Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Today, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it has awarded Americans for the Arts a $100,000 grant to fund Cultural/Arts and Entertainment District Project (Cultural Districts Project).
The Cultural Districts Project is a comprehensive, three-year initiative that will provide substantive new technical assistance and training resources designed to meet the unique needs of local arts agencies and local arts organizations charged with creating, maintaining and evaluating arts, entertainment and cultural districts around the country.
Americans for the Arts has monitored the growth of arts, entertainment, and cultural districts for years, publishing the first-of-its-kind guide "Cultural Districts Handbook" in 1998. Today, Americans for the Arts is actively tracking approximately 500 districts and fields a significant number of requests for additional technical assistance specifically related to districts.
The new Cultural Districts Project builds upon this track record of service to the field, and will produce new tools to aid in the assessment of districts' impact. The initiative also seeks to advance the national dialogue between state and local arts leaders and non-arts stakeholders about how to work together more effectively to identify naturally occurring cultural districts and leverage the arts in the ongoing effort to strengthen local economies, create an enhanced sense of place and deepen local cultural capacity.
