Arts Advocacy Tidbits

Below are some notes culled from the October Illinois Arts Alliance newsletter and the Americans for the Arts website..

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE ON NOVEMBER 7TH. If you go to political meetings ask the candidate's position on arts issues or call candidates' offices and ask for their position on the arts and arts education.

The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC) of Minnesota conducted a study in 2005 to answer the following question: Are there critical ingredients or common themes necessary to building long-term vitality for the arts in smaller communities? The answers to this study, supported by a grant from the Bush Foundation, can be found in a report titled "Thriving Arts: Thriving Small Communities." The 28 page document, which can be downloaded, covers Minnesota communities from 1000 to 6000 in size, but is relevant to larger areas that may encircle major population centers as well. For you big city folks there is reference in the report to work on the "intrinsic value of the arts" done by Columbia College in Chicago. I’m not familiar with this, but you may be. Another interesting element was a sample four year plan for creating a Community Cultural Advocacy Organization. There is also a comprehensive bibliography. To view this report, go to http://www.bushfoundation.org/Publications/MRAC_Report.pdf

One final tidbit. In culling through the Americans for the Arts website, I found a link to a fascinating arts data base. Click on the following site and then choose your own Illinois legislative district. http://www.americansforthearts.org/information_resources/research_information/services/creative_industries/state_legislative_districts/illinois.asp It will take you to a profile that includes information on your own legislator, arts businesses in your district, the number of employees in those businesses, and trend data on arts sectors in general. Cool!


I took a survey on the definition of Arts Advocacy at the fall convention of the Illinois Theatre Association. Thirty attendees completed a questionnaire ranking potential advocacy functions in terms of their relevance and importance to the Illinois Theatre Association. The choices for each function ranged from “this is critical” to “this is not a central concern.”

The tabulation revealed three advocacy functions as most critical for members and perhaps most pressing for the association to support. They were:

1) Lobbying legislators,
2) Developing better working relationships between the educational and professional theatre, and
3) Working to get theatre arts curriculums required by the state.

In the middle were five additional functions (There was a tie for fifth):
4) Developing audiences for live theatre,
5) Attracting more foundation support for theatre,
5) Improving arts and theatre pedagogy,
6) Improving training or certification standards for theatre instructors, and
7) Organizing a speaker’s bureau for advocacy issues.

The three functions that seemed of least concern to the members of ITA were:
8) Organizing voter registration,
9) Providing assessment information for theatre instructors, and
10) Providing more financial aid for arts students.
( A “not a central concern” ranking does not imply unimportance for an issue; it may merely suggest that the issue may not seem as important for the ITA to pursue.)

It is heartening to observe that one of our central mission statements (Encouraging a closer understanding and communication between Community, Educational, and Professional Theatre) ranks strongly in this survey. On the other hand, it is interesting to observe that political lobbying by name is not included in our mission statement and yet appears from the membership point of view to be the most important function for the organization. This may be an item worth some discussion.