Arts + Culture & Community Economic Development
On June 22, 2022, Arts for LA, Californians for the Arts, and California Forward hosted the Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF) and the Creative Economy Learning and Networking Sessions to inform about the state’s historic $600 million CERF investment. CAFWD has made the session recording and slides available.
CERF was created to promote a sustainable and equitable recovery from the economic distress of COVID-19 by supporting new plans and strategies to diversify local economies and develop sustainable industries that create high-quality, broadly accessible jobs for all Californians. Read more about CERF and highlights from the CERF Solicitation for Proposals here.
The CERF program has two phases:
Phase 1.
Each region will undergo the creation of an inclusive economic development plan. This plan will identify priorities and projects eligible for funding during Phase 2. CFTA encourages artists, culture bearers and regional arts leaders to be at the table and involved in the planning process in order to be identified as a vital sector and included in funding opportunities and economic development strategies.
The first phase is the planning phase, where $5 million dollars will be awarded to an applicant in each region to come up with the plan. A key component of this phase is community outreach and engagement. Our hope is to have the arts at the table and as a participant in this phase, especially to contribute to its inclusive, holistic, and transparent operations. Importantly, involvement in this phase is required in order to potentially receive any project funding in the second phase.
Our goal is to connect local arts leaders to this initiative, as the arts are a key component of community and economic development and wellbeing and a goal of CERF is to have broad industry representation in the planning and project process. Californians for the Arts will be developing tools and resources to support your engagement.
Since the June 22 meeting, Californians for the Arts and CAFWD have connected many arts organizations across the state with the economic development leaders helming CERF applications in their region. Some art organizations are connecting individually to the CERF leaders, and others are forming coalitions with plans to collectively engage the planning process. Every region is a little different in how they are approaching a CERF application but generally, if you’ve made contact with CERF applicants, they’re probably asking you to submit a partnership agreement letter. These agreements help strengthen their applications by demonstrating inclusive engagement. Our advice to you is to submit a letter to ensure the arts remain at the planning table as projects are developed in the planning phase. If more than one entity is applying in your region, there is no harm in submitting letters to more than one entity. Note: Applications are due July 25, 2022.
Here is a link to the CERF leaders in your region. Here is a link to the regions.
Phase 2.
The second phase is the implementation phase where the remainder of the $600M investment will be allocated to projects in each region. This is where we hope the arts can be a part of key projects that advance globally competitive and sustainable industries and high-quality jobs with clear employment pathways for underserved and incumbent workers, and bolster equity, climate, and health outcomes for all Californians.
More about CERF.
Timeline snapshot:
July 25, 2022 - Phase 1 Planning Applications Due
September 2022 - Grantees Chosen
October 2022 - Contracts Finalized
Fall 2022-2024 - Planning Phase
Why Get Involved?
Economic development planning defines the key sectors of a local economy and their related challenges and opportunities, then identifies strategies and sets priorities for directing investments. Arts and culture are natural partners in economic development but we are often not included in planning and project funding. There are a number of factors that contribute to our invisibility, including siloed thinking, narrow industry framing, incomplete data aggregation which often misses the cross-sector scale and output of our industries, and long-standing devaluation of the roles that arts and culture play in our communities.
Arts, culture and creativity are ever-renewing resources in our communities that can and should be tapped to assist in both defining and achieving economic and community success. The people and enterprises engaged in arts and culture production cultivate these resources, creating jobs and businesses while also providing critical social and civic infrastructure to our communities. What we do and the impacts we generate are deeply aligned with the sustainability, equity and inclusion goals of CERF.
How To Get Involved
Reach out to the CERF planning leaders in your region. Contact us to get connected with the folks applying in your area if you are unable to locate them.
Submit a letter of support or letter of interest on behalf of your organizations, or a coalition of arts organizations.
Sign up for CERF newsletters and join planning sessions that are being organized in your region.
The key is showing up to be in the plan - form a local coalition with other arts orgs to tag team on showing up and participating.
Want to learn more about arts, culture, and community economic development? See resources below, or contact: Julie Baker | julie@californiansforthearts.org
Julie Baker reflects on CA FWD’s California Economic Summit 2022 and its implications for Arts + Culture
It was the first conference I’ve attended in person since March of 2020 and it felt right that after all this time in isolation, the conference that brought me out of my slippers was the California Economic Summit presented by CA FWD. Why you wonder might the Executive Director of a statewide arts advocacy organization choose to attend a summit focused on the economy? The answer is simple, because we are an essential component of California’s economy and if we don’t show up and prove we need to be a part of the solution, we will never realize the investments we need to prosper or the policies we need to uplift and prioritize the creative workforce. In fact, in a conversation with another conference goer from the healthcare industry she offered, the arts are almost an invisible workforce, yet so critical to our health and wellness. Clearly, part of our collective work is to make the arts more visible. Showing up and speaking up is the first step.
In this last year, in our own advocacy we realized how important it was for us to show up in the rooms we had not been in before. Traditionally, our lobbying organization California Arts Advocates has worked to increase funding for the state arts agency, California Arts Council (CAC) and although our work there will continue, we have also seen significant funding this last year go to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), the California Labor Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), and the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) that will help arts and culture to not only recover from the impact of the pandemic but aid in building back more equitable, community focused solutions. We need to employ the acronyms and the phrases policies makers use to build economic resiliency to our own industries advantage. We need to get artists into the pipeline for community investment projects and learn how to integrate arts and culture into new funding sources such as CERF, Community Economic Resilience Fund, a $600 million bill passed by the Legislature this year that will allow regions to transform their current economies as well as work toward more sustainable and equitable economies going forward. At the same time, we need to share the positive impacts the creative industries can bring to the table for our economy, our health and our overall wellbeing. We need to be more than entertainment on an economic summit agenda and included as part of the systems change and policy development conversations. We need to show that by centering artists and culture bearers we can realize more equitable and creative results for the great challenges we face today including racial injustice, climate change, political polarity and economic disparity and dismantle the systems that perpetuate intersectional systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of discrimination. Finally, we need to see that our industry shares common goals with other sectors and work together towards achieving an equitable California dream for all to include living wages, affordable housing, child care, digital access and climate change resilience.
We can only do that if we show up in the rooms where policies and investments are being made and speak up. Next year, I hope there will be a large and loud cohort of arts and culture policy wonks at the CA Economic Summit. Join us and learn how you can be part of the force that prove, the arts work.
-Julie Baker, Executive Director, California Arts Advocates
Image credits:
Julie Baker with left to right, Senator Josh Newman, Senator Susan Eggman, Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins, Assembly Member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry who was honored for her work on broadband for all legislation.
Julie Baker with Senator Josh Newman, the first Senator to co-author SB-628, CA Creative Workforce Act.
Julie Baker with Dee Dee Myers, Director, Go-Biz.
Julie Baker thanking the Governor for signing SB 628 and historic investments in arts and culture.
Ways to Engage at the State and Locally
Sign up for e-news from a variety of state government agencies to learn about public funding opportunities, technical assistance and resources for your business/organization: Go-Biz, CAL-OSBA, OPR, LWDA and CAC.
Contact your City Manager or County CEO’s office and ask about regional economic development and how you can be more involved in the planning and implementation.
Engage in CFTA’s regional conversations starting in January.
Not sure where to start, contact us? If you are based in Northern CA (North of Santa Barbara) contact Kara Q. Smith Kara@Californiansforthearts.org or for Southern CA, contact Tracy Hudak, Tracy@Californiansforthearts.org