PRIORITY #3: Strengthen Our Cultural Infrastructure

Community Communications

  1. Collaborative Community Calendars: Explore existing event calendars held by partners throughout  Summit County to understand where collaboration and partnership may be enhanced.

  2. Public & Civic Experiences: Support and invest in organizations that strive to bring cultural experiences beyond traditional venues and into public and civic spaces.

Data Initiatives

  1. Data Collection for Arts & Culture Sector Goals: Convene cultural organizations and host a working group with the funding community to develop best practices around data collection and to determine current barriers to high-quality, realistic data collection. Data points should include at a minimum:

    • Audience participation;

    • Funding sources, including philanthropic, corporate, government, and individual support;

    • Demographics, including artists and audiences; and

    • Geographic or place-based information about the location of events.

  2. Shared Services for Cultural Organizations: Explore access to shared services, such as health, liability, and other insurance to nonprofit cultural organizations, culture creators, and artists. 

Business & Corporate Partnerships

  1. Artist-In-Residence Program: Develop an artist in residence program in which businesses apply to be a host and provide matching grant monies to fill a full-time position within departments. 

  2. Peer Learning Opportunities: Develop business and arts peer learning opportunities designed to build capacity in Akron’s cultural sector. Provide small to mid-sized arts and culture organizations the following:

    • Resources; 

    • Expertise and training in marketing;

    • Best practices in board governance;

    • Sponsorship opportunities; and

    • Peer-to-peer networking opportunities.

  3. Corporate Support: Strengthen corporate support of arts and culture organizations throughout the city. This can be done through the following actions:

    • Explore an annual corporate challenge, the proceeds of which would support nonprofit cultural organizations

    • Support nonprofit cultural organizations in identifying shared asset models that positively impact a business or community organization’s business model, employee engagement efforts, talent development, communication, and professional development as well as contributes to the financial health of the nonprofit.

    • Support businesses with national and local examples of the economic and social impact of the cultural sector; and

    • Support artist entrepreneurs in developing effective business models. 

  4. Engagement with Sports Visitors: Convert sports- and athletic-focused regional short-term travelers to multi-night consumers of culture. This can be accomplished through the following:

    • Joint marketing campaign with the Sports Alliance of Greater Akron to showcase the various cultural amenities available in Akron;

    • Coordination of major festivals and cultural events to coincide with major sporting events; and

    • Discount reciprocity between sporting events and cultural institutions.

Educational System

  1. Arts Education Advocacy: Advocate and support the exploration of sustainable ways to support K‐12 arts education in public and private schools.

  2. Cultural Experiences & Artistic Pathways: Highlight and advocate the importance of the arts and cultural experiences as core to a child’s learning and development. According to research conducted by Summit Education Initiative, studies an increase a student’s self-efficacy it positively impacts attendance, state test scores, and Grade Point Average (GPA). The importance of the arts in improving student achievement is well-documented, and by highlighting this impact in Akron we will see greater potential to support student learning and development.

    • Explore and incubate ideas that integrate learning opportunities into our public spaces and break down the barriers of where learning can occur. As the City of Akron and its partners create designs for public spaces, such as playgrounds, parks, splash pads, and other placemaking efforts, we encourage exploration of best practices around creating learning opportunities.)

    • Showcase artists, historians, curators, arts and culture administrators, and others working in the cultural sector as a way of showing students pathways to career opportunities.

    • Support the growth of the GAR Foundation-funded effort with Akron Public Schools and Essential Experiences by providing access to curriculum support, experiences, resources for educators, etc.

  3. Benchmarks & Impact: Work with Summit Education Initiative to identify benchmarks for educators and community members to identify the impact of arts and culture experiences for students.

Community Food System

  1. Local Food Action Plan: A healthy food ecosystem is core to a healthy cultural sector. In order to fully leverage local food, a local food action plan should be developed to:

    • Conduct a landscape assessment to identify strengths, opportunities, resources, and gaps;

    • Build upon information gathered through the cultural planning process which includes the following priorities: 

      1. Aligning areas of economic opportunity and food desserts; 

      2. Improving access to and education about healthy, affordable and local foods; 

      3. Increasing the role of food in economic development and cultural districts; and 

      4. Highlight the importance of food as a shared cultural experience.

Facilities and Cultural Hubs

  1. Family- and Recovery-Friendly Venues: Explore new and leverage existing venues that do not have alcohol to serve as venues for families, young adults, those in recovery, and others who seek alternative venues. These venues can include coffee shops, public parks, libraries, community centers, and faith-based organizations. To fully realize this effort, a training to support organizations who are new to serving as venues should be provided.

  2. Cultural Facilities and Needs Assessment: Conduct a Cultural Facilities and Needs Assessment to understand the inventory of facilities, venues, and spaces able to be used for both nonprofit and for-profit cultural activities, including but not limited to: City‐owned facilities, nonprofit facilities, church facilities, commercial facilities, and educational facilities. Spatially, this assessment will evaluate availability of space throughout the city on a neighborhood level and signify the need for space from culture creators. Prioritization of investment should align with other investments to amplify outcomes. Examples of those efforts include:

    • City of Akron Great Streets Program;

    • Building for Business, a program of the Summit County Land Bank;

    • Additional City of Akron cohort-based business assistance program currently in development;

    • Future Better Block efforts; and

    • Neighborhood efforts as identified by planning efforts funded by Huntington Foundation.

  3. Hubs of Culture: Invest and support existing or additional hubs to advance arts and culture in Akron. This effort will provide an opportunity for artists to create and sell their work as well as provide a place for residents to experience arts and culture in an environment unparalleled in the region. The following should be considered when developing a strategy:

    • Affordability to artists in both studio space and gallery space;

    • Intentional focus on equity and access for all culture creators;

    • Accommodation of culture creators who need to store large pieces of equipment;

    • Potential reuse opportunities of existing buildings in a centrally located place; and

    • Additional amenities such as a small performance space, recording studios, conference rooms, and classroom space.

Advocacy and Volunteerism

  1. Advocacy Network: Develop local advocacy network to include parents, teachers, students, community members, audience, patrons- resource, train, and equip for ongoing advocacy efforts. 

  2. Volunteer Database: Develop a database of cultural organizations who are seeking volunteers for their events and a database of people who are willing to volunteer at events and at cultural institutions. Distribute the volunteer database back to the cultural institutions to leverage for their volunteer opportunities.

Resourcing / Financial Support

  1. Assessment of Comprehensive Funding Models: A healthy cultural sector requires sustainable funding sources in order to maximize its potential for community impact. A comprehensive assessment of sustainable funding models must be created in order to determine an appropriate path forward to fully realize that impact. This assessment should objectively examine the current financial health of the sector, its current and potential economic impact, and assess the capacities and priorities of the philanthropic, business, and public sectors. 

  2. Akron Facility Use Fund: Develop the Akron Facility Use Fund. This Fund will increase access for small and mid-sized organizations to existing cultural facilities through a rental subsidy. Facilities such as the Akron Art Museum, EJ Thomas Hall, Akron Civic Theatre, Lock 3, and Goodyear Hall were intended, in part, to serve such organizations but face their own imperative to generate sufficient revenue to sustain their operations. The resulting imbalance results in smaller performing arts organizations being at a disadvantage in securing performance and rehearsal space.

  3. Diverse Funding Options: Strengthen funding options available to artists through:

    • Funding projects created by and with Akron artists;

    • Strengthening business and corporate engagement by educating artists to be successful partners to business, and educating and resourcing business as to how to leverage the arts to advance their mission and enhance their bottomline;

    • Encouraging businesses and organizations to contract with and appropriately compensate local artists whenever possible;

    • Working with the funding community to identify national best practices for supporting artists and allowing them to thrive in their craft;

    • Exploring microloans for creative projects and business start-ups;

    • Prioritizing and resourcing artistic development of a sustainable creative business model over resourcing new ideas that get one-time funding;

    • Encouraging and developing processes to increase diverse applicants for various arts and culture funding opportunities; and

    • Educating and raising awareness of existing entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

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