Celebrating Strategy: Bringing a Plan to Life

Celebrating a New Strategy

While the last several months threw most everyone a curveball or two, we helped our good friends at ArtsNOW meet this challenging year head-on. JMACRAE GROUP led the efforts of charting a path for the future with a new strategy, a new look, and a new message.

For over 20 years, ArtsNOW has been leading the way in reshaping education through best-in-class professional learning and development for K-12 educators and administrators. By integrating visual, digital, and performing arts into core curriculum, the classroom sets a stage for all students to experience and master creativity, collaboration, and critical problem-solving skills.

We heard loud and clear from the ArtsNOW team the need to elevate and accelerate the organization’s vision and philosophy.“We want to continue to transform traditional classroom learning that will make a difference in teacher confidence and student engagement on a larger scale,” stated Pamela Walker, CEO of ArtsNOW.

To help achieve the organization’s goal of advancing integrated education, we worked with the ArtsNOW leadership team and Board of Directors to align on key foundational elements in the form of a 3-year strategic plan. After 6 months of defining priorities, mapping a growth plan, and conducting stakeholder interviews to get a temperature check on where the organization could improve, a clear road map was developed in support of organizational growth and evolution. The 3-year plan addresses these critical priorities:

-       Define the ArtsNow strategy, brand, and message to increase awareness of and engagement with the organization

-       Refine and advance the ArtsNow programs and services to ensure effectiveness and scalability

-       Expand the ArtsNow service footprint to drive organizational growth and evolution

-       Strengthen the ArtsNow financial model and organizational structure to support growth and expansion

Click here to read the artsNOW 3-Year Strategic Plan in detail and see their plan for future growth and achievement.

Celebrating a New Brand Identity

Our first strategic order of business was to create a new logo and look for ArtsNOW to drive increased awareness of - and engagement with - ArtsNOW. The tremendously talented Eileen Corey of Coreyography, an exceptional brand development and design group in Atlanta, Georgia, was engaged to help develop an updated feel that would truly reflect the creativity of the organization and their commitment to excellence.

While “arts” will always be at the organization’s core, their ability to respond, develop, and deliver the most relevant solutions must always be firmly grounded in the “NOW”.  The new logo and visual identity bring to life the strategic priorities and communicate the most important organizational tenets:

-       ArtsNOW brings together ideas in a dynamic way

-       ArtsNOW believes in forward-thinking organizational evolution

-       ArtsNOW builds its integrated methods on the five pillars of the arts (visual arts, music, theater, dance, digital arts)

-       ArtsNOW lives and operates by its 5 guiding principles:

1.   Education and learning are our driving purpose.
2.  Collaboration is the cornerstone of our success.
3.  Continuous evaluation and development ensure we meet the highest standards.
4.  Creativity and innovation fuel our program development.
5. Authenticity and integrity mean transparency and partnership to the communities we serve

Celebrating a New Message

Equally important to the new ArtsNOW look and feel is the new organizational message. Our objective was to develop a brand narrative and platform to serve as an anchor and springboard to all brand touchpoints and communications channels. ArtsNOW often gets asked to share its story and defining the brand’s tone and personality was key to updating the organizational message in a clear, articulate, and shareable way:

Integrated learning is powerful learning.
For over 20 years, ArtsNOW has been leading the way in reshaping K-12 education by integrating the arts with core classroom curriculum.
We’re setting the stage to encourage teacher confidence
and improve student engagement for greater academic and personal achievement.
Teachers are champions and students are heroes.
We’re not just teaching. We bring learning to life.

Celebrating New Programming and Awareness

In direct response to the strategic plan’s #1 strategic priority, ArtsNOW was recently featured by Young Audiences Arts for Learning, the nation’s largest arts-in-education learning network. ArtsNOW was showcased as a premier innovator on a national platform, highlighting their new virtual learning capabilities.

Over the summer, ArtsNOW brought 46 educators and school leaders together for its first-ever virtual Foundational Seminar. Traditionally, this 3-day in-person event explores arts-integrated instructional strategies designed to equip educators with the tools and skills they need to successfully integrate the arts across their academic content. This year was no exception and quickly re-tooling the programming to be COVID-compliant, ArtsNOW transformed its regional office in Winder, Georgia into a full-scale production studio, complete with Zoom-based virtual sessions. 

Click here to see how national partner Young Audiences featured how ArtsNOW ‘s new virtual capabilities helped keep their annual seminar on track.

Stay in touch to see and hear more action around ArtsNOW’s strategic plan in the coming months.