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Bringing more people to the arts is among the Arts Council's highest priorities, one that is shared with State Arts Agencies and arts groups all across the country. While we know that attendance at the events of organizations receiving Arts Council grants tops out at more than 18 million annually, we also know that much of that is repeat attendance, and that the actual percentage of New Jerseyans attending is not really so robust as it could be. We are also concerned that participation is unevenly distributed across geography and socio-economic strata.
We have been working hard to broaden, deepen and diversify cultural participation over a very long time and in several different ways:
- Our grant programs evaluate and reward applicants in part on the basis of their success in this area
- Our new grant category, Building Arts Participation, is exclusively devoted to the issue
- Our communications instruments are designed to inform, encourage and facilitate greater participation
- And our Discover Jersey Arts statewide marketing campaign takes dead aim at the issue and has developed an array of promotions and initiatives to better connect people to arts activities everywhere.
Some of the most important work in this arena, in terms of research and development has been undertaken by the Wallace Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Rand Corporation.
From 2001 to 2005 our Council worked closely with the Wallace Foundation on this subject and that is our featured presentation in this room. It gives background on the theoretical and applied aspects of our work, what we have learned to date and where we are taking it next.
In 2001, The Wallace Foundation announced the creation of the State Arts Partnerships for Cultural Participation (START) initiative which sought to identify exemplary State Arts Agencies that were well positioned to explore new ways to broaden, deepen and diversify statewide participation in the arts. New Jersey was selected as one of the 13 START State Arts Agencies, and received $900,000 to support an innovative local arts development strategy that capitalized on the existence of a County Arts Agency in each of its 21 counties, a network of 6 folklife centers and two statewide services organizations that shared this goal, the ArtPride NJ Foundation and the Cultural Access Network of New Jersey. The theoretical basis for all START states in approaching this subject was the work of a Rand study commissioned by the Wallace Foundation entitled "A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts." Its authors posit that there is a direct relationship between a person's intention, her decisions to act and the experiences resulting from that action that either work for or against participation in the arts. It frames out three ways of increasing cultural participation.
- Broadening: attracting more of the same types of the persons already participating
- Deepening: increasing the of involvement of participants
- Diversifying: attracting new types of participants
It identifies three categories of participants: creators, audiences and stewards.
It identifies three domains of barriers that prevent or constrict participation: perceptual, practical and experiential barriers.
By integrating these three sets of factors, one can begin to unpack the challenges and understand better how to approach developing strategies to meet them.
Using this framework, the Council, the County Arts Agencies, Folklife Centers, ArtPride NJ Foundation and the Cultural Access Network of New Jersey formed a community of learning and best practice and set out to learn all it could about the barriers to participation in NJ and strategies to address them.
Simultaneous to multiple convenings of the group to explore the principles and share information about programs, needs and constituencies, the Council funded accelerated field research by the folklife centers to learn more about the many folk, ethnic and traditional communities of the state and their cultural practices. Next, each County Arts Agency formed consortia of community stakeholders to study barriers to cultural participation in their regions, test assumptions and develop project concepts to address them with modest funding. All agencies, including the Cultural Access Network of New Jersey and ArtPride NJ Foundation, were invited to submit grant proposals. Fourteen were submitted and nine were funded with $353,000.
Projects began in 2004 and were completed by 2006. Though some shared common objectives, each represented a unique approach to the issue from which a great deal was learned both individually and collectively. It also led to creation of the Council's newest grant program Building Arts Participation which now invites all Council general operating and programming support grantees to engage in this work. The nine START Projects are:
- ArtPride NJ Foundation has developed a web-based, customizable survey tool to assess and measure your organization's participation
- Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission utilized the County workforce as a microcosm of the region to explore new communication vehicles and leadership to promote greater participation
- Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission concentrated on the identifying the keys to building effective boards as a means of extending the reach of programs
- Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission explored innovative ways to engage the growing Asian Indian population and diversify audiences both within and outside those communities
- Arts Council of the Morris Area infused art programming into a large corporate complex to bolster interest and motivate greater outside participation
- Ocean County Cultural and Heritage Commission approached its rapidly growing senior population and their communities with more effective marketing on behalf of area arts groups
- Cultural Access Network of New Jersey (formerly the Arts Access Task Force) delved deeply into needs and motivations for participation among the disabled community to lay the basis for more effective and aggressive marketing
- Union County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs tested the proposition that greater arts engagement involving professional artists at the pre-school level can lead to superior education and familial involvement.
- Warren County Cultural and Heritage Commission explored how to break down the barriers to house-bound and institution-bound elder populations through arts in alternative settings.
For further information on these projects click here.
For a list of resources on building participation click here.
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