Art in Unexpected Places
Who says you have to go to a museum or a theater to have an arts experience? A conversation about working with both traditional and non-traditional partners to incorporate art into unexpected places, including the Wandell Sculpture Garden in Urbana's Meadowbrook Park, and the impact of public art in the community.

Building Consensus:
Quality Arts Education Programs and Effective Implementation
A working session for community arts educators, local arts agencies and teaching artists. Depending on whom you talk to in your community, the definition of quality arts education will differ radically. In an effort to help schools and communities to define and improve K-12 education and programming in the arts statewide, the Illinois Arts Alliance and the Center for Community Arts Partnerships of Columbia College Chicago will present two distinct initiatives directed at educators and parents that will help to build consensus around the key attributes based on local delivery mechanisms in schools and the communities they serve.

The Choice to Lead
There is no such thing as an accidental leader, and leadership doesn't automatically come with a change in title. Effective arts leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training and experience. Leaders have the right combination of innate qualities and learned skills that set them apart from managers. Great leaders have a significant impact on staff and volunteers, organizational and community development, and the advancement of the field. Will you make the choice to lead?

Creating Cultural Tourism through Collaboration
Cultural Tourism is a rapidly growing segment of the travel market, but it takes successful collaboration to make it happen. Talk with arts and tourism leaders who are generating tourism through partnerships between the cultural and the tourism industries. Find out how tourism can help support your local artists, economy and heritage, while broadening overall participation in the arts.

E-Marketing 1
How can the intelligent use of technology and the Internet make marketing you and/or your organization more focused, efficient, and effective? And when is it better and more productive just to pick up a phone? You think you know how to send an email blast, and you've heard of the social media. But how can innovative use of social networking and rich media advance your causes? Find out here.

E-Presence:
Advanced Push & Pull Strategies (with presentation)
Build and sustain a stronger online presence for yourself and/or your organization. Join this session for a state-of-the-art primer on getting your message out and drawing people to your website and your programs. Practical and effective insight from industry experts. Also, a frank discussion on perceived vs. real barriers to success.

Plenary: Illinois Arts Council Strategic Directions 2007-2012
How does the Illinois Arts Council plan to build public will for the important role and value of the arts and creativity in building vital, prosperous, livable communities? Learn about the Council's newly minted Strategic Directions 2007-2012, how the plan affects you and your community, and what you can do to help move it forward.

The Teaching Artist as an Agent of Change
Teaching artists have been part of the arts for more than a century. But they may be more significant to both the arts and education today than ever before: They have reinvigorated the tradition of community arts; they are transforming schools and learning for thousands of students; and they drive arts organizations' efforts to grow and diversify audiences by creating richer arts experiences. What does the future hold for these agents of change and the organizations that utilize them?

You Can't Save the World from a Jail Cell:
How to Keep Yourself and your Organization Out of Legal Trouble
Keep your board happy and stay on the right side of the law; get answers to the most frequently asked legal questions in the arts field before you even have to ask.

Animating Democracy:
Fostering Civic Engagement through Arts & Culture

Arts Advocacy: Creating a place at the table
Get the tools you need to be an effective advocate for the arts and arts education in this interactive training session developed by the Donors Forum of Chicago in partnership with the Illinois Arts Alliance.

Bringing Diversity to the Center:
The Experience of the Chicago Cultural Alliance
The Chicago Cultural Alliance, a unique partnership among area ethnic museums, will share successful models for long-term collaboration and building diversity within your organization, your audience and your community.

Conversations with Funders:
The Whys and Hows of Giving Money to the Arts
A frank conversation amongst arts funders about why and how they support the arts, and what challenges they face in doing so.

Keynote Address: Bill Strickland

Lost in Translation:
Interpreting Artist Speak into Language Funders Understand (and Vice Versa)
Is it possible for working artists to effectively communicate the value that is inherent to the creative process? How especially can we talk with funders, presenters and other stakeholders who by nature are invested in advancing product over process? A discussion with artists, administrators, presenters and funders about the challenges and opportunities inherent in finding both a common language and common ground.

Managers as Artists: In Search of the Balance and a Supportive Community
Are you an executive director, manager, or arts administrator who also has a passion for creating art? Be in community with others who face this challenge, hear how they have managed to support other artists without silencing their own artistic voice, share your own experience, and explore how finding this elusive balance can make for better administrators.

Rethinking Community Engagement Through the Arts
Discuss social and economic community development issues through the lens of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Between 2003 and 2005, LISC supported 13 Chicago neighborhoods in the production of five-year plans for improving their quality of life. We will explore the original concepts of LISC while also examining specific neighborhood LISC programs and their cultural, social and economic experiences. Additionally, the Community Collaborative Arts Professionals will conduct a workshop to help participants apply new engagement strategies in the arts.

Strengthening the Effectiveness of Board of Directors:
From Management to Governance
Learn how to transform your board from a group of managers to a team of inspired leaders. Covering the essentials of nonprofit board governance, including roles, responsibilities, selection and tenure, this session will also address compliance issues, techniques to maximize board effectiveness and tools for board assessment.

Where's My Money?
Personal Financial Planning Tools for Artists and Arts Managers
None of us are in this for the money. But the fact that arts practitioners and mangers often don't make much means we need to manage the money we do have all the more carefully. Learn practical, possible steps for making dreams (like home ownership, sending your kids to college and retiring comfortably) a reality.