Creative Economy Workgroup
Creative Economy Workgroup of California
The creative economy in California is an intertwined and generative ecosystem that adds exponential value to our state’s creative, cultural, and business economies in a way that fosters income generation, job creation and innovation. Using an equity lens, the Creative Economy Workgroup (CEW) responds to the ideas, strengths and needs of our communities that reaches and includes historically marginalized communities.
Established with the 2023-24 state budget, the CEW is tasked with developing a strategic plan which will conduct a comparative analysis with other jurisdictions, evaluate existing financing models and government initiatives, identify opportunities for educational programs as well as earn and learn job training employment, detail the geographic areas with the least amount of access or opportunity for a creative economy, and analyze existing initiatives and projects, including the role that local governments can play in creating a stronger creative economy. The strategic plan is due to the Legislature by June 30, 2025.
Purpose statement for workgroup members:
- Our lived experience as members of the CEW includes participation in and the leadership of the countless forms of artistic expression found throughout the state.
- We are focused on retaining our arts and culture bearers and organizations in a healthy economy that is good for artists and arts-oriented business.
- Guiding our efforts is a strategy that provides attainable and ample opportunities for California’s artists to be more competitive nationally and internationally for the purposes of earning, learning, development, and forming important lasting relationships that will grow both the impact and sustainability of California’s creative ecosystem.
Subscribe to Creative Futures
The Creative Futures Newsletter is a bi-weekly publication dedicated to sharing the foresight findings of the California Art Council’s Creative Economy Workgroup with its members and the public. Every two weeks, we will present recent signals — compelling stories that point to emerging possibilities of change — in the creative economy industry. Each newsletter will focus around a different theme as it relates to the creative economy.
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Based upon the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), March 2024 Creative Economy Research Primer and Report, the creative economy typically includes in its definition, each state’s measurements of size, scope and impact. These are knowledge-based economic activities upon which “creative industries” are based.
- In California, we know that in 2022, the total value added from the Creative Economy was $290,287,025,000 and that Arts and Culture was 8% of the total gross state product (GSP) and that it provided 847,688 jobs.
