With support from the California Arts Council, CA for the Arts champions arts and culture as essential to vibrant communities through statewide programming, services, and advocacy networks that foster public awareness, center equity, and generate resources to cultivate a thriving arts and cultural sector. Unique in a cross-sectoral approach, bridging connections, empowering arts and cultural communities, and uplifting marginalized voices, CA for the Arts translates public need to public policy. CA for the Arts understands that arts and culture are essential to the wellbeing of society and embedded in community life and we advocate for policies where arts, culture and creativity intersect with broader policy change to reshape systems toward equity and justice. CA for the Arts’ diverse approach holds space for the arts ecosystem to articulate vision, strategy, and equity across the cultural sector.
Each April, we direct Arts, Culture & Creativity Month, an annual month-long spotlight on the arts to raise visibility and awareness about the value of our sector, to empower arts advocates to take action, and to spur greater investments in our industry and workforce. We celebrate and elevate our impacts through media campaigns and calls to action that increase our visibility and change the way that the arts are perceived. We lift these impacts to the Capitol during Advocacy Week, where arts delegates meet with legislators to press for their support. We activate the state with training and toolkits that spur local actions and increase advocacy capacity of the sector.
We inform the field of latest policy news and advocacy resources and provides opportunities for the field to share their challenges with us through our Regional Conversations programs, held in eleven regions across the state. We provide information year-round through consistent social media engagement and awareness campaigns and publicity to inform the public of issues and news from our sector. We offer professional development webinars on policy and legislation, funding opportunities and tools for the field to be informed and effective advocates. We produce impact surveys and offer data aggregation to support case making. Producing original content, we bring together thought leaders and practitioners around arts and culture impact themes to share their change making work and to discuss new strategic possibilities and the policy changes that we should be thinking about.
We partner, supports, and builds coalitions with statewide arts organizations and artists, monitors legislation and budget allocations, brings California perspectives to national arts advocacy by serving as the group selected by Americans for the Arts (AFTA) to lead the state’s delegation to the annual Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, among many other arts policy leadership affiliations.

