This Special Report – drawing on insights from a technical working group of experts in arts education, state data systems and state policy – offers guidance on key arts-education metrics many states could track by using data they already collect.
Equitable Investment Policies and Practices in the Local Arts Field
Cultural equity is critical to the arts and culture sector’s long-term viability, as well as to the ability of the arts to contribute to healthy, vibrant, equitable communities for all. At the core of challenges related to cultural equity is the historically inequitable distribution of resources, and the values systems, biases, and systemic barriers associated with that distribution.
To achieve fair and equitable distribution of resources within the cultural sector of each community, all types of investment made by local arts agencies should adhere to core practices and competencies that center equity and address bias, honor and embrace the inherent knowledge of the communities and constituents with which they engage, strengthen and broaden the leadership pipeline, support the fullest range of arts, cultural, and creative expression, and embrace new models of power-sharing and decisionmaking.
Each year the United States’ 4,500 local arts agencies (LAAs) collectively invest an estimated $2.8 billion in their local arts and culture ecosystems. This includes an estimated $600 million in direct investment in artists and arts and culture organizations through grants, contracts, and loans. For comparison, all of private philanthropy directly invests approximately $4 billion annually to the arts, corporations about $1.5 billion, state arts agencies about $300 million, and the National Endowment for the Arts about $100 million.
This makes LAAs, collectively, the largest distributor of publicly-derived funds to arts and culture and one of the largest and steadiest underwriters of artists and creative workers in the United States. It is therefore crucial that LAAs employ a strong lens of equity to consider the full scope of their investments-including not only direct financial infusions such as grants, contracts, and loans, but the estimated $2.2 billion each year that are expended on staff salaries, vendors, direct-to-community programming, overhead, marketing and communications, and more. This is particularly important because the existing systems of power that often drive the policies underlying such expenditures grant privilege and access unequally. With data, will, and guidance, however, progress can be made.
This report reviews results from the 2018 Local Arts Agency Profile, an annual survey deployed in April 2018, with a particular focus on an added module to the survey about how, when, and where LAAs in the United States currently consider equity in the deployment of their funds, time, space, and staff. The data was gathered from a broadly representative sample of 537 local arts agencies in the United States of varying budget size, community size, tax status, geography, etc.
Overall, the report tells a story of a field where direct and indirect practices about and centered on equity are on the rise. While major demographic challenges continue to exist among staff at LAAs of all sizes, the majority of large LAAs, and, in most cases, midsize LAAs as well, are taking a variety of steps to consider, engage, and develop support mechanisms for the full diversity of their communities. LAAs with more limited financial capacity and smaller staff sizes are not able to participate in these new mechanisms at the same rate but are inclined to want to know how they can.
That said, there is significant work to do. Only half of LAAs with DEI-related policies say that those policies affect fiscal decisions. The majority of entry- and mid-level staff do not have access to supported professional development. And, perhaps most starkly, LAA funds are distributed inequitable, with the largest 16 percent of grant recipients receiving 73 percent of the dollars awarded.
The centering of equity in the investment practices of the LAA field is necessary to the continued relevance of not only LAAs themselves, but the arts and culture sectors each LAA nurtures. The information in this report provides a jumping-off point. Those at the cutting edge of new practices like start-up capital, loans, and other creative financial mechanisms, as well as those who are pioneering and iterating better ways to addressing systemic inequities, biases, and other challenges within the field and its structures have now been identified, and their stories and learnings can be more easily told.
‘Raising the temperature’: the arts on a warming planet
The search for decisive actions to remain below 1.5 °C of global temperature rise will require profound cultural transformations. Yet our knowledge of how to promote and bring about such deep transformative changes in the minds and behaviours of individuals and societies is still limited. As climate change unravels and the planet becomes increasingly connected, societies will need to articulate a shared purpose that is both engaging and respectful of cultural diversity. Thus, there is a growing need to ‘raise the temperature’ of integration between multiple ways of knowing climate change. We have reviewed a range of literatures and synthesized them in order to draw out the perceived role of the arts in fostering climate transformations. Our analysis of climate-related art projects and initiatives shows increased engagement in recent years, particularly with the narrative, visual and performing arts. The arts are moving beyond raising awareness and entering the terrain of interdisciplinarity and knowledge co-creation. We conclude that climate-arts can contribute positively in fostering the imagination and emotional predisposition for the development and implementation of the transformations necessary to address the 1.5 °C challenge.
Governance Models for Cultural Districts
This report, commissioned by the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN), draws on primary research and a literature review to capture good practices, and identifies which stakeholders should be “at the table” for informed and effective decision making and oversight. The research has also revealed the range of business models that underpin these governing entities, reviewing how cultural districts are generating revenue and expending it. The research is intended to be fully international in scope, with useful lessons for GCDN
members and other practitioners around the world.
Creative Economy Outlook: Trends in International Trade in Creative Industries
The second UNCTAD Creative Economy Outlook and Country Profile report (2018) demonstrates not only that there has been significant growth in
the creative economy but also that the sector can make a valuable contribution to the achievement of sustainable development goals.
Despite the difficult years during and post the 2008 financial crisis, the creative economy has been robust, demonstrating resilience and in
some instances growth, indicating it is a sector with considerable potential for current and future investment.
Following UNCTAD’s first Creative Economy Outlook report in 2015, the long-term review of the trade of creative goods and services offered by this report provides a valuable update and snapshot of past and present trends in the global creative economy. It also highlights some metatrends, many of which are already shaping the future of creative industries.
What School Leaders Can Do to Increase Arts Education
As building-level leaders, school principals play a key role in ensuring every student receives high-quality and equitable arts learning as part of a well-rounded education. Building on the first release of What School Leaders Can Do to Increase Arts Education in 2011, this updated guide offers three concrete actions school leaders can take to increase the arts in education in their schools. Each action is supported by low- or no-cost strategies – outlined in this guide – that school leaders have used and found effective.
