Letitia Ivins, civic art program associate of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission’s Civic Art Program, blogs about Emerging Arts Leaders/LA's APAL mentorship program.

Craig Watson, Executive Director of the Arts Council for Long Beach, writes about the evolution of the Long Beach Arts Council and becoming a "change agent" in the community.

It's hard to believe it was just four years ago that I was working in the basement of Grand Performances, plugging in the phone lines, building our first website and membership campaign.

At the May 26th Arts for All Progress Report meeting, Burbank Arts Ed Advocacy Team Co-Chair Alexandra Helfrich gave an impressive presentation detailing the great work of the Burbank team this year.  Her speech is below.

"I’d like to share what we learned this year during our partnership with Arts For All.

Early this week, arts education advocates along with many other parents, educators, and community members in Santa Monica and Malibu were disappointed to learn that Measure A failed according to the latest vote count.* Measure A, a parcel tax initiative conducted by SMMUSD through a mail-in only election, was the district’s best shot at retaining many of its programs and staff.

Whew! Take a deep breath, advocates.

By Camille Schenkkan

Skip lunch to leave work an hour early. Eat an energy bar in the car. Arrive at school at 7pm. Get home at 11pm and do as much reading as possible before passing out. When the alarm goes off at 7am, do it again.

They say advocacy is all about numbers: the number of people in a network and the number of constituents who take action. While this is true, advocacy is also about relationships. Having solid relationships with those in your network as well as those you advocate to is essential to developing the trust needed to make successful change.

Tis the season. Budget season. With all the advocacy campaigns we have launched in recent weeks, I think it's safe to assume that anyone reading this blog has probably taken action on one of our recent campaigns, whether it be for your school district, municipality, or the County.