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.
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.
consider this
consider this
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.
01 / 06
BREAK IT DOWN
Work with the communities to ensure they understand the power of advocacy and what it means.
02/ 06
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?
03/ 06
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?
04/ 06
CREATE RESOURCES
Can you help give or create resources that will have a positive impact for these organizations?
05/ 06
leverage your position
What are ways you can leverage your position to support the entire ecology of art and culture in your community?
06/ 06
disrupt systems and policies
What are ways you can disrupt systems and policies that marginalize BIPOC and ALAANA organizations?
your turn
Dream, Breathe, Design!
Remember the purpose of this work, and based on that, create. It’s not only about services because there are many ways we can connect.
As you are creating, think:
1. What are individual and mutual goals?
2. What can you exchange (goods and services)?
3. What can you collaborate on?
HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE
“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.
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.
One of the major goals of Maintaining and Strengthening Committed Community Connections is to build relationships through advocacy beyond the scope and timeline of a project or single event. This is now a commitment that must be made to each of the BIPOC and ALAANA organizations that goes beyond a surface performative representation.
It has to be more than a post on social media and a statement of solidarity.
Root your work in relationships, be transparent, decenter your experiences, invest, and be consistent. Go outside your comfort zone into the stretch zone and take some risks. This will shift your work from performative action to transformative action.
need help?
Check out the resource list below
Maintaining Connections: Drive Advocacy with Elishebahttps://youtu.be/EXzg6meZkKI
Maintaining Connections: Drive Advocacy with Sandra
https://youtu.be/PcSM_4sakio
Getting Equity Advocacy Results | GEAR SNAPSHOT
https://www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/GEAR_Snapshot_buildthebase_magcloud_0.pdf
Can LA’s Arts Sector Become More Equitable?
https://hyperallergic.com/805968/can-las-arts-sector-become-more-equitable/
Neighborhood Arts Network: Arts & Equity Toolkit
https://www.chapmanculturalcenter.org/site/user/files/1/ArtsEquityToolkit.pdf
Equity Is the Driving Force: How Advocacy Led to Oakland’s New Cultural Development Plan
https://www.policylink.org/blog/advocacy-led-to-oakland-cultural-dev-plan
Equitable Investment Policies and Practices in the Local Arts Field
https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-data/legislation-policy/naappd/equitable-investment-policies-and-practices-in-the-local-arts-fieldArts & Economic Prosperity 6 Study & Calculator
Performing Wokeness
https://www.thecrimson.com/column/better-left-unsaid/article/2018/10/1/gray-performing-wokeness/
Roadblocks to productive Activism Barriers of Performative Allyship
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB8-XCeFc5l/
A concise approach to being a true advocate for your BIPOC coworkers
https://www.fastcompany.com/90606556/a-concise-approach-to-being-a-true-advocate-for-your-bipoc-coworkers
Types of Advocacy
https://cedwvu.org/resources/types-of-advocacy/
Your brain when you’re anxious
https://kidshelpline.com.au/teens/issues/your-brain-when-youre-anxious
Stress effects on the body
https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body/
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways: do
1. Critically and intentionally disrupt marginalizing systems and policies.
2. Use resources to make lasting impact.
3. Move past fear and leverage your position to advocate.
download your work…and show it off
(but only if you want to)
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.