Advocacy

Advocating for arts and culture on the local, statewide, and national levels is a core component of ArtsFund’s mission.

ArtsFund was a key advocate in supporting statewide councilmanic authority legislation during the 2023 legislative session. This legislation broadens how cultural access programs can be enacted, now allowing them to also be imposed by a councilmanic or commission authority and voters. Its passage adds another tool to the box of cultural organizations to secure funding in communities throughout the state.

Research

ArtsFund’s research studies detail the importance of the arts and culture as a key driver of a healthy community. For over 30 years, ArtsFund has been studying how arts create measurable impacts that bring public value across communities. Starting with our regional economic impacts, expanding to social impacts, and most recently tracking statewide COVID cultural impacts, ArtsFund is providing timely findings for advocacy for the sector.

A new body of research began in FY23 in which we will examine the positive community impacts of nonprofit arts and cultural institutions across Washington State. This work will continue throughout the next fiscal year. In collaboration with our research partner, we will study the benefits of the arts ecosystems on the communities in which they exist.

Past Research Studies

COVID Cultural Impact Study

Social Impact Study

Building for the Arts

Building for the Arts, a longstanding cultural capital funding program created by ArtsFund and the Boeing Company in 1991 and administered by the Department of Commerce, had a historic year with the close of the 2023-2025 legislative session. ArtsFund successfully advocated for full funding of the project package in the state’s biennium budget, which totaled $18 million dollars and will fund 32 projects across 17 legislative districts and 14 counties. This represents the largest amount of funding ever awarded to the most capital projects in a Building for the Arts package since the program’s inception.

About Building for the Arts

2023 – 2025 Building for the Arts Recipients