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S2 Ep 14 - How Funding Arts Broward is Transforming Communities | Kat Sierra
•Visuals by Momo•Season 2•Episode 14
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The arts have the power to transform communities, foster creativity, and bring people together. But what happens when funding for the arts is scarce? In this episode of Visual Eyes Podcast, host Chris Baker sits down with Kat Sierra, Director of Operations at Funding Arts Broward (FAB), to discuss how her organization is ensuring that artists and cultural institutions receive the support they need to thrive.
💡 In This Episode, We Discuss: ✔️ How FAB provides grants to local artists and organizations ✔️ The importance of arts education in underserved communities ✔️ How collaborations like FAB x Mad Arts are creating new opportunities ✔️ Why arts advocacy and philanthropy are key to sustaining a creative ecosystem
Kat shares inspiring insights on why arts funding matters, how collaboration fuels innovation, and why every community needs to invest in the arts. Whether you're an artist, nonprofit leader, philanthropist, or arts advocate, this conversation will inspire you to support and sustain the arts for future generations.
Chris Baker, and each week we'll explore incredible connections between nonprofits, businesses and the community. This is a space where we highlight inspiring partnerships, uncover strategies for creating meaningful impact and share stories that show how working together can make all the difference. Whether you're a nonprofit leader, a business owner or someone just passionate about building connections, this podcast is for you. Welcome back to Visual Eyes. Today I have Katiuska Sierra from Funding Arts Broward. Welcome to the show, thank you. Thanks for having me. We have gotten to know each other fairly well over the last year. We're neighbors within the ArtServe building, which is fantastic. What has been your journey as a director of operations for Funding Arts Broward?
Katiuska Sierra:
My journey with them. Well, my journey began with them about six years ago, maybe give or take a few months, and when I came to them and when we found each other, so to speak, it was a perfect collaboration, perfect union.
Katiuska Sierra:
So they were looking to expand and grow out this membership-based organization that was only led and directed and completely organized and run by volunteers and they were handling all of the grant, programming a few events and doing some other things feels pretty substantial for the size of the organization at the time. And you know they switched leadership and this particular set of leaders decided that they wanted to build a foundation of infrastructure that created that added staff. So you know, when I came them they were really underfed. If you would say like from a business perspective they were kind of stealth. You know they primarily focused on a very secular group.
Katiuska Sierra:
Okay and it was kind of kept to themselves. In that way, it wasn't really a lot of access in the community outside of this particular group. So you know, one of the initiatives was to be able to grow this thing out and create a lot more visibility and traction folks to be able to access it from different walks of life.
Chris Baker:
Sure, and that's something that I'm so more towards creating today. What actually does fab? How do they help the community? Obviously, you help the artists here in the local area, but how do they do that?
Katiuska Sierra:
First and foremost, we have to think about founder Francie, who's a visual artist and philanthropist, and she saw the need after some budget cuts that happened in 2003 for a group to get together and provide some supplemental grant funding. So what FAB does?
Katiuska Sierra:
our primary area of focus is providing performance grants in the visual category and the performing category and also in arts education, and that's what we did for the majority of FAB's history. Over the last two or three years we have expanded, so today we have now Arts Access Award-type grants where we're going into Broward County Schools via arts and culture organizations in Broward and expanding their current programming so that we can have it over a multi-year cycle.
Katiuska Sierra:
Programming so that we can have it over a multi-year cycle. So that's something that's really big for us and that's something that we've worked really hard to make happen.
Chris Baker:
And we're really super proud of that. When did that initiative start? So?
Katiuska Sierra:
that just launched over the fall of 2004.
Chris Baker:
Oh, so really recent.
Katiuska Sierra:
I mean, this is so green, so new for us and something that we really look forward to expanding on in the future. Our focus around arts education is specifically in the underserved communities, which is so important.
Chris Baker:
Yes.
Katiuska Sierra:
You know, I think we take for granted the things that we can access as community members, and art is a basic right as far as I'm concerned, and art is a basic right as far as I'm concerned. It's essentially a basic right and children specifically should have it in their process and stages of development because it does help them become strategically creative thinkers and it helps them really get to know themselves and what feelings are like. And arts create a reaction and it helps you kind of understand how you're showing up in the world and where you're at and maybe where you're at internally. And sometimes it's hard to access those places without a tool and I think art is a great tool to get there.
Chris Baker:
It's an amazing tool, like the space that we're in right now wouldn't actually be even here without artists. Everything that we use this table is art, this microphone is art, like these lights, the trees that are behind us, everything that we have touched and we come in contact with is a part of art. So it's essential and so making sure that, like you said, our youth have access to that, because how are they going to expand their minds, how are they going to help become the future leaders that we need them to do, if they're not thinking outside the box?
Katiuska Sierra:
Well, I think you know you just brought up a really, really important, important fact that we're looking at these young folks and maybe we're not thinking so far ahead or outside of our own singular perspective, but these young folks, they're going to be leading our country, and how we support them, the resources that we give them, um, you know, the amount and the intensity and the intention that we put into helping them develop themselves is vital, and how much of that we do is going to dictate the outcome of future generations. It's so very important if you think about how prevalent arts were, you know, in other past generations. Think about society and what that social structure looked like when we when arts was still accessible and taught.
Katiuska Sierra:
Right until the time when I was in art school, it was still an expected thing. You had art in every curriculum. You had art in every class. You know, in every school day, I should say. You always have an art class which is part of it and we all. Just that's what you did. Even in my family home it was. You know, you gotta pick something to do.
Chris Baker:
Whatever?
Katiuska Sierra:
it is. You gotta pick something that's creative to do and you've got to follow it through. And you know, for me it was, of course, you know, painting and photos, but it was also kind of singing and music. Those are the things that I used to develop who I ended up becoming, not to say that everyone needs to be an artist, but I do think that the ability to access it should be there if you do want it.
Katiuska Sierra:
It's really frightening to think of today's world. You know there's so much good going on there really is but sometimes the bad kind of takes the lead and becomes what we know and feel and vibrate regularly. This is just so much of it and maybe it's out of balance and seeing the good. But you know it's a scary time out there and I think right now is it's most vital that we find healthy ways to healthily distract our young ones in a positive way, positively enforce their ability to create and to process thinking and to critical thinking.
Chris Baker:
I completely agree. Art is therapy. It gets you out of your like you said the day-to-day mundane, the distractions, the negative you know, from everything that we're having to deal with, and we're getting to actually be one with ourself. So we're taking that mental component that we're struggling with and just releasing it through something that can be creative. And it's something that all of us do and I really love this conversation.
Chris Baker:
For me, it was always singing when I was growing up. That was my escape. Like I would say, I sing everywhere. It doesn't matter. I sing in the shower, I sing in the car, I sing at my desk, like it doesn't matter.
Chris Baker:
If I hear a song in my head, I instantly go to it.
Chris Baker:
If I have a conversation and somebody says a word and it makes me think of a song, I just continue singing the song and right out loud, and I don't even care.
Chris Baker:
You go into your mental library, I go into my mental library and it's just. It has to happen because, one, I need to let it out. Two, it changes the vibe in the room and we all need to feel comfortable and we need to feel safe and we need to be able to be expressive, and that's really where art shines is when you actually have that, and so I love what you guys are doing. I think this is a fantastic and beautiful way to leave it to our youth, because I know that there has been cuts from the state, specifically that we're currently, you know, navigating right now for the arts funding. I look at and go yeah, I don't want to walk through a building and then have it bare walls and there's no art on the wall, but that's what it could end up being without having people really care about putting money towards the art or putting advocacy towards saving the arts.
Katiuska Sierra:
You know it's funny just as you're saying that, it popped into my head that you know what's worse is not having access to the arts if there's no art, or not caring enough to be able to put the art in the arts.
Chris Baker:
I think it's a combination of both. But yeah, that's a good question too.
Katiuska Sierra:
In both those scenarios, if you're thinking about it from a service-based place, these are both areas of demand where we do need to educate and create a lot of awareness around the arts. Which is right back to what you said about advocacy. Advocacy ties hand-in-hand into education and awareness.
Chris Baker:
Right.
Katiuska Sierra:
So how important is that for us to have? I think it's significantly important for us to have. Advocacy for the arts is I don't know that it's an organized movement to date, and I could be wrong about that, but I don't know that it's an organized movement you know to date and I could be wrong about that, but I don't know that it's an organized enough movement within our arts sector that we've had any impact where that's concerned. But we can continue to share our message as individual little systems, as part of a bigger ecosystem yeah, nonprofits and arts funding, et cetera.
Katiuska Sierra:
We can share it from the grantees or the artists' perspective yeah, ecosystem. And let's all become a community and let's all collaborate actively so that we have this amazing result and we have this tangible thing that everyone can enjoy and everyone can have a moment and you know, becoming internal or external with it and it's really, it's an amazing, amazing connection to have and it's amazing in how great and expansive its potential is. So I think, for all those reasons, you know we need to do more work and I think we all know that. I will say that from the time that I got back to Broward and started working in the arts sector to today, I've seen through the work of several of the arts and culture organizations and just other nonprofit organizations and through the work of the cultural division with Phil Dunlap. He's really making moves. You talk about a rainmaker like he's done some real. He's really moved it forward and he's as an artist himself, which happens to be my walk as well.
Katiuska Sierra:
I'm an artist too and I'm coming at it from his same perspective. He's really he is. The need for this is the mental and having that art expertise with the business expertise is just like a home.
Chris Baker:
I know a lot of artists. They're not business mindset, they're passionate mindset about what they're creating and what they're giving to the world and it's so beautiful. But they also need a little bit of help.
Katiuska Sierra:
They need help. There's certain. I think you know it's funny. I was thinking earlier today of how I got to where I got to, and we started as a photographer. I came through education, through practice, through profession, and continued that way for a long time before I transitioned into business still specifically under the arts umbrella, but business nonetheless, and I was always really pleasantly surprised at how your brain has to kind of take on those same patterns to figure things out and in photography specifically, you're working with a combination of lighting that you're creating and just tiny
Katiuska Sierra:
movements in those increments can change everything. When you have something in mind that you're working to create and you're working in a film environment, which is how I started you have this idea and you're working through these different challenges and working through these formulas, and how do you do this? So it's a process, it's a beginning, it's a middle, middle and it's an end for it, and it helps you create a process within your brain that helps you see patterns of things. Which patterns you'll be able to see patterns?
Chris Baker:
that equals being able to create strategy and it creates relatability because, I mean, I'm going to take it to the storytelling route that we have to do, like, every story has a beginning, a middle and an end and it's about that curve. It's about that, you know, here's the challenge and here's the hero that's making it happen and here's the beautiful outcome that finally happened. And when you actually are building that narrative to actually tell someone's story, it is not as simple as just clicking a button. Okay, I'm done recording. There's so much strategy to it, there's so much science behind it, because we watch movies all the time and movies are art like those are art at big levels and we get so pulled in. Sometimes our heart is racing if it's an action movie or if it's a drama, and you're feeling the pain of a mother that just lost their child. All of these emotions were written down ahead of time, before they even started filming. They didn't pull out the camera and go. Okay, we're just going to try capturing this and see what happens. There's so much more that goes into it and it takes a village of people. Like, if you watch those credits at the end of the movies, there's a thousand names on there. It's not just two people like there's a ton of people that are really helping to make this something that's going to be memorable for you.
Chris Baker:
When we are trying to do that, even as visuals by Momo, we're looking at your story and going how do you want this portrayed?
Chris Baker:
What emotion are you trying to give to the person that you want to see this the most? And that is not easy. That is a challenging topic to talk about and really pull in, because a lot of people everybody has a different vision, and so the person that we're working with has one vision. Momo has a different vision when he's behind the camera and then other people are kind of, you know, talking about oh, what do we do this? Why don't we add this or we'll change this question. There's so many other pieces and other people have no vision, but when you put it together and when the final product is there and it actually hits the home run, it's amazing and it can literally change the world, like it literally opens up a door, whatever that that door is, and, honestly, it only has to affect one person for it to be absolutely meaningful, because that one person could literally be the next leader that changes the entire world.
Katiuska Sierra:
The builders, the creators. I think that's what, even if you think about ancient times, you know well, like, the first thing that popped in my head was the renaissance.
Chris Baker:
It was filled with new artists. It was filled with this like massive time to like, create and do something new. That art is still loved, it's still being seen like it's not moved. It's art and it's still. It's still being here. Think about all the buildings that you're like, oh gosh, that's gorgeous being put up. That's an artist that did that. They had an idea, they wrote it down, they made a blueprint, they worked with everyone else to make it happen.
Katiuska Sierra:
That was somebody's vision, right, that existed within the capacity of someone's being. And just here it is, and that's what I'm saying. That's the most to me. It's so. You know, I've been in this game for almost 30 years and it's still moves me to this most of the time, most of the time it really does, just to be able to share something so sacred and so, like I love that you use that word sacred, oh that I didn't use journey.
Chris Baker:
But it's use sacred. But it's true. If you really think deep down, the work that you're doing in the world, the art that you're putting into it, whatever that type of art is, it's sacred to you.
Katiuska Sierra:
It's so sacred. It's almost like the Holy Trinity. If you think about it, it's your personal Holy Trinity. It's that sacred connection that means everything You're putting yourself out there. It's painful. There's never Ever want to be hyper-fixated on what others think of things, because you know it takes the gracious kind of a.
Chris Baker:
You know You're vulnerable. It's what keeps me there.
Katiuska Sierra:
It's what keeps me these tender souls. Thank you, although we'll have to do more expansively, those are our core, kind of the way that you said.
Chris Baker:
kind of the way that you said you want to build something better for the community and in this case it's to make sure that's still here for future generations, so important. Can you talk a little bit of some of the collaborations that you've experienced so far through FAB?
Katiuska Sierra:
You know, fab is a smaller organization. It's small but we actively pull folks across any kind of grid that you can think of. Specifically, we collaborate with our grantees, the folks who receive grants from us. They are able to. Audience development, of course, through grant funding and etc. And then there are other types of collaborations that we have through partnerships. You Intensify, intensify, intensify, connecting with folks, do you have any actual?
Katiuska Sierra:
Perhaps provide more support. We set this to this group of folks and surveyed and did all the right things that you're supposed to do to really come back with factual data on what we should potentially fund and maybe what other folks should consider funding if they're thinking about, you know, leaning in to expanding the arts landscape. We decided that we would and the public art program would answer the call to education. You, you, you, you, you know building and growing and building and building, you, you no-transcript not only did we provide this opportunity for them, because it really is about that explosion.
Katiuska Sierra:
No-transcript.
Chris Baker:
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