The Task Force of the Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan is proud to present at last, the Regional Cultural Action Plan!
Prepared and presented by consultants WolfBrown, after almost a year in the making, the final report provides a cohesive analysis of the area's arts and cultural community and makes powerful recommendations and directives for support. The full report can be found at this blog's resource list, but here are the Goals and Action Steps from the "Call to Action" - Executive Summary.
Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan
Executive Summary Recommendations
What are the Goals and Highlights for the Future?
There are clear goals and action steps that must guide the region in this effort.
Goal I: Increase the contribution of arts and culture to the economic vitality of the region.
• Increase cultural tourism.
• Integrate arts and culture into economic planning for the region.
• Implement a culture-friendly downtown development strategy.
• Foster creative collaborations in the work place.
Goal II: Expand cultural participation of a regional basis.
• Encourage events and activities that address the unfulfilled cultural interests of regional residents.
• Develop a regional network of non-traditional spaces for cultural activities that encourage events and activities at the neighborhood level.
• Foster the growth of satellite programming in the counties by Richmond-based cultural organizations as well as partnerships across geographic boundaries.
• Encourage greater participation and new audiences through improved transportation, subsidizing ticketing, and other audience development strategies.
Goal III: Promote cultural equity and build on cultural diversity.
• Encourage and promote more ethic, historic, and religious festivals and celebrations that reflect the rich multi-cultural traditions of the region.
• Support the reuse of facilities to enhance the historic assets of neighborhoods and provide culturally diverse organizations and artists with low cost performance/exhibition/office space.
• Develop a mini-grant program to provide greater access to funding to culturally specific artists, organizations, and audiences.
• Foster greater dialogue on issues of race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage and their implications for cultural policy.
Goal IV: Build a coordinated, equitable, and innovative system for creative education.
• Develop mechanisms that bring coherence to the organization and promotion of arts and cultural education.
• Offer new approaches to program delivery that overcome barriers of cost, transportation, and safety for families.
• Create sustained pathways for learning that connect young people to arts and culture from pre-school through early adulthood.
• Create a variety of opportunities and rewards that recognize and support young people for their engagement in arts and culture.
• Build support for arts and cultural education through linkages to other types of activities and funding in the areas of after-school, youth employment, crime prevention, and school-to-work preparedness.
Goal V: Sustain the Richmond Region’s artists and cultural organizations.
• Offer incentives for merges, shared services, and strategic alliances for cultural organizations of all sizes.
• Provide opportunities for technical assistance for artists and organizations.
• Develop an online system to assist artists in finding space and connecting with opportunities to show or perform their works.
• Establish programs to assist working artists and emerging cultural organizations in navigating City and county government.
• Develop more rational and effective systems for coordinated funding and grantmaking.
Goal VI: Provide for ongoing coordination, advocacy, and dialogue on behalf of arts and culture.
• Build on the nascent sense of collaboration that has informed the cultural planning process, working together as a sector, avoiding fragmentation, and forging broad networks that cross traditional boundaries.
• Work with the Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau to develop a computerized regional cultural calendar, a cultural tourism initiative, and other vehicles to promote the arts, culture, history, and heritage.
• Complete the plan for a regionally-appropriate coordination mechanism for arts and cultural education in performing arts, visual arts, history and heritage, science and nature, and literary arts.
• Work with the leadership of the Arts Council of Richmond to transform the agency into a regional body capable of coordinating the implementation of this cultural plan after the first year.
In order to accomplish these aspirations, it will be necessary to widen the circle of those involved. Throughout this cultural plan, there are opportunities for groups of citizens to participate on working committees to ensure broad participation in translating recommendations into reality.
What Are the Next Steps?
• A reconstituted Task Force should continue to shepherd the Cultural Plan in its initial phases but plan to go out of business on the one-year anniversary of the delivery of this cultural plan.
• The Task Force should ensure that community dialogue around the Plan continues over the coming months throughout the Region. A series of working sessions (or “studios”) should be held to build the intellectual capital around the recommendations contained in the report.
• The Task Force should explicitly monitor progress in the area of coordination, ensuring that designated entities are prepared to carry the plan forward after the Task Force ceases operation.
• The Task Force should issue a progress report on first year implementation before going out of business.
How Can Accountability be Assured?
The region must hold itself accountable to keep the promises it makes regarding the bright future that is represented by this cultural action plan.
The Task Force will monitor progress during the first year and issue its progress report to the community. Each year thereafter, new targets should be established for the cultural action plan and the realization of those targets must be assessed by the designated agency responsible for plan coordination. An annual scorecard on plan implementation will be an integral part of demonstrating that the cultural sector can deliver on its promises.
In addition, there must be a continuing role for the public – those who work in the cultural sector, those who volunteer, those who are consumers, and those who believe that local arts, culture, history, and heritage are critical ingredients for their children and their communities. Everyone must have a stake in continuing to set the cultural agenda from year to year and sharing pride in its accomplishment.
*Section taken from the Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan – Call to Action
March 2009
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