Monograph is one of the benefits of membership in Americans for the Arts. December 2009 Effective Community Arts Development: Fifty Years, Fifty Tips By Maryo Gard Ewell Introduction T he first local arts agencies started in the late 1940s and led to the creation of Community Arts Councils, Inc. (CACI) in Winston-Salem, NC, 50 years ago. CACI is the ancestor of today’s Americans for the Arts and as we look ahead to our 50th anniver- sary in 2010, we want to take this occasion to reflect upon effective arts development as we celebrate this movement that has grown from about 400 local arts agencies in 1960 to an estimated 5,000 today. The local arts agency (LAA) movement has had a lasting, indelible impact on the arts in America. Local arts agencies are a growing presence in communities across the country. Each provides vital services to sustain its local arts industry, and endeavors to make the arts accessible to every member of the community. As such, each LAA in America is unique to the commu- nity that it serves, and each changes as its community changes—no two are exactly alike. In 2008, local arts agencies administered an esti- mated $858 million in local government funds for the arts to support cultural organizations, provide services to artists and/or arts organiza- tions, and present arts programming to the public. 4 Americans for the Arts is committed to the continued health and well-being of the arts in America. The last 50 years have certainly demonstrated that by helping the nation’s local arts agencies deliver programs and services at the local level, we’re helping the arts con- tinue to thrive. These 50 tips are a resource to remind us of where we’ve been, what we’ve learned along the way, and how to best equip ourselves for securing the future of the arts in America through effec- tive community arts development by local arts agencies nationwide. In 2006, the Wisconsin Arts Board (WAB) looked back at the five towns that participated in the first “access” grant funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in the late 1960s. This was a seminal rural arts development program managed by the University of Wisconsin’s Office of Community Arts Development at the College of Agriculture. 1 The WAB study included interviews with elderly local artists, archival documents, a survey conducted in 1973 and replicated in 2005 2 , and conversations with some of the field’s earliest practitioners. A team including one of the original project directors, the interviewer, and six arts administrators articulated 50 “lessons learned” from these sources, which Americans for the Arts now present to you in this Monograph. 3
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Effective Community Arts Development: Fifty Years, Fifty Tips · Fifty Years, Fifty Tips By Maryo Gard Ewell Introduction T he first local arts agencies started in the late 1940s
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Monograph is one of the benefits of membership in Americans for the Arts.
D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9
Effective Community Arts Development: Fifty Years, Fifty TipsBy Maryo Gard Ewell
Introduction
T he first local arts agencies started in the late 1940s and led
to the creation of Community Arts Councils, Inc. (CACI) in
Winston-Salem, NC, 50 years ago. CACI is the ancestor of today’s
Americans for the Arts and as we look ahead to our 50th anniver-
sary in 2010, we want to take this occasion to reflect upon effective
arts development as we celebrate this movement that has grown from
about 400 local arts agencies in 1960 to an estimated 5,000 today. The
local arts agency (LAA) movement has had a lasting, indelible impact
on the arts in America.
Local arts agencies are a growing presence in communities across the
country. Each provides vital services to sustain its local arts industry,
and endeavors to make the arts accessible to every member of the
community. As such, each LAA in America is unique to the commu-
nity that it serves, and each changes as its community changes—no
two are exactly alike. In 2008, local arts agencies administered an esti-
mated $858 million in local government funds for the arts to support
cultural organizations, provide services to artists and/or arts organiza-
tions, and present arts programming to the public.4
Americans for the Arts is committed to the continued health and
well-being of the arts in America. The last 50 years have certainly
demonstrated that by helping the nation’s local arts agencies deliver
programs and services at the local level, we’re helping the arts con-
tinue to thrive. These 50 tips are a resource to remind us of where
we’ve been, what we’ve learned along the way, and how to best equip
ourselves for securing the future of the arts in America through effec-
tive community arts development by local arts agencies nationwide.
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m e m b e r s h i p @ a r t s u s a . o r gw w w. A m e r i c a n s Fo r T h e A r t s . o r g
A u t h o rM a r y o G a r d E w e l l
E d i t o r, Monograph s e r i e sR a n d y C o h e n
M a n a g i n g E d i t o r sK i r s t e n H i l g e f o r d a n d E l i z a b e t h V a n F l e e t
C o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 9 , A m e r i c a n s f o r t h e A r t s .P r o d u c e d i n t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s .
About the Author
Maryo Gard Ewell of Gunnison, CO, provides an array of services to
the nonprofit world in general, and the community arts world in
particular, through keynote speaking, writing, consulting, train-
ing, and teaching. She currently manages programs and projects
for the Colorado Council on the Arts, and has been working with
the Wisconsin Arts Board to investigate the impact of a seminal
community arts program in Wisconsin in 1967—one outcome of
which is The Arts in the Small Community 2006. Ewell has worked
for local arts agencies in Connecticut and for state arts agencies
in Illinois and Colorado. She is president of Gunnison Council for
the Arts and on the board of the Community Foundation of the
Gunnison Valley. In 1995, she received the Selina Roberts Ottum
Award from Americans for the Arts—the highest award for com-