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The Guilford Nonprofit Consortium celebrated November as Nonprofit Awareness Month by inviting Dafna Michaelson, national community activist, to speak to us about solving community problems.

“This community has phenomenal creative spirit. I know that the arts are active here, as over and over I have heard about citizens willing to respond to community challenges with creativity and courage,” she concluded after three days of visiting nonprofits in our area.

As a trained performing artist and speaker, Michaelson visited 50 states in 52 weeks exploring how ordinary citizens solve community problems. She said she was “blown away” by our community’s creativity and “the ability to see new possibilities” beyond the status quo.

The United Arts Council is one nonprofit in our community that fosters this kind of creative thinking in our community. Since 1960, the United Arts Council has played a critical role in making the arts both possible and available through direct grants and services to artists, schools and arts organizations.

The mission of the UAC reflects what Michaelson experienced: “The UAC inspires growth of creative expression in our community that enhances quality of life and cultivates economic vitality and educational engagement with the Arts.”

Consider the UAC’s support of the Greensboro Symphony.

Recently, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra performed for middle-school students, and during the performance the assistant conductor stopped the orchestra to teach students more about the music. Exposure to classical music for these students tied in with their recent reading of “The Soloist,” about a classically trained musician coping with schizophrenia. Through grant funds provided by the UAC, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra reaches schoolchildren throughout Guilford County to enhance their learning and spark creative thinking.

Seventh grade student Delaney Marion said, “It’s a really good opportunity to come here and listen to all the music that Beethoven wrote, and it’s just really cool music.”

Jeannine DuMond, teacher at Northern Elementary School, has taken her students to the symphony for years and says that it somehow changes them.

“My students love going to hear the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra every year,” she said. “After studying the music in class, they are amazed to hear it live and to see just how many people it takes to make such beautiful sounds. Most importantly, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for some of my students to hear and see a live performance by an orchestra in a concert venue and to practice concert etiquette. The experience is so rich and moving for my students, one that cannot be replaced and will be remembered for a lifetime.”

The UAC reached more than 600,000 people last season, from life-changing experiences for local school children to some of the best and most highly respected art exhibits and performances available in the United States today.

Recently the UAC, in collaboration with the Piedmont Triad Partnership, launched an educational workshop series called Entrepreneurship for Creatives to help artists and creative workers considering entrepreneurship. This program was another way for the UAC to fulfill its mission. This unique program was open to all creatives in the 12-county Piedmont Triad and began a regional strategy to support our creative industries.

E4C covered a variety of topics, from developing a mission/vision statement to writing a business plan and pricing creative products. Instructors came from across the Triad to provide valuable training to artists and creative workers in order to facilitate the growth of our regional economy through the creation of new small businesses.

Duane Cyrus, the artistic director of Cyrus Art Production and an assistant professor at UNCG, attended E4C and said that it was outstanding and he hopes the UAC does it again. Cyrus, who holds an MFA from the University of Illinois and a BFA from the Juilliard School, explained that this workshop helped him meet other artist-entrepreneurs in our community and that these connections have enhanced his work. Cyrus is a former UAC grant recipient and currently appreciates the monthly communication the UAC puts out about various artistic performances. “Arts are not just for children,” he said, and adults would enhance their creativity at work or at home by participating in the arts more regularly. He appreciates how the UAC nurtures artists and helps sustain the arts in our community.

Naturally, these programs of the UAC make Greensboro a wonderful place to live and work. Michaelson said creativity “must be in the water” around here and asked if she could bottle it up and take it home with her.

We have the UAC to thank for half a century of infusing creativity into our community and lives.

Ruth D. Anderson is executive director of The Servant Leadership School of Greensboro and chairwoman of programming for the Guilford Nonprofit Consortium.