Submitted to: The Fund for Folk Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Supported by: The Ford Foundation.
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Throughout the United States, artists and arts organizations working in the folk traditions of various cultures have carried on their work despite the often-meager incomes they may earn from it. They continue on, motivated by a commitment to their artistry, their family traditions, and the cultural heritage of their communities. Fortunately, these values are increasingly prized in the broader economy, as markets for traditional arts and for travel linked to the cultural uniqueness of particular places have grown substantially over the last several
decades. They will continue to grow over the next several. Traditional arts, therefore, represent an opportunity for areas that have lagged behind — rural areas, towns, and small cities in particular — to capture a share of national growth, while preserving the cultural vitality essential to community quality of life.
In 1999, the Fund for Folk Culture (FFC) — a national nonprofit organization dedicated to the dynamic conservation of folk and traditional arts and culture in the United States — initiated a funding program to support partnerships between regional economic development organizations and traditional artists and arts organizations. Underwritten by the Ford Foundation, the initiative funded about a dozen-and-a-half year-long projects chosen to show whether very modest amounts of money ($15,000 grants with a one-to-one match) could encourage members of a certain class of development agencies to help traditional artists gain more active
and profitable access to the marketplace.
This review of eight of those projects concludes that efforts to strengthen traditional culture and build the business skills of traditional artists and arts organizations registered important gains, but only if measured in terms that may be new to some economic developers. Some of the projects we reviewed helped solidify the community bonds vital to the continuation of artistic practices. For example, several projects encouraged youth to learn skills and increased a community's understanding of its own cultural traditions. These community-building gains constitute a necessary pre-condition for artists' broader market participation in the future.
In the near term, new market relationships have not generated, nor should they be expected to generate, large gains in product sales or income to artists and arts organizations. But from a long-term perspective, we find solid grounds for future collaboration between traditional arts organizations and economic developers. Despite their different interests, capabilities, ways of communicating, ties to community, and links to various stakeholders, development agencies and traditional artists and arts organizations have quickly developed rudimentary relationships with one another. These can be used in the future to aid regional planning, develop markets for traditional arts, and connect these markets to regional promotion efforts.
But the respective interests and capacities of traditional artists and arts organizations on the one hand, and economic developers on the other, do not always match up in ways that support productive partnerships. Many traditional artists and arts organizations are not yet ready for active participation in the marketplace, and many economic development agencies lack the business development programs that traditional artists need to help them produce profitably for the market. Furthermore, direct relationships between traditional artists and economic development agencies are difficult to establish and maintain, which explains why intermediaries between these two groups — cultural coalitions, special-purpose galleries, or community-based organizations, for example — have been important in several of the more successful projects.
Our findings suggest that artists and arts organizations should seek out a wide range of possible partners. So long as agencies have the right tools, principally including business development programs, they should be regarded as potential makers or supporters of new market relationships for traditional artists and arts organizations. Among the most valuable partners in this initiative were an urban development agency, a nonprofit community development corporation, and a rural county development agency, none of which belong to the class of regional development organizations originally targeted for participation. In the future, national initiatives to encourage connections between culture and commerce should take full advantage of the range of private, public, and nonprofit agencies active in economic development.
THE INITIATIVE
Between 1999 and 2002, the FFC, located in New Mexico, partnering with the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) in Washington, DC, carried out a funding initiative called Partnerships in Local Culture: Building Assets through Cultural Traditions. The program was a demonstration project designed to encourage effective approaches to the economic development of cultural assets in rural areas, towns, and small cities throughout the United States. The initiative funded 16 organizations that were NADO members during the period of support (one organization received repeat funding and another received separate grants for two projects). Among these NADO members are city and county development agencies as well as Regional
Development Organizations (RDOs) — multi-county planning and development agencies that provide economic development aid to local governments, businesses and nonprofit organizations in rural and small metropolitan areas.
In 1999 and again in 2000, the FFC invited NADO members to propose projects that would demonstrate approaches to "the economic development of cultural assets," asking that they "enhance or adapt their financial and technical services for organizations and individuals involved in the practice of cultural traditions." In the program guidelines, cultural traditions were defined as the "traditional ways in which many communities create and maintain their shared sense of beauty, identity and values." The guidelines purposefully emphasized the concept of "cultural traditions" (as opposed to the narrower notion of artistic traditions), as a way to encourage a broad range of projects, including those that might focus on ethnic, regional or occupational traditions as well as environmental practices, such as gardening or farming.
The grant program gave priority to projects that:
- focused on particular populations, communities, or groups of traditional artists (as opposed
to a region);
- demonstrated the greatest potential for creating long-term impact in culturally-based economic development and for establishing long-term relationships among partners; and
- improved development agencies' existing resources by making them more accessible and accommodating to local cultural communities.
Our review of projects funded under this initiative pinpointed the difficulty of achieving concrete development results with the rather small amounts of grant support made available and the short time span of project support (12 months). At the same time, the dollar-for-dollar match requirement seemed to deter more widespread application to the program, and actual matches tended to be softer, in-kind matches rather than hard cash. Several arts organizations or initiatives appeared to fall just short of creating new, sustainable forms of market participation.
THE RESEARCH
In early 2000, the FFC contracted with the Urban Institute in Washington DC to research the experience of eight of the initiative's grantees and to develop a monograph that highlights the possibilities and challenges of joint work between economic development agencies and traditional artists and arts organizations. Institute research staff selected the sites in consultation with the FFC program director, giving explicit priority to sites that had completed their project activities, had achieved concrete results, and had appeared to establish good working relationships between development agencies and traditional artists or arts organizations. The eight sites visited and the grantee economic development agencies in those places were:
- Eastern Oklahoma Development District Association — Muskogee, Oklahoma
- Elko County Economic Diversification Authority1 — Elko, Nevada
- Franklin County Community Development Corporation — Franklin County, Massachusetts
- Mississippi Cultural Crossroads — Port Gibson, Mississippi
- New Bedford Economic Development Council — New Bedford, Massachusetts
- North Central New Mexico Economic Development District — Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Six County Association of Governments — Richfield, Utah
- Upper Savannah Council of Governments — Greenwood, South Carolina
Interviews of participants in the projects carried out by these grantees, as well as observation of continuing project activities and review of local documentary information, are the primary sources of information for this report. We also drew upon notes taken by Mary Virtue, Cornerstone Consultants, at a meeting of economic development agency and traditional arts representatives convened by the FFC in North Carolina, May 2002. Urban Institute staff also attended that meeting and supplied written documentation of its proceedings.
A ROADMAP OF THE REPORT
Following the Executive Summary (Section I), this report is divided into five additional sections. The sections and their principal findings include:
II. Opportunities and Challenges in Culture-Based Economic Development
Traditional arts can support economic development by strengthening communities, stimulating demand for local products, and supporting the economic activities of other local businesses. Economic developers can help traditional arts accomplish these goals by providing market information and making direct investments according to a clear and well-grounded economic plan. One signal contribution traditional artists can make is to lend their special knowledge of their own cultural communities to local planning efforts.
III. The Projects and Their Results
The FFC-supported projects demonstrated some effective approaches to culture-based economic development, although the relatively modest amounts of funding provided meant that relatively modest results were obtained. Contributions to building stronger cultural communities and building traditional artists' skills seemed clearer than those related to the creation or expansion of markets for traditional artists' products, although several projects appeared poised on the brink of substantial gains if only new sources of external support are forthcoming. Most of the economic development agencies in the projects we examined acted primarily as funding conduits to cultural organizations, a result of the relatively small grant amounts available, the short time span for project support, the newness of the relationships, and the lack of an immediate fit between what traditional artists and arts organizations needed and the resources that development agencies could provide. Certainly, development agencies were helpful in their role as fiscal agents. And some had clearly established the basis for future, productive relationships with traditional artists and arts organizations.
IV. The Partners and Their Relationships
All partners bring both strengths and weaknesses to the joint projects they undertake. Traditional artists bring creativity and economic value, but often lack basic business skills. Economic development agencies bring considerable planning, market promotion and financial expertise, but their flexibility can be limited. The strongest match-up of traditional artists' and developers' needs and resources lies in regional promotion and planning that includes traditional artists as participants; the weakest lies in the ability of economic development agencies to respond to the traditional artists' business development needs. Issues that partners
face — of artistic quality and authenticity, mutual expectations, and traditional artists' readiness to participate in the marketplace — can be challenging, but they are resolvable.
V. Intermediation in Partners' Relations
One common way to reconcile differences between the needs and resources of the partners is intermediation — the brokerage of information, finance, expertise, and other resources among unrelated parties. Culture-based development intermediaries understand the demands of the market on the one hand and the needs and capacities of traditional artists on the other. Intermediaries help entities communicate one another's interests and abilities; assure quality of performance; ease business transactions; and articulate and defend interests in the broader community.
VI. Conclusions, Implications, Lessons
The concluding section offers summary points worth reinforcing. The experience of traditional artists and arts organizations and economic development agencies taught several lessons for others who would attempt similar partnerships. One important implication for funders and partners alike is that where projects achieve modest short-term results, they can create the basis for
longer-term cooperation. Nascent short-term relationships have a latent value that can be exercised in the future as opportunities arise. These kinds of relationships need not be supported by external funding, but can be cultivated by traditional artists and economic developers as they carry out professional and civic obligations. Artists and development agencies both engage in advocacy and planning as well as other aspects of associational life, affording opportunities for traditional artists to participate in civic life and for economic developers to participate in cultural life.
More generally, the experience of the projects in this initiative shows the potential payoff for both artists and economic developers that may result from cooperative activities to promote local development, so long as critical bottlenecks can be removed. Foremost among these is a lack of business development resources, and principally micro-entrepreneurship programs, among economic development agencies. Although these grew dramatically over the 1990s, they are far from universal, and are likely concentrated among urban development agencies. Moreover, even existing programs do not necessarily have the right kinds of aid needed by traditional artists and arts organizations.
However, economic development agencies did have real assets that in the long run can help promote the emergence of new markets for traditional artists and arts organizations. These included a long-standing, legitimate, and capable presence in regional development planning. Further, most agency staff interviewed by researchers recognized the potential value of traditional arts and cultural practices to evolving efforts to promote cultural tourism. Finally, many of the projects reviewed benefited from the presence of local cultural intermediaries, able to broker relationships between development agencies and traditional artists and arts organizations. Development agency efforts are likely to be more effective where these brokers are present.
This mixed-menu of business development programs and the uneven fit between development agency programs and traditional artists' needs argues for a wide cast of the net for potential development partners, ranging from small, community-based development organizations to state agencies. It also argues for the inclusion of multiple parties, including intermediary actors, to help ensure that a range of appropriate development options can be exercised. As strongly suggested by the experience of this initiative, so long as economic development agencies and intermediaries have the right tools, they should be regarded as possible supporters of traditional arts in development.
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
In this report, we will use "culturally-based economic development" as a label for those activities intended to promote increased market participation among traditional artists and arts organizations, as well as other arts and cultural organizations, such as historical sites, museums, theaters, and art galleries. We will use "cultural communities" to describe communities distinguished by the traditional ways in which they create and maintain a shared sense of beauty, identity and values, whether expressed through arts, occupational practice, architecture, food and farming, faith-based traditions, or other aspects of tradition. We refer to "traditional artists and arts organizations" to mean those engaged in traditional cultural practices — whether arts, crafts, environmental practices, or other activities specific to cultural communities.2 We use the term "artists" for convenience, insofar as seven of the eight projects we reviewed involved the work of those who considered themselves artists. (The eighth project involved gardening and culinary arts.) We refer throughout the text to "economic development agencies" but use "Regional Development Organizations" where our information or analysis pertains specifically to the smaller class of entities.
Footnotes
1. Four of the agencies listed here — Elko County Economic Diversification Authority, Franklin County Community Development Corporation, Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, and New Bedford Economic Development Council — are NADO members, but not traditional Regional Development Organizations. Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, for instance, is a community cultural organization.
2. It is worth pointing out that the funded projects primarily involved artists or craftspeople working in material culture as opposed to the performing arts. Relationships between economic development agencies and performing arts organizations may have taken on a different character.
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