What We Mean When We Talk About “Advancement”

Erik Holmgren, Manager of Advancement and Strategic Partnerships

Advancement

People often say that the arts are a universal language but, as a field and as a sector, we have not always learned to speak the languages of other sectors.

The arts contribute meaningfully to many sectors beyond the cultural field itself—such as health care, business, and workforce development—enhancing outcomes in ways that are often under-recognized.

Mass Cultural Council is working to change that.

By fostering deeper connections and mutual understanding across sectors, we can unlock new opportunities for innovation, well-being, and economic growth.

In FY24 Mass Cultural Council launched a strategic plan that introduced a new component of our role as a public agency – advancing our sector. Advancement is focused on taking a new approach to supporting our sector by broadening the reach of the arts and culture into the sectors that we impact every day.

With this new strategic focus the Agency is developing partnerships, resources, and opportunities for the cultural community across all sectors in Massachusetts, integrating the arts into other fields of practice and expanding of the opportunities beyond those that have led us to this point.

Advancement work is built on the idea that sustainable support for the arts will not come from the arts or philanthropy. Rather, it will come from the sectors we have outcomes in.

As such, we’re facing at least three key challenges:

• Limited Cross-Sector Integration – There is insufficient collaboration between the cultural sector and other industries such as health, education, workforce development, and climate action.
• Resource Constraints – Cultural organizations lack access to diversified funding sources and strategic partnerships that could provide long-term financial and operational stability.
• Inequitable Access – Systemic barriers prevent historically marginalized communities from fully benefiting from cultural and artistic opportunities.

Through our Advancement efforts, our goals are to:

1. Position the arts and culture sector as a visible, recognized resource and an essential partner in problem solving across the Commonwealth.
2. Leverage resources from outside of our sector for the benefit of those within.

Our grantmaking is one tool we have been utilizing to support the cultural community in Massachusetts. Advancement is another, with the potential for meaningful, measurable change for the sector. It is a long-term strategic initiative that is focused on changing the way our sector operates.

What does advancement work look like in practice?

In Health Care

Through the World Health Organization, the University of Florida Center for Arts and Medicine, Dr. Susan Magsamen and other researchers, we know the profound impact the arts can have on health. Every seat in a theater is a vehicle to alleviating social isolation for people in a community that are suffering from loneliness. The health impacts of social isolation are the same as smoking approximately 15 cigarettes a day. Public and private health insurance companies have an opportunity to lower health care costs through social prescription and the performing arts community has an opportunity to be compensated by those payers for the health benefits they are providing every day.

In Real Estate

Artists, and arts organizations, need sustainable space. It is something that is a problem from downtown Boston to rural communities in the Berkshires. At the same time that our sector is struggling to find space other agencies, like the Department of Conservation and Recreation, have spaces they are actively trying to lease. In addition, there is a space crunch for early childhood education centers and there are youth arts organizations who have spaces that are largely empty during school hours. While the work of bridging these sectors is challenging, opportunities exist for collaborative problems solving.

In Economic Development

Massachusetts’s Cultural Districts Initiative (CDI), created by an act passed by the state legislature in 2011, is intended to support local efforts to drive economic growth, strengthen distinctive local character, and help communities foster their cultural sector. With 58 state designated Cultural Districts, each has its own diverse set of challenges and areas of opportunity to increase livability and connectivity within their natural and built environments. A CDI program redesign process is underway, in partnership with more than two dozen state agencies, quasi-governmental offices, and organizations spanning multiple sectors, allows us to collectively support the further development and sustainability of these districts.

The potential of our advancement work is extensive. We the committed to working at a systems level as:

• A Connector – connecting people and organizations from outside our sector to those within.
• A Consultant for Other Sectors – consulting with other state agencies and the private sector on integrating the arts into their programs and what the benefit is to that.
• A Resource – having built extensive relationships and a comprehensive data set on the arts.
• An Advocate – Recommending policy and ensuring the cultural sector is represented in committees and policy discussions that shape the Commonwealth’s future.

In the coming months and years, Mass Cultural Council will be advocating for new funding streams and methods of support from sectors that the arts have measurable outcomes in. We will be working WITH our field to elevate our voices and add to the narrative of impact that our field has throughout the Commonwealth.

Advancement