SJCA Annual Meeting
About the Meeting
SJCA’s Annual Meeting is a chance for the whole South Jersey Cultural Community to come together to look back at the past year and talk about plans for the future.
Each year, we gather together, virtually and in person, to share our stories, learn together and collectively work towards a stronger, more inclusive South Jersey cultural community.
On October 21st, 2021, SJCA, South Jersey creatives, and cultural administrators met to virtually connect, look back at last year, and talk about plans for the coming year – including announcing SJCA’s new Executive Director! (Read Julie’s remarks here)
The Annual Meeting also included “Creative Community Collaboration,” a presentation and activity by Jun-Li Wang, Springboard for the Arts. During this practical, interactive session, we learned “best practices” for how to find and develop collaborations that expand and deepen our impact.
Springboard for the Arts shares award-winning approaches to building collaboration between organizations, agencies, and communities through working with local artists, tradition bearers, and cultural leaders. Collaborations like these are the key to strengthening the South Jersey cultural community.
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About the Speaker
Jun-Li Wang, Associate Director, Programs/Springboard for the Arts Jun-Li Wang is a connector of people, places and ideas. As Associate Director, Programs, Jun-Li leads strategy and programs at Springboard for the Arts with a focus on partnership development and community building.
Based in Saint Paul and Fergus Falls Minnesota, Springboard works locally and nationally at the intersection of arts and economic and community development, helping local artists and communities thrive together. Our mission is to support artists with the tools to make a living and a life, and to build just and equitable communities full of meaning, joy and connection.
Jun-Li has extensive experience in asset-based community development, community organizing, neighborhood leadership, workshop curriculum design and implementation, and training. For the past 10 years, she created and led Springboard’s Community Development program, including Irrigate, a nationally-recognized creative placemaking program designed to train and support local artists to address community challenges. She recently completed her third toolkit for Springboard, the Handbook for Artists Working in Community.
Jun-Li’s international experience includes 5 years working in China for several international non-profits including The Asia Foundation and Project HOPE. In 2014 she launched Board Repair, a network organized by and for people of color to create a more effective non-profit sector by increasing participation of people of color on boards in the Twin Cities, for which she was awarded a Bush Foundation President’s Innovation Fund grant. In 2016 Jun-Li received two Knight Foundation grants for Saint Paul Hello, an initiative to welcome and include newcomers more quickly into cool Minnesota.
In recent years, Jun-Li has served on the Saint Paul Planning Commission, the Metropolitan Council Livable Communities Advisory Committee, and the board of Urban Boatbuilders, a metro non-profit serving at-risk youth. Jun-Li holds a BA from Vassar College and MPS in International Development from Cornell University, and though she has lived in Minnesota longer than any other place, some of her heart remains in Berkeley, her childhood home. When time permits, Jun-Li is a craft artist with guerilla art aspirations.
