Browse “Foundations”

Full Spirals Podcast: The Sages Series

Full Spirals is a storytelling podcast that promotes hope and healing through the arts, and life’s little “coincidences” that lead to personal growth.  The emphasis of the episodes is around how the arts can be used to heal and grow, but the “Sages Series” episodes have an emphasis on women 60+.  Badass women who have stories to tell.  We shine a light on local and national women and the stories of their lives.  With a loyal group of “Spinners”, Full Spirals has tripled its listenership since its inception in 2021 and is rated in the top 10% of podcasts globally.

Additionally, there are now local “Sages Story Circles” which are grant funded circles, (free for participants) designed to empower, connect and uplift women 60+ in our community.  From these circles episodes are being produced to not only highlight their stories, but also ensure that they do not go unheard.

Creative Aging: Drawing on the Arts to Enhance Healthy Aging

From the abstract:

The term “creative aging,” in the broadest sense, describes an aging policy idea that focuses on highlighting the creativity of older adults in order to prepare individuals and communities to manage old age. Programs focus on the evolution of creativity over the lifespan and aim to provide meaningful participatory engagement, especially through the arts.

Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation in Aging

From the abstract:

Social entrepreneurship is usually understood as an economic activity which focuses at social values, goals, and investments that generates surpluses for social entrepreneurs as individuals, groups, and startups who are working for the benefit of communities, instead of strictly focusing mainly at the financial profit, economic values, and the benefit generated for shareholders or owners. Social entrepreneurship combines the production of goods, services, and knowledge in order to achieve both social and economic goals and allow for solidarity building.

From a broader perspective, entities that are focused on social entrepreneurship are identified as parts of the social and solidarity economy. These are, for example, social enterprises, cooperatives, mutual organizations, self-help groups, charities, unions, fair trade companies, community enterprises, and time banks. Social innovation is a key element of social entrepreneurship.

Social innovation is usually understood as new strategies, concepts, products, services, and organizational forms that allow for the satisfaction of needs. Such innovations are created in particular in the contact areas of various sectors of the social system. For example, these are spaces between the public sector, the private sector, and civil society. These innovations not only allow the solving of problems but also extend possibilities for public action.

New Agency to Offer Support for Arts and Older People

This 2019 announcement from The Baring Foundation outlines a major new investment in creative aging in the form of a three year grant to launch a new national support agency.  The announcement describes the background, rationale, and support structure for the agency to be housed at the Manchester Museum.  It re-affirms the fundamental principle underlying The Baring Foundation’s Creative Aging funding which supports the statement, “the opportunity to be creative and to experience arts and culture is a right at any age.”

On diversity and creative ageing

This short report includes eleven case studies of creative ageing projects in the UK which set out to engage sections of the older population that are often under-served by arts and cultural organisations, including organisations working with older people from LGBTIQ communities and from ethnic minority communities.