Rising Arts Leaders San Diego (RAL SD) began in 2009 as a program of The San Diego Foundation’s Arts & Culture Working Group, produced in partnership with the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture and designed to help emerging arts and culture administrators maintain and improve their professional competence, enhance their career progression and keep abreast of new developments in the field. RAL SD is part of an emergent network of up and coming arts leaders throughout California. Affiliated with the national Emerging Leaders Network of Americans for the Arts, supported by the Center for Cultural Innovation, and originally funded through The James Irvine Foundation, there are currently four active networks statewide: San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley. Though each network is structured differently to reflect the nuances of its region, the networks meet quarterly in an effort to strengthen the state's emerging leaders' representation. RAL SD serves early and mid-career nonprofit arts and culture administrators with programs that support individual professional and leadership development. As a fiscally sponsored program of Arts for Learning San Diego, an Affiliate of Young Audiences RALSD is generously funded by an innovative grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The goals of RAL SD are as follows:
· To provide participants with leadership and professional training, including symposiums, seminars, workshops, mentorship programs and other learning opportunities;
· To enable participants to connect online and in person with peers and experienced arts professionals in structured and informal learning environments;
· To provide information and resources which will enhance the participants' knowledge of current affairs in the field and other career development opportunities;
· To build the governance and infrastructure of the program to ensure its growth and sustainability into the future.