During 2022’s Strategic Realignment Process, we worked with members and other stakeholders to identify the specific and unique role of Americans for the Arts within the arts and culture community. While we continue to evaluate and evolve our offerings, here’s the latest update on some of our flagship events, including the National Arts Action Summit, Annual Convention, and the National Arts Marketing Project Conference.

As a key strategy in supporting the development of inclusive creative economies across the nation, this database provides a distilled jumping off point for learning and growth related to community- and asset-based approaches for equitable development. 

Americans for the Arts today launched a multimedia platform that will serve as a hub for results and information pertaining to its Strategic Realignment Process (SRP), which the organization undertook during 2022. With the SRP completed, the Designing Our Destiny platform represents Americans for the Arts’ new path forward to better serve the arts and culture field. 

Americans for the Arts and lifestyle brand Free People today announced a first-time partnership, which includes a Creative Spirit Fund that empowers public school arts educators to fund the next generation of diverse creators. The partnership advocates for the importance of arts in early public education. Through this program, Free People will be distributing 10 awards of $4,000 each to public school educators across the United States in great need of support in teaching art, music, dance, theater, and creative writing and other artistic disciplines.

In Creative Placemaking: Recommendations from and Impact of Six Advisory Services Panels, Urban Land Institute uses six case studies to demonstrate how creative placemaking can spark a cultural rebirth in real estate projects, revitalize communities, and boost returns on investment for developers.

Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce that Mariaesmeralda Paguaga has joined the organization as its new Vice President of Strategic Communications. Paguaga comes to Americans for the Arts with a broad and deep cultural foundation from which to build Americans for the Arts’ strategic communications plan that meets the needs of the organization’s diverse audiences internally and externally. Bringing over two decades of social impact leadership, Paguaga has an extensive and proven record in achieving transformational change via strategic communications, program innovation, brand positioning, integrated marketing campaigns, strategic partnerships, celebrity and dignitary relations, creative production, and mission-driven events.

Americans for the Arts has introduced a new 2.0 version of the Arts + Social Impact Explorer, the most comprehensive clearinghouse of example projects and research about the role of arts in community life available today. The Explorer provides examples, datapoints, links to research papers, and lists of active organizations to illustrate the impact of arts and culture in 30 aspects of community life from public health to transportation, safety, community cohesion, and innovation. 

Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce the launch of Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 (AEP6), the sixth national study of the economic impact of the nonprofit arts and culture industry. Building on its 25-year legacy, AEP6 will examine the economic power that the arts and culture wield in 387 participating communities representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each community will receive a customized economic impact report about the number of jobs supported, government revenue generated, and economic activity of its nonprofit arts and culture sector.

Can art improve roadway safety? A new report examines the impact of art in the streetscape by comparing historical crash rates and real-time behavior of motorists and pedestrians at 22 “asphalt art” sites before and after the projects were installed, with illuminating results.

For the first time since the post-Great Recession period, the year-over-year value add of arts and culture production declined in 2020, from $930 billion in 2019 to an estimated $877 billion in 2020. Even with that decline, however, the economic impact of the creative sector is significant: the sector represented 4.2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020 and supported 4.6 million wage and salary workers.

Arts advocates from across the United States will gather virtually March 28-30, 2022, for the National Arts Action Summit, now in its 35th consecutive year. This year, for the first time, there will be no registration fee to attend the National Arts Action Summit for both individuals and partner organizations.

Americans for the Arts’ 2022 Annual Convention will take place May 18-20, 2022, in Washington, D.C. The event will be simplified, shorter, and more accessible, and the public may participate in a more open and equitable session submission process through Feb. 15, 2022.

After six months of hearing candid feedback from the field and internal planning, Americans for the Arts is set to begin the next phase of the Strategic Realignment Process toward redefining its unique role as a service organization to the arts and culture field and the public good. The organization has engaged the services of three consulting organizations to support the process: Arts Consulting Group, The Hewlin Group, and Hope Nation.