Further development of the South Mountain Environmental Education Center (SMEEC), the focus of the Center’s Deeper Planning and Implementation grants. This Next Steps Grant is awarded under the Foundation’s arts-and-culture Initiative for Financial and Creative Health.

Support for the AZ Creative Communities Follow-On Program, through which the Commission provides grants to collaborative teams or individual arts-and-culture organizations within small and rural communities.

Support for the Commission’s SMU DataArts liaison position, which provides localized technical support to Arizona organization users of the DataArts system, continuing a collaboration among the Commission, the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, and the Flinn Foundation to work with DataArts on behalf of Arizona’s arts-and-culture sector.

Support for the Opera’s learning around its new “Arizona Red” series product line, which will see the Opera produce two small-production operas at the Herberger Theater in Phoenix and the Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, productions that will provide patrons a more intimate, innovative, and theatrical experience. This Next Steps Grant is awarded under the Foundation’s arts-and-culture Initiative for Financial and Creative Health.

Expenditure-responsibility grant to support a multimedia journalism initiative to deepen public understanding of bioscience research, industry development, and clinical advances in Arizona. This grant supports two new positions at the Republic: a multimedia reporter and a digital developer; while the reporter publishes articles, video reports, and other content for the Republic’s audiences, the developer will incorporate the content in cutting-edge formats, including virtual and augmented reality. Although these new-media projects will be available globally on multiple platforms, the developer will particularly concentrate on preparing them to be showcased at in-person events connecting the public to the biosciences.