Power of Culture Blog
$1.92M Awarded to Individuals to Equitably Advance Creative Expression Throughout MA
385 grants of $5,000 each made to artists, culture bearers, and creative practitioners
Bethann Steiner, Senior Director of Public Affairs
As we transition to this new budget year we are excited to mark the launch of our new Strategic Plan and with it the new programmatic direction of the Agency.
In March the Agency’s governing Council unanimously adopted a new Strategic Plan outlining our redefined mission, vision, and values, providing staff with direction as we continue to bolster the Commonwealth’s creative and cultural sector.
Over the next three years Mass Cultural Council will focus on projects and initiatives that build progress towards our goals while continuing to equitably invest our public resources throughout the sector.
Mission
To advance the Commonwealth’s creative and cultural sector by celebrating traditions and talents, championing its collective needs, and equitably investing public resources.
Vision
Mass Cultural Council envisions a diverse creative and cultural sector that is valued as essential in the Commonwealth.
Values
Creativity, Public Service, Inclusion
While Mass Cultural Council is required to have a strategic plan in place as the Massachusetts entity that receives federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, we view our new plan as more than a requirement, we see it as a guiding document that outlines the aspirations for our work and the Commonwealth’s creative and cultural sector.
Under this plan, Mass Cultural Council will work to advance the creative and cultural sector to other sectors — building relationships, providing education, and increasing overall awareness about the essential value of arts and culture.
We will begin to address sector-wide systemic issues and attempt to minimize the segregation of the sector, both inside the sector and out. People tend to do business with people they know, so we hope to create new relationships with leaders in other industries who can affect change and make decisions that will benefit artistic individuals and the cultural ecology.
We want to change harmful mindsets that exist about arts and culture, like arts participation is purely a type of leisure activity or a “nicety”, or that eking out a living as a “starving artist” is okay.
Most of all, we want to ensure Massachusetts is recognized as the preeminent place to live, work, and create — and we hope the steps we take will galvanize those we partner with and support.
Our Executive Director, Michael J. Bobbitt hopes that the execution of our new Strategic Plan will raise awareness of Mass Cultural Council, and the sector we are proud to serve, as well as impact those who are working in arts, culture, and creativity but who may not be current grantees by building support for their efforts across Massachusetts.
