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Barbara Bacon
Arts policy & management focused on community arts, local arts & local arts agencies, arts for change & social justice.
Professional Background
Barbara Schaffer Bacon is a highly regarded leader in the intersection of arts and community development. As the co-director of Animating Democracy, a program under the auspices of Americans for the Arts, Barbara is at the forefront of promoting the vital role that arts and culture play in fostering community engagement, civic participation, and social change. In her role at Animating Democracy, she inspires and informs stakeholders about the transformative power of the arts, facilitating connections among artists, organizations, and communities across the nation. Her expertise extends to Local Arts Advancement work at Americans for the Arts, where she further champions initiatives that enhance the presence and impact of the arts at local and regional levels.
In addition to her leadership role in Animating Democracy, Barbara is a seasoned consultant specializing in program design and evaluation. Her advisory capacity extends to both state and national arts agencies as well as various private foundations, placing her in a pivotal role in shaping arts policy and funding strategies. Her previous experience as the executive director of the Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts underscores her robust background in arts education and community collaboration. Here, she developed and implemented programs that furthered the understanding and significance of the arts within community contexts.
Barbara is also actively involved in governance within the arts community; she serves as president of the Arts Extension Institute, Inc. and is a board member for WomenArts. Her commitment to education and governance is further exemplified by her 14 years of service on the Belchertown, MA School Committee, which allowed her to blend her passion for the arts with educational leadership.
Education and Achievements
Barbara's academic background includes her studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she gained a solid foundation in arts management and community engagement principles. Throughout her career, she has accumulated numerous accolades, most notably receiving the prestigious Robert E. Gard Foundation Leadership Award in 2018. This award recognizes her remarkable contributions and leadership within the field of arts and culture.
Her ongoing commitment to advancing the arts is further reflected in her role as a member of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, where she contributes her expertise in policy-making and advocacy for the arts. Barbara has written extensively, contributing her insights to various publications, including "Trend or Tipping Point: Arts & Social Change Grantmaking," "Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy," and the "Fundamentals of Local Arts Management." These publications have been instrumental in disseminating knowledge about the interplay between arts and civic engagement and have helped shape policies that enhance the role of the arts in society.
Achievements
Barbara Schaffer Bacon's career is characterized by a series of noteworthy achievements that highlight her dedication to enhancing the arts and promoting civic dialogue through cultural initiatives. Some of her key contributions include:
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Co-director of Animating Democracy: In this role, she has spearheaded efforts to connect and empower artists and organizations to use their creative practices to drive social change, demonstrating the essential role that the arts play in civil discourse.
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Leadership in Local Arts Advancement: Through her work with Americans for the Arts, Barbara has championed local initiatives that support artists, organizations, and communities in their quest to integrate the arts into civic life, advocating for grassroots movements that emphasize community engagement.
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Consulting for State and National Arts Agencies: Barbara's consultancy in program design and evaluation has influenced policies and funding mechanisms at both the state and national levels, fostering environments where the arts can flourish.
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Board Membership and Leadership Roles: Serving on the board of WomenArts and as the president of the Arts Extension Institute, Inc., Barbara has played a crucial role in advocating for women's contributions to the arts as well as promoting educational initiatives that further capacity-building in arts organizations.
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Publication Contributions: Barbara's written work has helped to articulate best practices and innovative strategies in the arts sector. Her publications serve as critical resources for arts managers and cultural organizations seeking to leverage art for social good.
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Recognition and Awards: Her receipt of the Robert E. Gard Foundation Leadership Award stands as a testament to her impactful leadership and dedication to the field, inspiring many to follow in her footsteps in arts activism and community service.
tags':['art advocacy','community engagement','cultural change','program design','evaluative consulting','arts education','civic dialogue','nonprofit leadership','arts management','local arts advancement','consultant','Americans for the Arts','University of Massachusetts','WomenArts board member','Arts Extension Service executive director'],
questions':['What impact has Barbara Bacon's work had on community arts initiatives in the United States?','How does Barbara Bacon use her expertise in arts management to influence policy decisions within cultural organizations?','In what ways has Barbara Bacon contributed to the development of arts education through her leadership roles?','How has Barbara Bacon’s experience with the Massachusetts Cultural Council informed her approach to arts advocacy?']} assistant to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code to=browser code 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Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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