on promising practices in advancing equity. Oregon’s Cultural Advocacy Coalition (CAC) and The Oregon Community Foundation used this report as a basis for further study and discussion among Oregon arts education stakeholders to explore specific policy initiatives, best practices, and potential advocacy opportunities for Oregon arts education stakeholders.

Project: NATIONAL RESIDENCY TEACHING ARTIST CREDENTIAL & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
client: YOUNG AUDIENCES ARTS FOR LEARNING

Teaching artists are at the heart of socially impactful arts, serving arts learners in thousands of classrooms, senior centers, veterans’ homes, hospitals, public parks and other socially relevant settings across the nation.  This growing workforce benefits from a process of credentialing and specialized training that helps individuals meet the standards of care relevant to the various sectors in which they work. From 2017-2020, ArtsAspire Consulting worked on behalf of the Young Audiences Arts for Learning (YA) national network to lead the National Residency Teaching Artist Credential and Professional Development Initiative from its pilot phase to sustainable growth, so that teaching artists who are recognized for their excellence in arts education can be advocates and change leaders for the larger field of teaching artistry.