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The COMPAS mission is to strengthen people and communities in Minnesota by engaging them in creating art.
Formed in 1974, COMPAS is Minnesota's most widely-used resource for artist residencies and community-building through the arts, engaging approximately 320,000 people in the arts in approximately 100 Minnesota towns each year. COMPAS began as Poets in the Schools in 1968, was incorporated as COMPAS in 1974, and merged with United Arts in 1998. With a mix of direct-service participatory programs and re-granting programs, COMPAS is similar to many of the local arts councils around the country.
• people of all ages who have little or no opportunity to participate in making art of their own;
• rural towns and city neighborhoods by helping them celebrate culture and community in dynamic art projects they design themselves;
• students across the state who discover the beauty and power of art-making in schools, neighborhood centers, after-school programs, and other community settings;
• artists who — through our residencies, workshops, and performances — share their skills with children and adults around the state.
• ArtsWork—our youth employment program.
• Arts Education—school-based interaction between artists and participants.
• Grants — our program for nurturing arts organizations, programs and events.
COMPAS' roots go back to a 1967 program called the Art of Poetry, which later became Poets in the Schools and has since expanded into Writers & Artists in the Schools. WAITS was the first of many innovative programs COMPAS developed to encourage artistic expression and community-building at the grass roots level.
Our programs have since grown in number and reach, and our neighborhood-based projects have become national models. In addition to Writers & Artists in the Schools, some of COMPAS' familiar programs over the years have included Literary Post, Summer Writing Workshop, Minnesota Rural Arts Initiative, Community Art Program, Surviving with Art, ArtsWork, and Global Arts.
The merger of COMPAS with United Arts in 1998 further extends our grant-making to artists and organizations with funds raised through work-place giving.
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• COMPAS’ ten-year Arts & Diversity Funding Committee collaboration with TRAVELERS broadens understanding of diversity in the workplace through the arts.
• COMPAS was selected by the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation as the sole Minnesota site for Artists & Communities: America Creates for the Millennium, a nationwide arts residency initiative in 1999.
• COMPAS celebrated the completion of the Minnesota Rural Arts Initiative, its ten-year partnership with the Blandin Foundation, in 1999. Blandin commissioned a summary evaluation and subsequent publication, The Creative Current: Rural Arts as a Community Building Strategy.
• The Centre for Creative Communities located in London recognized COMPAS programs on their Register of Creative Communities.
• COMPAS’ collaboration with the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent was featured in the NEA publication Creativity and Youth: Enriching Young Lives Through the Arts.
• The McKnight Foundation, American Express, 3M and Medtronic have selected COMPAS as grant-making partners.
• COMPAS and United Arts—the region’s only workplace giving program for the arts—successfully merged in 1998.
COMPAS CONTINUES to find new ways to support communities, and to engage the people of Minnesota in creating art.
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