CLIENT
Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (CFGB)
LOCATION
8 Counties of WNY + Monroe County
DATE
2025 (Current)
Facilitating and engaging the arts and culture sector in 9 counties across Western New York.
In 2021, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation established endowment funds at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (CFGB) to support arts and culture in Western New York’s eight counties and Monroe County, recognizing the sector’s critical role in a thriving regional economy.
To implement this vision, CFGB launched operating and capacity building grants for 35 organizations across the region. Saira Creative, along with 3 additional facilitators, were engaged to lead multiple yearlong peer learning cohorts, designed to build trust, social cohesion, and collaborative capacity among grantees—laying the groundwork for a regional collective impact model.
Saira Creative also planned and facilitated the required in-person gathering for all grantees, offering shared goal-setting, learning labs, and networking to strengthen cross-county connections and align efforts across the nine-county geography.
Participatory Mapping exercise used to develop a digital asset map, capturing overlaps and gaps in the 9 county service area.
Engaging arts and cultural organizations around 9 counties to find shared goals and key next steps for the sector’s growth.
Working with Saira has been the perfect mix of brainstorming, dreaming, ideating, and implementation. It’s not often that you find someone who can live in all of these worlds, but Saira is that unicorn. Not only have we been able to co-create the beginnings of a bigger vision for the Arts & Culture Initiative at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, but I have so appreciated Saira’s values that are so deeply rooted in community voice and equity.
Yuki Numata Resnick, Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo