There’s now a way to easily search for arts ed programs in Philly

Need to find an in-school field trip related to dance for a group of 6- to 10-year-olds, some of whom have mobility restrictions? ArtsLink has your back.

Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) has launched a web platform to help residents, schools and community organizations find arts education programming by type, activity, time, age group and more.

The government office, which supports local public art and creative industries, announced on Friday that ArtsLink would fill an industry-wide need to better spread the word about Philly’s cultural offerings.

“The need for a resource like ArtsLink was realized when local arts organizations, who offer unique or discounted arts learning programs, voiced concern that they were only connecting with a small fraction of communities in Philadelphia,” said Chief Cultural Officer Kelly Lee in a statement. “ArtsLink will strengthen these connections and build this knowledge base year-round.”

The platform was built by Hack4Impact, a nonprofit run by University of Pennsylvania students that creates personalized software for local nonprofits.

“OACCE has wanted to build this tool since 2016 but did not have the resources until UPenn’s Hack4Impact reached out to the office in 2017, telling us how their organization worked and asking if we had any possible projects they could help us with,” OACCE Comms Specialist Carrie Leibrand wrote in an email. “Hack4Impact began the development of the website January 2018 and created ArtsLink through the Heroku: Cloud Application Platform.”

Right now, 55 arts orgs have live profiles, and 80 are registered with ArtsLink, Leibrand said. Arts ed organizations interested in being featured can register their programs here.

ArtsLink made its debut just after OACCE’s third annual Arts Education Fair, which convened teachers, after-school program administrators, recreation center leaders and others in the local arts ed space.