Advocacy Resources

The pARTnership Movement, a program and platform of Americanss for the Arts, presents a three-part curriculum that will guide local arts leaders on how to build strong and lasting partnerships with their local chambers of commerce to achieve shared community and economic development goals.

Part 1 of this series will establish a foundational knowledge of local chambers of commerce, the networks in which they operate and that serve them, how to navigate a traditional business environment, and basic activations a local arts agency can undertake to establish a partnership.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) issued additional guidance to assist states with their distribution of funds to non-entitlement units of local government (NEUs), which are local governments typically serving a population under 50,000.

The guidance sets forth a process by which the state can download a list of local governments from the Treasury website alongside a step-by-step guide to allocating and distributing funds to their NEUs.

For people with disabilities, the fight for equal access to arts and culture is part of a broader struggle for access to both physical resources and intangible benefits in daily life.

The following is a work in progress. This page will provide California resources for job seekers and employers to help reduce barriers to careers in the arts, and offer resources to arts organizations, schools, universities, and community arts education programs to be able to better serve people with disabilities seeking arts sector employment.

This document details new guidance highpoints, general information on receiving funds, detailed information on reciving funds for Non-entitlement Units of Local Government (NEU), an extensive list of eligible uses, ineligibler uses, reporting requirements and resources.

Below are our key takeaways, followed by technical notes, that touch on not just arts-related provisions, but also some key items that arts advocates should be made aware of that could impact local decisions. We’ll be referencing page numbers from the final guidance document dated May 10 (link here) throughout. We will update this page as guidance is tweaked and new information becomes available.

This resource covers allowable uses of American Rescue Plan (ARP) recovery funds, non-allowable uses of ARP recover funds, how to make an ask for state/local funding from ARP, how to frame the creative economy for state/local asks, and related resources.

For many jurisdictions, the funding provided under ARPA is substantial and could be transformational for states and local governments in their pandemic rescue and recovery efforts. Elected leaders will need to decide how to best use the additional funding consistent with the ARPA requirements, which are very broad. […] When considering how to best advise elected officials and plan for the prudent use of ARPA funds, we offer the following outline of Guiding Principles for the use of ARPA funds.

This resource details how to be an effective an informed arts advocate. The deck offers basic facts and definitions, tips and techniques on building relationships, a guide on crafting your advocacy pitch, data points on the impact of the arts locally and statewide, current advocacy priorities, and ways to engage in Arts, Culture and Creativity Month 2021.

The Advisory Brief for Local and Public Health Agencies and Organizations calls for local public health agencies and organizations to mobilize existing local arts and cultural assets to develop creative responses to this crisis. The advisory brief offers action steps, real-time examples and resources related to communication, connection, resilience, and recovery.

Download CAA’s Local Advocacy template letter to present to your Board of Supervisors or City Council members to prioritize arts funding with Federal funds from ARP (American Rescue Plan)

In a recent study conducted by Californians For The Arts (CFTA), of the 600 plus California creative businesses, 79% of respondents have eliminated and/or reduced programs, and 16% are not confident they will be able to survive if programs cannot resume before April 1. It is clear that unless we develop guidelines for the arts to reopen safely, it will be almost impossible for this sector to survive the crisis.

Californians for the Arts has joined other cultural organizations and arts and culture workers across the country to propose a set of relief and recovery policy actions legislators can take today to put creative workers to work. They will activate the creative economy for the common good, energize our fellow citizens, re-imagine how our communities can thrive, spark economic growth, and improve the lives of us all.

On this page, you will learn the difference between advocacy and lobbying, and how your nonprofit organization can advocate for the arts.

Click to learn 3 things to keep in mind when crafting your advocacy pitch.

This toolkit contains sample press release, talking points, social media posts and graphics for you to use for the first phase of the #RestartArtsCA campaign, which is focused on storytelling and data as a means to drive home the necessity of obtaining state guidelines to reopen the arts and culture sector.

Letters should be brief and to the point with a very clear ask. Hit your top line talking points (arts are the first to close, last to re-open, etc.) and make a clear and uniform ask across all the letters. The ask we want is the state to issue reopening guidelines for the performing arts and live events sector.

In this resource, you will learn target advocacy messaging, jobs creations strategies and actionable items for the arts sector.

We will all need to be working with federal, state, and local governments for a very long time to address these issues.

In this toolkit, you will learn why you should write a letter, the anatomy of an advocacy letter, the anatomy of a letter to the editor or an open letter, mechanics, the anatomy of an op-ed, how to repurpose your content and other actions around advocacy.

Check out Why the Arts Matter factsheet for facts and figures on the impact of the arts in your community.

The 2022 Otis College Report on the Creative Economy is part of an ongoing research project, first commissioned in 2007, to better understand the size, growth, structure, and character of the creative economy in California, with an emphasis on Los Angeles County.

The aim of this study is to use fixed effects models that account for unidentified time-constant confounding measures to examine the longitudinal association between arts (frequency of both arts participation and cultural attendance), mental distress, mental health functioning and life satisfaction.

The Los Angeles Artist Census (LAAC) is an artist-run research initiative that gathers and publishes data about the lives and practices of LA County visual artists.

The American Rescue Plan authorizes states and localities to use funds to support nonprofits and impacted industries, such as the creative economy. It also authorizes supporting agencies suffering from reduced tax revenue, such as state and local arts agencies.

These recommendations are adapted from the Put Creative Workers to Work platform, which has been endorsed by over 2,300 creative businesses and workers in all 50 states.

Success for these organizations, the researchers heard, didn’t happen overnight, but took “a slow, controlled burn.” The leaders of these organizations viewed the cornerstones of organizational health to be community orientation and high-quality programming–replicating the findings in the original study. Similarly, key internal factors the leaders credited as enabling high performance included mission alignment, positive organizational culture, investments in marketing and fundraising, a multiyear time horizon, and the discipline to live within your means.

The report outlines the working arrangements of California’s arts workers and sheds new light on the challenges and issues they face, particularly when working as independent contractors. It also identifies policy shifts to update systems, for those in California or nationally, that could be more inclusive of artists and those who similarly operate outside the traditional bounds of employment.

Welcome to the digital home for the 2021 Otis College Report on the Creative Economy. Started in 2007, the Otis Report on the Creative Economy chronicles the creative economy of Los Angeles and California through five creative industries through eight regions of the state.

This document includes key takeaways, highlights the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to BIPOC workers and organizations, quantifies layoffs and closures, and concludes with actionable policy recommendations that are centered in racial and cultural equity.

To assess the impacts of the pandemic, Californians for the Arts (CFTA) conducted two online surveys of creative sector workers as well as businesses and nonprofit organizations between October 6 and November 27, 2020. Surveys were available online in English and in Spanish. CFTA engaged Victoria Plettner-Saunders, a Principal with the arts research and consulting firm WolfBrown, to design, implement and provide analysis of the surveys.

The Statewide COVID-19 Economic Impact Survey for Creative Organizations and Businesses had representatives from 607 creative businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Between October 6 and November 27, 2020, Californians for the Arts (CFTA) conducted an online survey of creative sector workers, to assess the personal and professional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was available online in English and Spanish. CFTA engaged Victoria Plettner-Saunders, a Principal with the arts research and consulting firm WolfBrown to design, implement and provide analysis of the surveys.

The information provided through the 993 individuals who responded to the survey is a snapshot of a moment in time.

This one-pager summarizes Americans for the Arts' four ongoing COVID-19-related impact on the arts studies.

This guide is a tool for creating a powerful shift in the overarching narrative about arts and creativity. It moves arts and creativity to be framed and understood as core necessities for strengthening all of America, rather than as niceties that are enjoyed by some and that play an optional role in our lives.

Eleven states and communities are highlighted in these case studies: Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. Each study examines the resilient regions and creative industries, dynamic organizations, well-established and innovative initiatives and programs, and a number of creative economy-supportive public policies.

From the north to the south, California is rich in arts and cultural programming and leads as the economic capitol of creativity. California is the State of the Arts. Review this resource to learn why the arts matter in California.

Artists/creatives are among the most severely affected workers by the pandemic. 63% have become fully unemployed. They expect to lose an average of $21,500 each in creativity-based income in 2020 ($50.6 billion, nationally). Findings are based on 27,200 survey responses.

The results suggest that the arts and cultural sector can improve—not merely reflect— the health of the broader economy. […] These characteristics may make the arts a valuable asset for states seeking a path out of economic crises.