State and Local Coalition Building to Advance Creative Sector Policy and Systems Change
Myah Goff
How can arts advocates build a more connected, resilient ecosystem to support creative work across the country?
That question guided this panel discussion among members of the Creative States Coalition (CSC) — a national network of arts and culture advocates working to sustain the systems that make creative work and community imagination possible.
Moderated by Tara Farawana, CSC’s program director, the panel featured coalition co chairs Claire Rice (executive director of Arts Alliance Illinois); David Holland (deputy director of Creative West); and leadership committee member Rychetta Watkins (interim president and CEO of Memphis Music Initiative).
Formed in 2021, CSC works with emerging, developing and established arts advocacy organizations to strengthen policy influence at state and local levels. The coalition’s focus areas span arts and culture funding, workforce development, economic development and innovation; and social equity and inclusion.
“CSC intends to address a pretty fractured and uneven national landscape when it comes to state and local arts advocacy across the country while centering historically marginalized voices.”
Holland shared findings from CSC’s annual survey: 70 arts advocacy organizations across 44 states now participate in the coalition. Most operate with budgets under $500,000, though Holland noted that budgets over $250,000 have increased by 133% and budgets under $25,000 have decreased by 67%. Median staffing levels have also grown — from three to four employees.
Watkins highlighted how CSC’s network supports organizations like the Memphis Music Initiative (MMI), founded in 2015 to advocate for Black and brown youth — from developing music education programs for middle and high schoolers to helping young adults launch careers and apprenticeships in the music industry.
While supporting these programs, Watkins noticed that existing arts infrastructure wasn’t built to support them and they faced obstacles with navigating state, city, county, and school systems.
“For MMI, that’s an equity issue. We are trying to prepare young people to launch into this sector,” Watkins said. “We do not want survival for our Black and brown young people. We want flourishing. We want thriving. We want them to live out their dreams.”
CSC supported MMI by providing access to the strategies, resources and knowledge that larger state-level organizations had, but which MMI could not access independently. This included mentorship, talking points and templates, enabling the organization to better engage in state-level advocacy and extend its impact beyond the city.
During the session, attendees broke into small groups to reflect on their own experiences with arts policy and advocacy. Discussion questions included:
What advocacy or policy challenges are you navigating in your own community?
What actions are you and your organization currently taking to support arts advocacy?
What's preventing you and your organization from doing what you think it could do?
Participants identified challenges across the country — from the banning of DEI efforts and weak infrastructure connecting legislators to arts advocates, to a scarcity mindset that prioritizes roads and public works over arts funding. Others pointed to the gap between urban and rural areas, where rural communities often lack both funding and organized efforts.
Despite these barriers, attendees also shared strategies that are working. One advocate described bringing rural artists to the state Capitol for one-on-one meetings with legislators, helping policymakers see the human impact of their decisions beyond numbers and budgets.
In Wisconsin, partnerships with state economic development agencies have created funding streams for creative entrepreneurs by adapting programs originally intended for small businesses. In San Francisco, artists and advocates developed rapid-response tools like policy drafts and talking points to defend funding and cultural programs.
Watkins closed the discussion by challenging both arts agencies and funders to rethink their approaches.
“When it comes to arts agencies, whether it’s local or state, they become complacent and they equate membership with networks. You can have members but if you have not organized your members, if you have not done the work of continuing to educate them, if you are not listening to them, if you are not connecting with them then you’re being complacent and that’s part of the problem.”
“When it comes to arts agencies, whether it's local or state, they become complacent and they equate membership with networks,” she said. “You can have members but if you have not organized your members, if you have not done the work of continuing to educate them, if you are not listening to them, if you are not connecting with them then you’re being complacent and that’s part of the problem.
Turning to philanthropy, she added, “Begin with listening, begin with inquiry. Very often philanthropy starts by thinking it has all the answers because a white paper said so. That is not the case when it comes to the messy world of organizing and policy.”
