Citywide Arts Education Infrastructure

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Who We Are

In 2020, Arts Access Miami began as a coalition of eight local arts organizations ready to combine their strengths for students. The idea was simple: no single organization can solve arts access for all students. So what if we stopped working in silos and started working together?

Today, Arts Access Miami programs include 25 organizations that serve 70 schools and sites, reaching over 14,500 students per week. With a unique approach to collaboration, we unite schools, nonprofits, funders, and civic leaders — creating trust, shared vision, and collective responsibility for arts education.

2030 VISION:

40,000 Students Across 150 Schools Every Week

Arts Access Miami is building a five region system across Miami Dade. North and South Dade are established. Central Dade launches this fall. East and West Dade complete the model. Together, these regions form one unified, districtwide system for arts education.

Organizations

150

Sites

40,00

Students per Week

5.2M+

Instruction Hours

2,500+

Performances

20,000+

Instruments in Schools

The Story So Far

What began as a pilot in North Dade and expanded into South Dade is now a countywide movement, growing year over year as more communities align around a shared vision for arts education.

This growth has been driven by strong outcomes in North Dade, including significant reductions in absences and tardies, improved achievement in core subjects, and higher grade point averages in high school.

From our initial collaboration, we have built and scaled a collective impact model that brings partners together around a single goal: giving 100% of children in a community access to free arts education. When coordination replaces fragmentation, access at scale becomes possible.

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Proof At the Community Level

Our original alliance, now known as the North Dade Alliance, began in the Carol City feeder pattern, where, in its first year, weekly student participation in arts education tripled, increasing from 27% to 81%. Building on this success in North Dade, we expanded the model in 2024 to create the South Dade Alliance in Homestead and South Dade. This region posed one of the most complex environments in Miami-Dade County, with significant geographic spread and long-standing access gaps. Nonetheless, the model held strong. In just one year, arts participation in Homestead and South Dade feeder patterns nearly tripled, rising from 15% to 40%.