Youth Development

As a company built on creative expression, Hallmark Cards has maintained a longstanding commitment to supporting the arts. Hallmark's charitable contributions come from the profits of Hallmark Cards, Inc., and from the Hallmark Corporate Foundation, an endowed foundation funded solely by Hallmark Cards. During the year 2000, arts and culture philanthropy totaled $2,173,897 or 23 percent of the company's overall charitable program.

The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation was established in 1985 to provide supplemental instruction to promising young artists and financial assistance to visual artists of demonstrated talent. Today, the Foundation awards approximately $500,000 annually.

Sitting around tables at a conference center last May, we each joined five other participants in imagining and illustrating possibilities for artists who work in community arts programs for youth. We were part of a group of around thirty people convened as a working group first in San Jose, California in May 2000 and again in October in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our aim was to explore how to build understanding and action toward the sustainable involvement of artists and arts professionals in youth and community development.

114 pages, 1999. Arts Education Partnership, One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC, 20001, (202) 326-8693, http://aep-arts.org.

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