Voices of the Community

George Koster, Voices of the Community

Welcome to Voices of the Community, we strive to amplify solutions facing where we live through featuring residents like you, along with change makers, and thought leaders to support our fellow residents and people visiting or working in our area. “Our goal is to feature the unheard comments and stories from communities across our region in hopes to create dialogues to address our common problems and support the change of the status quo.” - George Koster, Creator/Host

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Top 10 Voices of the Community Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Voices of the Community episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Voices of the Community for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Voices of the Community episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Making the Invisible Visible - Finding Home Part 2

Voices of the Community

12/14/24 • 62 min

“So, if people need potable water, then we need to provide them with that. Or if people are looking for a job that we don't need to categorize that. We can start to put away our own judgment and provide them with the opportunity that they're putting in front of us versus us telling them, no, no, you need to go get treatment before you get a job”- Mary Carl

In Part Two of our “Finding Home” Live Show, experts and those with lived experience discuss the complexities of homelessness in San Francisco; Along with solutions, focusing on the urgent need for safe housing, community collaboration, and long-term investment to create lasting impact and stability for those affected.

Host: George Koster Guests: Sammie Rayner - Community Forward, Meghan Freebeck - Simply the Basics, Lydia Bransten - The Gubbio Project, Mary Carl - Miracle Messages, Erica Kisch - Compass Family Services

Key Highlights and Takeaways from the Panel Discussion:

Long-Term Solutions: Experts emphasize the importance of long-term investment in stable housing and community services, particularly for vulnerable populations like women and older adults.
Safety and Dignity: Safety is a central concern, with a focus on ensuring safe spaces for those experiencing homelessness, and not just offering shelter, but the right kind of support.
Coalition-Building: Collaboration between organizations, government, and the community is essential for creating a comprehensive and sustainable approach to addressing homelessness.

Three Things you can do to support our unhoused neighbors:

Donate or Volunteer: Support the organizations featured in the discussion by donating or offering your time to help those experiencing homelessness
Advocate for Funding: Encourage local policymakers to support and fund long-term housing solutions, like Proposition A, to create permanent housing and safer environments for all.
Join Community Initiatives: Participate in local initiatives to provide services such as hygiene kits, food, and shelter for those in need, and help bridge gaps in services.

Connect with us:

Watch, Listen & Discover: Visit our Finding Home Series Page
Donate to help us continue to make shows like this one:
Subscribe to our e-newsletter to find out more about each show topic and participating in live shows:
YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel
Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at [email protected]

Delve deeper into Voices of the Community Series on Arts & Culture, Making the Invisible-Visible, Covid-19's impact on nonprofits, small businesses and local government, City of Stockton's rise from the ashes of bankruptcy and our archives: You can explore episodes, speakers, organizations, and resources through each series web page. Watch and learn from all five series now!

Voices of Change: "The Intersection of Art, Equity, & Economic Empowerment"

Voices of the Community

08/17/24 • 61 min

“So if you have not tapped into community members that you are serving, that you are working with, then you are missing a large, piece of the solution to your problems”. - Heather Heslep

Gentrification, displacement, the struggle for ownership... these are the challenges faced by many communities today. But what if art could be the key to preserving cultural heritage and building economic resilience?

The panel discussion features Tamaira “Miss Tee” Sandifer, CEO & Founder of Studio T Arts & Entertainment, Arianna Chavez, Executive Director at Arte Americas, Roshaun Davis, Executive Director of CLTRE and Co-Founder of Unseen Heroes, and Heather Heslup, Director of Public Art Programs at Destination Crenshaw along with Nikko Kimzin, CEO + Lead Consultant at Kimzin Creative. Join us as we explore the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the arts and the importance of place keeping, ownership, and wealth redistribution.

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at [email protected].

CA Arts & Culture Summit "Arts and Health" panel

Voices of the Community

07/13/24 • 68 min

"At the structural level, we don’t make decisions based on evidence. If we did, we would have universal healthcare and basic income. The arts can be part of this shift” - Tasha Golden

Join Nefesha Yisra’el from California for the Arts as she introduces our second episode, featuring a powerful panel discussion on the intersection of arts and health. This episode is part of our exclusive interview series with California for the Arts and their second annual State of the Arts Summit.

Featured Speakers:

Moderator: Deborah Cullinan, Vice President for the Arts at Stanford University

Panelists:

Chris Appleton, Founder and CEO of Art Pharmacy

Dr. Tasha Golden, Director of Research at Johns Hopkins' International Arts and Mind Lab

Dr. Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist and Opera Stage Director

Episode Highlights:

Explore the transformative power of art on prescription.

Discover evidence-based impacts of arts on well-being.

Learn about innovative programs like Stanford's Art Pharmacy.

Gain practical insights into integrating arts into healthcare.

Take Action to Support our Arts:

Watch & Listen Now: Don’t miss this essential conversation for artists, healthcare providers, and advocates.

Support the Speakers: Learn more about their organizations and programs on our episode landing page [Eric, I will send you this as soon as Kasey brings the page live]

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at [email protected].

The Future of Arts & Culture in California: Keynote Insights from the California Arts & Culture Summit

Voices of the Community

06/01/24 • 59 min

"Together we can create a world where arts and culture are recognized and invested in as essential to society, embedded in community life, and intersecting with broader policy change to reshape systems towards equity and justice." - Julie Baker

Join us as we kick off our second season, celebrating the vibrant and resilient arts and culture scene that shape our community. This season, we bring you highlights from the second annual California Arts & Culture Summit, organized by our partner California for the Arts, with the theme "Art Work is Real Work."

In our premiere episode, don't miss the inspiring opening ceremony and keynote sessions with Nefesha Yisra'el the Director of Programs from California for the Arts, Leticia Rhi Buckley, the CEO for LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Julie Baker, the CEO for both California for the Arts and California Arts Advocates along with keynote speaker Nataki Garrett the Co-Artistic Director of One Nation / One Project Arts for Every Body. They delve into the critical topics of advocacy, cultural equity, artist support, and the transformative power of the arts in promoting health and empathy.

Tune in and discover the economic significance of the arts and the urgent need for sustained funding. Be inspired by stories of how art addresses societal issues and fosters a more empathetic world.

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector. And if you have been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. You can also watch this episode on our YouTube Channel and please Sign Up for our Newsletter to stay up to date on future episodes and to participate in our next live show. We would love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to [email protected]

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

How to Buy Your Performance Space | CAST & CounterPulse Real Estate Model

Voices of the Community

03/16/24 • 60 min

"The resilience that we have to live through booms and busts and pandemics and continue to serve the community, continue to drive foot traffic, continue to create economic opportunities for local people to have jobs and work and express themselves is just incredible. So if you're struggling with a storefront or a vacancy or empty space, just remember to think about the arts” - Julie Phelps

In this episode, we delve into our special series that charts the resurgence of the arts and culture sector from the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic. We're bringing together insights from the Co-Production of Arts for A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit, an event that unfolded at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th, 2023. The summit cast a spotlight on revitalizing our communities through the lens of the arts. A standout session at the summit tackled a pressing issue: securing affordable housing for our artistic community.

Emerging from the discussions at the ABBA summit on affordable housing and real estate was a captivating dialogue on utilizing the shifts in the market post-pandemic to enable arts and cultural organizations to secure their own venues for performances.

To shed light on this promising avenue, we're joined by Julie Phelps, the Artistic and Executive Director of CounterPulse, and Joshua Simon, a Senior Advisor at the Community Arts Stabilization Trust. They will unpack an inventive real estate strategy that empowered CounterPulse to purchase their performance space—an approach that holds transformative potential for the arts sector across the country. Welcome to Voices of the Community, a platform where every conversation spark innovation, and every voice is valued.

REP-SF’s Citywide People’s Plan for Affordable Housing

Voices of the Community

02/22/24 • 32 min

“It's about forcing the city to make sure that they build affordable housing. And there's lots of, programs that we have in the Citywide People's Plan that can make, huge steps towards, building affordable housing” - Dyan Ruiz

This episode is part of our ongoing Special Series on How the Arts and Culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pandemic. In our co-production of Arts for A Better Bay Area’s [ABBA] State of the Arts Summit on June 28th 2023 one of the breakout sessions was focused on the work in our community to develop affordable housing for our creative workforce.

The summit breakout panel discussion on “Housing for the Artist Workforce: Revisiting Artists’ Housing” is featured in episode four of this series. We received a lot of feedback from ABBA's State of the Arts Summit attendees that they wished the session on affordable housing was longer and they could spend more time diving into the work being done.

Based on this feedback we have created three follow up episodes focused on three of the topics that were discussed in the arts for a better bay area’s state of the arts summit affordable housing session. This episode is focused on the Race & Equity in all Planning of San Francisco [REP-SF] coalition’s work to create the Citywide People’s Plan for affordable housing in San Francisco and features the voices of the co-founder and reporter of people power media Dyan Ruiz and the President and Resident Chair of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District Erick Arguello.

Proposition E, 2018 & Arts Impact Endowment Update & Discussion & Grants For The Arts

Voices of the Community

01/27/24 • 76 min

"I think the action and the continuity of the coalition from Prop S to Prop E went from 40 organizations to 140 organizations. That was something that was huge” - Vin Seaman

In this seventh episode of our series focusing on the arts and culture sector's recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we bring you highlights from the Co-Production of Arts For A Better Bay Area (ABBA) State of The Arts Summit, held at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th, 2023. The summit centered around rebuilding communities through the arts.
This episode features a community conversation from the ABBA Summit, discussing the status of Proposition E from 2018, the Arts Impact Endowment, and Grants for the Arts. Our panel includes voices from:
- Joe Landini, Founder and Director of Giving at Safe House Arts
- Vinay Patel, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center
- Denise Pate, Director of Community Investments for the San Francisco Arts Commission

The second part of our discussion features an interview with ABBA Summit attendee, Shrey Purohit an artist and cultural worker at Arts Span; Along with a One on One Interview with Vallie Brown, the Director of the City of San Francisco’s Grants For The Arts, along with our wonderful co-host Isa Nakazawa, the Director of Community Engagement of BAVC Media.

How Do Community Based Arts Orgs Secure Sustainable Funding?

Voices of the Community

12/20/23 • 73 min

“Bringing the scale of human life to the community again so that we can kind of start seeing our humanity and our everyday Experiences” - Melissa Abercrombie

This episode is from our November 4th 2023 live event co-production with the Petaluma Arts Center, our broadcast partners KPCA 103.3fm and Petaluma Community Access TV and BAVC Media. This special event was focused on exploring the question, “How Do Community Based Arts Organizations Secure Sustainable Funding?” Our wonderful panel and audience members covered sub topics such as Exploring Different Business Models, Hybrid Productions - Live and Streaming, bringing arts organizations and government committees to support artists along with ideas around creating a fund endowment.

The event included our panel conversation along with questions and lively conversation with our audience, all with the focus of bringing our community together in support of the arts. The panel features the voices of:

Llisa Demtrios, the President of the Board Petaluma Arts Center;

Melissa Abercrombie, the Chair of the Petaluma Pubic Art Committee;

Diane Dragoine, the Executive Director of Cinnabar Theatre;

Juliet Pokorny, the co-founder of West Side Stories Petaluma

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. You can also watch this episode and please Sign Up for our Newsletter to stay up to date on future episodes and to participate in our next live show. We would love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to [email protected].

Meredith Winner - Paint the Void & Lyzette Wanzer - Author of Trauma, Tresses & Truth

Voices of the Community

12/06/23 • 33 min

“I think really being open minded and also really trusting artists is a really big, important factor because. Artists know what they're doing, at least when it comes to making the artwork, that's why people hire them and allow them to have the most creative freedom as possible, really. Usually allows the project to be as best as it can be or as good as it can be” - Meredith Winner

This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Meredith Winner the COO and Co-Founder of Building 180 and Managing Director and Co-Founder of Paint the Void. Meredith shares how her team at Building 180 provides support agency services to artists to provide projects and good-paying work as well as through Paint the Void works with artists and local government to utilize art as economic and community development change agents.

As part of our great roving reporter team of Isa Nakazawa and Eric Estrada at the Arts For A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit; this episode includes an interview with Lyzette Wanzer the author of Trauma, Tresses & Truth "Untangling our Hair Through Personal Narrative". Lyzette also was part of the planning and production team of the ABBA State of the Arts Summit. Lyzette shares with us about the planning of the Summit along with her insights into how both artists and arts organizations need the support of our government, funders, and each other.

"Breaking Isolation: Arts as a Community Solution"

Voices of the Community

02/12/25 • 35 min

Arts Equity, Advocacy, Impact

"Artists, cultural bearers, creatives are essential contributors to the economy... so that arts are not a luxury, arts are not a hobby" – Ron Muriera

This episode of Where Art Meets Impact features Kristen Sakota, Michael Alexander, Ron Muriera, Meghna Bhat, and Josiah Bruny, discussing arts advocacy, economic empowerment, storytelling, arts and health, and youth leadership. They offer solutions including increasing arts funding, strengthening community engagement, advocating for policy change, empowering youth through creative leadership, and integrating the arts into healthcare. Tune in to learn how these leaders are shaping the future of arts and culture in our communities.

For more information, guest details, and resources from this episode, visit our episode web page. Dive deeper into these vital discussions and access the California Arts & Culture Summit Resource Guide today

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

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FAQ

How many episodes does Voices of the Community have?

Voices of the Community currently has 176 episodes available.

What topics does Voices of the Community cover?

The podcast is about Society & Culture, Lgbtq, Documentary, Podcasts, Arts, San Francisco and Performing Arts.

What is the most popular episode on Voices of the Community?

The episode title 'CA Arts & Culture Summit "Arts and Health" panel' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Voices of the Community?

The average episode length on Voices of the Community is 38 minutes.

How often are episodes of Voices of the Community released?

Episodes of Voices of the Community are typically released every 6 days, 23 hours.

When was the first episode of Voices of the Community?

The first episode of Voices of the Community was released on Apr 23, 2019.

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Voices of the Community

George Koster, Voices of the Community

Top 10 Voices of the Community Episodes

“It's about forcing the city to make sure that they build affordable housing. And there's lots of, programs that we have in the Citywide People's Plan that can make, huge steps towards, building affordable housing” - Dyan Ruiz

"I think the action and the continuity of the coalition from Prop S to Prop E went from 40 organizations to 140 organizations. That was something that was huge” - Vin Seaman

“Bringing the scale of human life to the community again so that we can kind of start seeing our humanity and our everyday Experiences” - Melissa Abercrombie

FAQ

How many episodes does Voices of the Community have?

What topics does Voices of the Community cover?

What is the most popular episode on Voices of the Community?

What is the average episode length on Voices of the Community?

How often are episodes of Voices of the Community released?

When was the first episode of Voices of the Community?

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