Power of Culture Blog
LCC Member Nano Interview – July
Shining a light on the vital work of Local Cultural Councils in our cities and towns
Carolyn Cole, Special Projects Manager
Part of the Agency's advancement work to help rural municipalities support more arts & culture
When I first started administering community arts initiatives on a statewide scale, I heard often from our small and rural communities that there was a need for more support and consideration there. Coming from a large, diverse, urban environment North of Boston, there was a lot I didn’t know about these communities, so I set out to change that. These are now the places I frequently go for extended stays to experience the beauty, uniqueness, and serenity this state has to offer.
While assessing the landscape of creative resources available to rural communities I couldn’t quite find that one that addressed what I was hearing a need for.
I could find reports on the idea of placemaking in rural communities, but those seemed fairly one-noted, and from what I was hearing, placemaking was a single tool being applied to address the variety of challenges and opportunities these communities were looking at.
Economic development support was another blanketed subject of many reports. While the arts are often counted in jobs and economic impact, its value is intrinsic as the truest articulation of our human experience.
I’ve observed that most programs and services look at many things through an economic development lens, but I also recognize that rural communities are seeing a need to focus more on things like population decline.
Cultural vibrancy and offerings are what improve quality of life most in these spaces, and our rural communities are some of the best places to find arts, culture, and creativity so powerful it contributes to creating a place where people want to live.
National findings show that state arts agencies distributed over $70 million in grant funding to rural communities in a most recent cycle. While grantmaking is certainly a helpful tool, it’s critical for us to examine how to tap into the landscape of opportunities for state investments available to combat the widespread day-to-day challenges communities were informing us of including:
What started as a one-pager of general information and resources we assembled became a 13-page document, and is now a new, ever-evolving Creative Community & Economic Development Resource Guide.
This Guide aims to assist rural municipalities in creatively re-strategizing the way they apply for and use already existing resources and funding to support their communities on a local, regional, state, and national level. We created it with the generous support of Massachusetts’s Rural Affairs Office.
The Rural Affairs Office has since been instrumental in all aspects of our work, from assisting with the redesign of our Cultural Districts Initiative to connecting us with their communities through in-person and virtual convenings.
We were grateful to take part in a recent MSA Rural and Western MA Conference and to be able to introduce our agency and sector to their municipal constituents during a Rural Check-In earlier this year.
We furthered these conversations with the help of the Massachusetts Municipal Association when we joined them on a webinar with their Select Board members to discuss how they can support arts and culture initiatives and advance economic development in their communities.
These partnerships have proven instrumental in our ongoing collective efforts, and prime examples of how culture and creativity can transcend sectors, siloes, and limitations if we initiate and prioritize fostering those relationships.
While the Agency continues making connections, working collaboratively, and amassing more informed content for our rural municipal resource guide, we look forward to continue learning directly from those of you who are having an incredible impact on the cultural and creative community development scene within Massachusetts’s rural pockets.
