Non-Profit Grant Consulting, Research, Concepting and Writing
It's an honor to serve the mission of the nationally recognized Arts and Health/Creative Aging social impact pioneer Kairos Alive! by helping to research, concept, budget and write grant proposals. Successful proposals have been submitted to the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Very Special Arts Minnesota, Blandin Foundation, Northland Foundation, Bader Philanthropies, Thorpe Family Foundation, Mardag Foundation, Allianz, and others, thank you!
For my independent documentary, Dwight in Denmark, I wrote and received a grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation, in addition to being supported by a GoFundMe campaign, thank you!
PHOTOS: RICH RYAN, Courtesy Kairos Alive!
“I came a 70-year old and left a 50-year old!” – Kairos Alive! Program Participant
Had you been with us during our Moving Well™ training with Winona Health staff a few years ago, you would have witnessed staff members openly weeping. They had just witnessed their patient “Jim,” an older man who had spent months isolated, depressed and withdrawn, suddenly participate as a key active player in full voice and action in the Kairos dance drama enactment of a folk tale in our Dancing Heart™ session in the hospital. His enthusiasm endured; he and his wife were the first to arrive for our Intergenerational Dance Hall™ in the hospital lobby that evening.
Rachelle Shultz, CEO, Winona Health: “Our Kairos events were amazing! Staff loved learning this approach, and it has opened up whole new ways of thinking. We have great stories about the impact on residents. [Four years later] our staff in Long Term Care still use what they learned with Kairos!”
Kairos Alive! offers exciting enjoyable evidence-based creative intervention tools and techniques that are very successful in diverse communities through unique community collaboration models. Tools help individuals, families and organizations discover their “voices”/leadership, build trust and relationships, find purpose, and take sustained action toward active healthy lifestyles. This happens through a shared vision of creative engagement and respectful multi-cultural and multi-ability celebration. The leadership agency developed by this work has power to motivate people to make healthy choices for themselves and enjoy further participation in healthy community engagement. The work of Kairos Alive! inspires a path of action without prescribing specific solutions. Action comes from the personal motivation and creative contributions of enfranchised individuals and groups. Kairos uses a model of radical inclusion that taps the creativity in everyone, includes people of all ages, abilities and disabilities, and produces everyday joy and long-term health benefits through meaningful creativity engagement.
Kairos Alive! is a 20-year-old Minnesota nonprofit, evidence-based, social impact organization based in the power of creativity engagement that promotes individual and group leadership for healthy active lifestyles. Our mission is to transform lives through dance, music, theater and the latest arts and health research learning. Our vision is to celebrate older adults and people with disabilities at the center of vital intergenerational creative communities, inspiring enjoyment and health for all. Our goals are to serve as an innovator of programs, educator in Arts and Wellbeing approaches, and to encourage positive personal and community change.
Kairos Alive!’s work simultaneously addresses social, emotional and physical determinants of health. It results in less depression, better balance, fewer falls, maintenance of cognition, increase in activities, fewer doctor visits, less medication use, and better overall health. Research says dance helps improve motor functions in patients with Huntington’s Disease; improves motor abilities and participation in children with Down Syndrome; improves motor and cognitive functions of patients with Parkinson’s Disease; helps balance, gait, walking and social integration for children and adults with Cerebral Palsy; and improves social skills, body awareness, self-other differentiation and psychological well-being with young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Kairos Alive! programs are shown to positively affect family, and healthcare and social service organization cultures for greater satisfaction. (A 17-page literature review relevant to our work is available).
Kairos Alive! is a recognized pioneer in the Arts and Health/Creative Aging movements. Our programs have won national awards from the American Public Health Association and the American Society on Aging. They are recognized as model programs by the National Center for Creative Aging, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and were featured in the PBS documentary, Arts and the Mind.
“You always lift our spirits…We like being seen and not looked at.” – Veterans Dancing Heart™ Participant
“I love the fact that Kairos connects with us inter-culturally. I love it that Kairos knows about our culture and loves it. It feels so good to be loved in this way.” – Ms. Sol Moran Sepulveda, Kairos Alive! Intergenerational Dance Hall™ participant.
“It’s been a fun journey. The Kairos Alive! activities have really enhanced our program.” – Suzanne Caporina, Sr.VP Innovation and Impact, Easterseals FL
“It’s a very cool thing that [Kairos Alive!] is doing.” – Michael Mossaad, Learning and Engagement Coordinator, Minnesota Orchestra
“The [Intergenerational Dance Hall™] is magical. [Kairos] uses dance as a form of creativity and you're able to bring your children and your parents and do something as a family; or bring your neighbor, or your aunt and uncle. So, it's really more than dance. It's about creating connections [between] humans.” – Shelby Matula, Visitor Services Manager, American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis
“I made friends here! They’re six [years old] like me. And there were grandpas and grandmas, moms and dads!” – Young Participant at American Swedish Institute
“We have a little United Nations here [at Park]. [The Intergenerational Dance Hall™] is the only event that will bring everyone together without [people] thinking of their differences. They love it! We love seeing the other groups dancing with us on the online [Zoom online interactive Dancing Heart™ Live] program.” – Bee Vue, Program Manager, Volunteers of America Park Elder Center, Minneapolis
“At the last Kairos [Zoom online interactive] session on TV one of our men participating who is deaf was unable to hear the music, but he was able to ‘see’ the music. After the session, I was thrilled to watch him dancing out of the room and down the hall. With music and dance, you don’t have to understand a [verbal] language to participate.” – Jennifer Rutschke, Assistant Executive Director at Ebenezer Park Apartments, Minneapolis
“People have maintained at a higher level... and they haven’t declined as fast as they would have without this [program]…it’s huge! The Dancing Heart™…has opened doors for self-expression, self-esteem and community building…it has completely changed what we want to offer.” – Susan Ryan, Wilder Adult Day Health Memory Program, Saint Paul, MN
