Community Knowledge Centre - Toronto Community Foundation

About this organization

Mission

Manifesto is a non-profit organization that aims to connect, cultivate, create, communicate, and showcase Toronto’s vibrant and diverse music and arts community, and find innovative ways of working together towards common goals. We aim to provide a platform and the resources needed to advance the growth of the arts as a tool for positive change on the individual, community and global levels.

History of Organization

Founded in 2007, Manifesto Community Projects is a non-profit, grassroots organization best known for its annual Festival of Community and Culture. This festival - a product of many townhall meetings and community discussions – was created to address challenges facing Toronto’s youth arts community (e.g. to provide a platform that celebrates and rewards local, emerging artists and provides opportunities for youth to collaborate, unite and strengthen). Manifesto is more than a festival, it is a movement. It is the product of the immense passion, dedication and persistence of a group of young leaders and a community of artists devoted to creating change in this city. Until July 2009, the entire Manifesto team worked on a volunteer basis until receiving some operational support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation and Ontario Arts Council. Manifesto’s two paid staff shared their salaries to hire a Managing Director to strengthen the team. Manifesto has since witnessed incredible growth with few resources. Manifesto's programming has included producing Luminato’s 2008 StreetScape exhibition – a street art exhibition and 10-week arts education program for 20 Regent Park youth, producing IGNITE THE AMERICAS: Youth Arts Policy Forum a hemispheric gathering of young leaders and policy makers, the birth of sister organization Manifesto Jamaica, and having over 45,000 attendees at our 4th annual festival including Her Excellency The Governor General who launched the festival with a speech on the importance of the arts and organizations like Manifesto.  

Accolades and Accomplishments

Accolades include recognition by Harvard University and the British Council as a cultural partner, winning the Culture Award at the 2008 Aroni Award Ceremony, receiving the 2010 Toronto Arts Foundation’s “Arts For Youth” award, as well as being honoured with the Toronto Community Foundations "Vital Ideas Award". Manifesto's Executive Director, Che Kothari, received the Toronto Youth Cabinet’s “Leader in Building Arts in Community Award”, Ryerson’s “Outstanding Recent Alumni Achievment Award”, The Urban Alliance for Race Relations 35th Anniversary Award, and was listed on Marketing Mag’s “Ones To Watch” list, as well as receiving TCF's "Vital People" recognition.  Che was also accepted as an inaugural DiverseCity Fellow, a programming of Maytree Foundation and Civic Action, and former Managing Director Seema Jethalal was accepted as part of Civic Action's Emerging Leaders Network.

Programs

>Manifesto Festival of Community & Culture
>Town Hall Meetings
>Know Your Craft Workshops

In order to know where we’re going, we must know where we’ve been, so it’s important to pass down cultural histories and art forms. While connecting sets new relationships in motion, cultivating is about direct engagement with our audience. From intimate skills-based workshops to public art exhibitions – our activities nurture growth, spread knowledge, teach skills, supply resources and provide support.

As an organization consisting of creative individuals we recognize the power of expression, media, and cultural artifacts in the shaping of consciousness and the making of meaning. It’s not enough to simply promote and support the arts, we need to be directly involved and it just so happens that the things we create tend to further our other objectives as well.

Manifesto Festival of Community & Culture

Growing to be the largest and most unique festival of its kind in the country, the annual Manifesto Festival of Community & Culture brings together countless community members, artists, performers, and audience members to showcase our city’s vibrant arts community and strengthen its foundations by building a collective sense of pride and possibility. Featuring an array of events, from art exhibitions, youth dialogues, dance showcases, workshops, speaker series, free outdoor concerts at Nathan Phillips and Yonge Dundas Square, film screenings, and more, the festival combines a grassroots, community-focused essence with a production quality often associated only with commercial-scale productions. The festival is the culmination of all of the work we do and provides an annual burst of energy and inspiration in the city, and is a vehicle for furthering all of our objectives simultaneously.

Funding and Program Partners

Canadian Heritage, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, Government of Ontario, Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, TO Live with Culture, Toronto Culture, TD Canada Trust Music, Sony Playstation, Art Gallery of Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, Red Bull, Pulp & Fiber, Eye Weekly, Flow 93.5 FM, One Stop Media Group, BlogTO

Program Impact

Since 2007, the Festival has continuously worked to promote and create a solid platform for the arts through its various mediums, including film, theatre, dance, visual arts, and music. We have strategically and successfully facilitated necessary dialogue throughout our festival, always in collaboration with partners, helping to enable cross-sector discussion that has consistently led to tangible action. Overall, our work has proven, and been recognized, for creating and cultivating space where young leaders across the city are able to continue participating within the arts and culture sector, from sharing their own artistic ability, to promoting the work of their peers, to working in collaboration with our team to continue finding new ways of taking action, and creating a sustainable space for creativity and change in Toronto.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

"The arts and culture sector is vital to the generation of wealth and community vitality. (Toronto's Vital Signs®, 2010)

All of our festival programming, whether through performance, artistic showcase, public dialogue, or skills-based learning opportunities, has worked to promote arts and culture, and prove that youth can be at the forefront of development and growth in this sector. As well, our programming has continued to be an example of how facilitating change through the arts is definitely possible, and that through this sector we can continue to inspire new leadership and build community worldwide.

Participant Vignette

“Since 2007, I’ve been involved with and have volunteered at every annual Manifesto Festival, watching, learning and growing from my peers.  Seeing what a group of talented, young artists can do with little funding and a lot of ‘sweat capital’ inspired me to start a similar festival with my friends in Scarbrough: the annual YouNited Festival. YouNited is a really cool festival that gets young Scarberians excited about their community and their city, about experimenting with the arts, and about supporting talented artists from their neighbourhood.  With direct mentorship from the Manifesto team, YouNited planned similar townhall meetings to the ones that gave birth to Manifesto. We folllowed Manifesto’s model to bring the community together, discuss key barriers that youth in Scarborough face, and brainstorm creative solutions to these issues.  Their team helped us create meeting agendas, provide creative direction and templates for our promotions materials, book production, apply for funding and so much more.  By learning from their learnings, we’ve been able to fast-track our process and have grown to a full 3-day festival mirroring the Manifesto blueprint.  Free cultural festivals like this are really rare in my community and I feel blessed to be making history and inspiring hundreds of disengaged kids.” – Norman Alconcel

Town Hall Meetings

Manifesto’s town hall meetings bring people together to create opportunities for dialogue about pertinent issues, expand networks, share information and experiences, and continue building communities. They bridge the gap between generations and sectors, creating a space where young artists, leaders, entrepreneurs, organizations, funders, policy makers, philanthropists, and executives come to listen and to have their voices heard. This in turn creates a shared resource that informs our direction as an organization, equips us with tools to aid in advocacy, and also spins off in unexpected and exciting directions.

Funding and Program Partners

Laidlaw Foundation

Program Impact

The effects of Manifesto's Town Halls have been two-fold. First, they've helped to engage communities and individuals in dialogue surrounding the arts, which has allowed those within and surrounding the sector to become active agents in discussions that directly involve and affect them. Second, our town halls have been spaces where the power of youth leadership has been exemplified, as we've sought to collectively address civic issues (e.g. Beautiful City campaign, Better Ballots campaign) and witnessed how our efforts can create systemic and structural changes.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

"Leadership that reflects the city’s diversity helps to strengthen a culture of citizen engagement." (Toronto's Vital Signs®, 2010)

By looking at our overall team, from those directing the vision of the organization, to those tirelessly donating their time as volunteers, to those who support our initiatives on various fronts, it is clear that we reflect a diverse leadership devoted to creating change. As such, we are committed to engaging in the necessary steps to see our vision manifest. In this, we actively engage as citizens at multiple levels, thus strengthening the culture of engagement in our city overall.

Participant Vignette

"This was the once piece of hope that a packed room of people in Toronto’s Metro Hall on Wednesday, February 9th were hanging on to. Due to the public concern toward the uncertain future of urban radio in the city, a 'town hall' meeting was put together on Wednesday night by the good folks at Manifesto. It was a chance for people in the hip-hop community to voice their concerns, ideas and solutions regarding the current place of urban music on Canada’s airwaves, and to discuss what can be done to keep CKLN on the air." - Andre Widjaja for "The Come Up Show" (speaking on Manifesto's Town Hall to address the shut-down of the Toronto-based CKLN Radio)

Know Your Craft Workshops

Manifesto’s Know Your Craft workshop series connects young participants with seasoned practitioners to learn the fundamentals of a range of disciplines straight from the source. From the transformative hip hop arts of deejaying, emceeing, breaking, and graffiti, to other potent art forms such as photography, drumming, capoeira, design, screen-printing and more - Know Your Craft is about empowering young people through their own creative capacity. Our workshops are conducted by some of the leading artists in their fields, and we work with workshop leaders to develop workshop programs that provide not only the skills involved, but also the context and history that make them relevant and powerful modes of expression.

Funding and Program Partners

ArtReach Toronto, Cultural Strategic Investment Fund

Program Impact

As we move into more comprehensive Know Your Craft programming, it is important to note the solid base on which this next phase is being built. Throughout our festival's past, we have been hosting Know Your Craft workshops in a variety of areas, including dance, photography, and visual art. Through each workshop, participants have walked away with a greater understanding of chosen practices and tangible experience in creating such art for themselves. Recognizing the excitement and strength that comes with learning a specific art practice and having experience within it, we have moved forward in supporting such opportunities through community partners, where young people have had the opportunity to practice different art forms overa a longer workshop period and in a more comprehensive manner, learning from industry experts and practitioners themselves.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

"Education is often the dividing line between those who succeed in Toronto and those who are left behind." (Toronto's Vital Signs®, 2010)

Through our Know Yout Craft programming, we seek to provide innovative and alternative educational spaces, where young people can actively engage in a specific art practice. Whether they are experienced or not, participants are able to find new methods of creation and expression, which can be applied to other aspects of the lives, and help support their growth as individuals.

Participant Vignette

"Through Know Yout Craft photography workshops, I was able to pick up the basic, yet necessary skills for me in documenting my communities. For a young woman who has never worked with anything other than a basic camera before, I found myself soon able to set up lighting, determine the right framing, and work with subjects as I sought to bring to life the images developed in my mind." - Nayani Thiyagarajah, past Know Your Craft participant and current Manifesto staff member