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Arts advocacy is particularly on my mind at present. In February of 2013, I attended an event hosted by Arts North Carolina. The first of four Regional Arts Summits was held at the United Arts Council of Catawba County. Both organizations are strong theatre supporters. By the time this is in print, there will have been similar events in Goldsboro, Concord and the Research Triangle area.
At the Hickory event, I learned that North Carolina has 43,605 full time jobs in the Arts and Culture industry. In addition, $583 million is spent annually by audiences attending Arts events. The State, as well as local city and county governmental bodies, collect $119 million in revenue because of the Arts each year.
Also, according to Arts North Carolina, “Investment in the arts is .003% (3 hundredths of one percent) of the state budget. Creative North Carolina represents 5.5% of the state’s workforce.” That workforce number is actually higher than the national average where, according to the National Arts Index, Arts jobs are one point five (1.5) percent of the workforce. That may not seem like a high number until compared to the fact that a close number of the national workforce are elementary school teachers and fewer than that are police officers.
There are many other statistics such as these collected by Arts North Carolina. They take those nuggets of information to our state legislators in Raleigh where they lobby for the Arts and artists; and, therefore, for those of us who are playwrights. They attend Arts Day each spring as the North Carolina House and Senate struggle with creating a balanced budget for the Tar Heel state. The advocacy work that this organization does translates into grant money for theatres all across the state, dispersed by local arts councils.
This article will appear in an issue of The Dramatist when it is too late to attend Arts Day on April 10 of this year. But, Arts advocacy needs to happen all year long. We need to stick up for ourselves. We need to be our own best advocates. Here are some resources to do just that:
http://www.nasaa-arts.org/Advocacy/Advocacy-Tools/Why-Government-Support/WhyGovSupport.pdf
http://www.artsindexusa.org/national-arts-index
Karen Wells, the Executive Director of Arts North Carolina also gave us some great advice at the meeting. She said that when we approach legislators that we should lead off with statistics and spend about the first third of our allotted time on the numbers. Then, she noted that we should spend the other two-thirds of our time on giving anecdotal evidence by telling personal stories that illustrate our statistics.
If you are unsure about which legislators represent your area of North Carolina, there is a link on the Arts North Carolina website’s homepage for you to find them. It may take a while for the House and Senate to get to a final budget. So, by the time you read this, there may still be time for you to take action in telling our governmental officials how important the Arts in general and theatre, specifically, are.
kstinson@dramaatistsguild.com