Drive advocacy

Anyone can drive advocacy for the arts and make an impact. One of the primary goals of Americans for the Arts is to provide local, state, and national arts and culture organizations advocacy resources.

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This goal should be amplified by your organization. As a driver toward accomplishing this goal, we should focus on amplifying the value of advocacy for the arts sector of the Global Majority by creating and supporting tools and resources that benefit this historically overlooked segment.

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Take a moment to think through the below prompts. Your answers to these prompts could lead to the identification of possible solutions.

There is great power in data and, in turn, great responsibility. You are encouraged to share resources and/or templates that will empower BIPOC and ALAANA organizations to leverage the results of this study.

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BREAK IT DOWN

Work with the communities to ensure they understand the power of advocacy and what it means.

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Help tell the impact story

What events, opportunities, and platforms do you have, or can you create, to help tell the impact story for BIPOC and ALAANA creatives?

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devise social media posts and infographics

Can you work collaboratively with BIPOC and ALAANA creatives and organizations to devise social media posts and infographics that tell the impact story?

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CREATE RESOURCES

Can you help give or create resources that will have a positive impact for these organizations?

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leverage your position

What are ways you can leverage your position to support the entire ecology of art and culture in your community?

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disrupt systems and policies

What are ways you can disrupt systems and policies that marginalize BIPOC and ALAANA organizations?

your turn

Not checking the boxes,
but connecting them

RED

In the RED box below, write down the systems or policies at your organizational level or at the local/state/federal level that unfairly affect marginalized communities.

1000

PURPLE

In the PURPLE box, write down all the resources you have or can create to help advocate for these organizations.

1000

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PINK

In the PINK box, write down what other ways you can leverage your organization to support all organizations in your community.

1000

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HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

bonus activity bonus activity

“Nothing about us without us.”
- Disability Activists Michael Masutha and William Rowland

Keep working to understand and center the needs of the community you are advocating for. Think harder about how you are driving advocacy. Resist the feeling that you must do the advocacy for the organization or that advocacy only works from the “seat” at your “table.” How can you provide resources for the organization to be its own biggest champion?

Bonus: Consider taking a “show and ask” approach. Show the interested organization its potential impact using data and tools. Feel free to use the AEP6 resources in the Local Arts Agencies & Resources section: AEP6 Calculator and National Findings. Ask the organization to consider the amount of money that its audiences may have spent on food, clothes, flowers, and gas to come to an event. Amplify that BIPOC or ALAANA organizations can use this impact as a point of advocacy. This sets the stage to work with the organization(s) of interest and build out an advocacy plan with its interest and understanding. Write out questions that will help organizations understand their impact and the value of advocacy.

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GET CURIOUS: LET’S TAKE A DEEPER DIVE

The following can help you dive into some resources, root causes, drivers, and examples of how this intentional work can be pushed forward to break disconnection, distrust, and disinvestment cycles.

Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. This definition can look different in action depending on what the Local Art Agency, or the like organization, can or cannot do. Advocacy does not only mean lobbying. We are using the term “advocacy” with the intention of championing organizations for system change, amplifying the impact of the BIPOC and ALAANA organizations, and leading the push for powerful data. Sometimes fear gets in the way of our best intentions to take the risk of advocacy. Then stress over the outcomes results in stunted progress.

There are partners who live in parts of the nation where equitable advocacy can be very challenging. We have heard that some BIPOC and ALAANA organizations’ events have been pushed to underground channels because they have been over-policed in the past. Some partners have been reticent to reach out and engage with certain communities because of the reaction they fear they will receive and the stress about thinking through it all. Fear and stress are stumbling blocks to this process, but there is power in advocacy. Thoughts like: “I wish I could advocate, but I am afraid to say the wrong thing,” or “People have lost their jobs for speaking up, and I’m stressed about how advocating will impact my position,” are real and intimidating. Advocacy takes personal bravery and institutional will, but the payoff, in either case, is often trust and credibility.

Sometimes it will take privilege and power to take steps to protect, publicly support, and dismantle systems against a marginalized group of people.

Thinking about doing this advocacy work with, and not for, a community will organically bring people together. Then lean into transparency and connection. Transparency is critical in moving past fear and establishing goals for advocacy. Additionally, people who worked with you on study, project, or event, should not hear about the results for the first time when you are sharing it with the public. Defining talking points, projecting the findings, connecting, and being inclusive in the process of data visualization and storytelling are the basic groundwork. If the advocacy is not “successful,” we will still build our resiliency to keep trying through the deep relationships with the organizations and the people. Stay connected and stay strong.

Fear happens in the emotional section of the brain, similar to the stress response from Chapter 2, inside the engagement zones. The difference is that this sort of fear gets in the way of advocacy, but the logical brain has the opportunity to dampen the response. Gather a group of people with similar goals, or a coalition. Having groups support each other can reduce stress and fear. Then take a breath, think of the simplest ways to advocate, and start from there. Like simply showing up!

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Critically and intentionally disrupt marginalizing systems and policies.

Use resources to make lasting impact.

Move past fear and leverage your position to advocate.

Key
Takeaways:

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If you want to share your work, feel free to post your downloaded PDF or share a story about this experience on the AEP6 Slack Channel. If you aren’t yet a part of the Slack Channel, please reach out to AEP6CommunityEngagement@artsusa.org for support or access.

If you do not wish to share your work, please know that we do not save, record, or attribute the answers you have typed here or downloaded into your PDF. Your work here is completely private unless you choose otherwise.

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Drive advocacy

consider
this

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this

your turn

HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

GET CURIOUS: LET’S TAKE A DEEPER DIVE

need help?

Save your work…and show it off

Additional Community Engagement Resources

strategies

Drive advocacy

consider this

consider this

your turn

HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

GET CURIOUS: LET’S TAKE A DEEPER DIVE

need help?

Save your work…and show it off

Additional Community Engagement Resources

strategies

consider
this

consider
this