Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh is making good on a campaign promise to increase focus on culture and the arts in the city. Walsh will reveal details of an 18-month initiative, spearheaded by new chief of arts and culture Julie Burros, which will bring city officials into the streets to meet with artists and cultural professionals. Through the initiative, called “Boston Creates,” information will be collected and analyzed for the city to then formulate a plan of action to address the issues cultural leaders and artists are facing. The plan will be unveiled at the June 2016 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, which will be held in Boston for the first time.

“We’re asking generally big questions: What’s your vision for the arts and culture? What do you see as the needs? How do we get there?” Burros said. “Our process really recognizes that the arts and culture is very multifaceted. It’s not only the professional fine arts, but also the informal arts, the personal arts.”

A goal of the initiative is to connect with a wide range of Bostonians of varied interests. Officials will be visiting every type of cultural program, from theatre troupes to cooking classes, with the hope of gaining broad insight into the needs of the city’s cultural industries. Burros predicts that rather than having many individual issues, the data will reveal a small number of larger themes, which the plan will address, like better funding for the arts in schools and increased space availability. The program has an operating budget of $1.4 million, provided by the Barr Foundation and the Klarman Family Foundation.

“I want to continue to have Boston be innovative and leverage the power of creativity and new ideas to address issues around equity and social well-being and the gaps that are out there,” said Mayor Walsh. “To stay competitive, we have to make some investment in this area.”