B: Planning Process
Due to the uncertainties of the pandemic, COA requested and received a 1-year extension to our 2016-2021 strategic plan. In many ways, the public input process for our new plan (completed in September 2022) was not "traditional." It began with the daily, weekly and monthly meetings with artists, teaching artists, arts organizations and partners that started with the pandemic and underscored our constituents' needs and challenges. These conversations, more than 1000 between March 10, 2020 and August 1, 2022, took many forms. All informed our actions, simplified our processes and tested our ability to move quickly, collaborate deeply and listen.
Our planning process officially started in November 2021 when staff met for several in-person and virtual retreats. We reviewed our previous plan, brainstormed the process for this plan, and evaluated what we had learned in the past year and a half. As a result of internal discussion, we decided that COA was positioned to manage the planning process in-house. We brought our notes from the conversations and learnings of the past year to the table. These included strategy meetings with CT Humanities; feedback sessions designed for BIPOC artists; monthly meetings with constituents of our DRSO partners; meetings with organizations in cities like Hartford and Bridgeport; feedback gathered from artists and municipal workers to discuss the impact of ARPA funds, cultural districts and the CT AIR affiliate program; meetings with the DECD leadership team, the Governor's office, and the state's Office of Policy and Management to craft assistance programs and develop funding sources for arts and culture; and, conversations with individual artists, arts organizations and arts education administrators and teachers. In many ways, the pandemic released a vacuum filled with deep and meaningful conversation.
The formal public input process involved a survey (April 2022) sent to over 1500 artists, teaching artists and arts organizations. 313 responses were collected, 69% self-identified as women, 26% men, with the majority of the rest preferring not to identify. Respondents self-selected racial/ethnicity categories, with 77% identifying as white (240) and only 39 (amalgamated) as BIPOC (data breakdown included in the survey link). Of those 39, 23 people, or 7%, identified as Black/African/African American (3.6% fewer than the CTs population). While this was disappointing, in more positive news, 32% of survey respondents had never applied for a grant from COA, meaning we are reaching some new audiences. Four virtual public forums hosted by regional partners in May and June 2022 were designed to collect feedback on constituent needs as well as the current performance of the office. Over 200 people attended, and a report detailing these findings is included in the strategic plan. As a result of the public meetings, at least ten 1:1 meetings were held with constituents who requested follow-up conversations. All public input sessions were advertised via eblasts from COA, our 8 DRSO partners and the CT Arts Alliance and on multiple social media platforms.
2. Recommendations and priorities that resulted from the public meetings included key takeaways in the areas of artist support, support of the creative infrastructure, grant programs and DEIA work. These include:
a) Artists need access to resources that include funding but also encompass places to showcase work, professional development, and access to healthcare: a whole artist approach is needed.
b) Arts organizations want to be included in conversations that create short and long-term community plans.
c) Support for the creative infrastructure means collaborative work between municipal government and creatives, providing information that is important to all artists, encouraging arts education efforts, and assisting with marketing and communications to expand the reach of creative entrepreneurs and organizations. It means teaching municipalities to work with creatives cooperatively and collaboratively.
d) With shared data and clear rubrics, grant-making needs to continue to be transparent. Basic Operating Support grants are popular, with 93% of people agreeing that they are important or critical. COA grantees and their programs should be shared and highlighted – especially to legislators.
e) Arts educators are demoralized and overwhelmed coming out of the pandemic, and COA must consider new pathways to assist them with their work. Arts education must be supported through the human lifecycle. Educators and teaching artists need professional development that includes DEIA training.
f) There is still an overwhelming need to understand DEIA and how to expand equity and erase bias.
3. Organizational Response
a) Implemented a new website to better identify resources designed specifically for artists with a full integration of CreativeGround, held multiple conversations (both 1:1 and group) with artists across the state to help them feel more supported, partnered with the Women’s Business Development Council to provide their resources to artists directly, continued to support CT’s partnership with CT Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts to provide free and reduced rate legal services to artists, brought attention to artist support work that is being done within and without the state, such as Artists Thrive and Assets for Artists. Presented the READI Music Conference in 2022 and CreativeU, October 2024, in partnership with the City of New Haven, and Sweets & Sounds Entertainment, to provide resources for artists in specific buckets: Creative Workforce, Entrepreneurship and Creative Leadership.
b) and c) Put more resources into growing the Cultural District program working with partners in the CT Tourism & Small Business divisions, CT Humanities, CT Main Street Center, and the CT Council of Governments. COA has also doubled down on growing the CT Air Collaborative, an initiative that provides facilitated support to municipalities to host inclusive community conversations and find solutions that grow the local creative economy and strengthen communities, bringing artists, arts organizations and creative businesses to the table to devise and implement solutions to community-identified problems.
d) In June 2024, the COA team finished an 8 month process working with the CT Data Collaborative to complete a Data Strategic Plan. The plan has been in implementation stage for three months resulting in the creation of a Common App portion of our grants application process, and additional data collection/sharing strategies including a plan for data tagging to help us better understand how COA grants matter to artists, arts organizations and their communities.
e) We continue our collaboration with the Teaching Artist Hub and Arts for Learning to support the ongoing development of the HOT School Approach. In addition, we have collaborated with Arts for Learning and the CT Arts Administrators Association on an NEA Collective Impact grant application to facilitate a shared vision of high-quality, equitable arts learning and create an actionable plan to support implementation. COA is actively involved in the Southern New England Teaching Artist Collaboration and hosted their annual conference in October 2023.
f) COA continues to collect information from applicants about their DEI practices and needs and applicants in FY 24 were required to complete basic ADA self-evaluations. We have created funding programs that are weighted to support arts experiences in Alliance and Opportunity school districts, have created our READI Council, and have been intentional in our communications to constituents to ensure that all citizens see themselves in our programs and services.