North Carolina Arts Council 2015-2020 Strategic Arts Plan
The North Carolina Arts Council has invested in artists and arts organizations to create an enviable arts infrastructure that reaches every corner of our state. Our strategic plan builds on that work and seeks to shape the future for the arts.
To help guide the creation of the long-range vision for the arts, we seek the help of citizens, arts professionals, and key stakeholders across the state through a series of public meetings, focus groups, and surveys. Altogether more than 500 voices contributed to the creation of the current plan.
You can view a brief summary of the plan below. To review the full plan, click here.
Invest in North Carolina's Arts and Culture
What We’re Building On
- Our enviable artistic heritage
- North Carolina's spirit of innovation
- Influx of new festivals, indie music and film productions
- Our reputation as a livable, affordable, artist-friendly state
- A diverse and sustainable infrastructure of arts organizations
- Our pioneering Grassroots Arts Program
What We Want to Do
- Strengthen the artist workforce across the state.
- Catalyze growth and foster sustainability of exemplary arts organizations.
- Shape the Grassroots Arts Program to meet the needs of the state’s growing population.
Fuel a Thriving Creative Economy
What We’re Building On
- Our early leadership in developing cultural tourism trails that showcase North Carolina’s distinctive arts assets.
- An impressive body of research that shows the economic impact of the state’s creative sector.
- Successful SmART Initiative projects that demonstrate the importance of the arts in downtown revitalization.
What We Want to Do
- Grow cultural sector of the tourism industry by expanding the N.C. Arts Trails program.
- Through the SmART Initiative, provide resources to cities and towns for transformative arts-driven economic development projects.
- Through research and evaluation, document and promote the impact of the Creative Economy.
- Partner with the Department of Transportation to enhance gateways, highways, and bridges through the Governor’s Art That Moves You initiative.
Prepare Students for Successful Lives and Careers
What We’re Building On
- Research that shows the arts are highly effective in teaching the competencies needed for success in the 21st century global economy.
- Success in establishing new arts education policy.
- The A+ Schools Program's major impact on arts-centered education reform.
- A large number of accomplished teaching artists and arts organizations.
What We Want to Do
- Strengthen the impact of the A+ Schools Program, the most successful national arts based model for whole school reform.
- Enhance student learning through arts experiences that spark creativity and imagination.
- Influence policy to advance the role of the arts in the state’s education systems.
Lead to Ensure a Strong Future for the Arts
Students performing at the Haliwa-Saponi Pow Wow in Hollister.
What We’re Building On
- Our public private fiscal model, which has helped us be one of the most efficient and effective agencies in state government.
- Dramatic shifts in population by age, race, and ethnic identity.
- Recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts for our work in making the arts accessible to people with disabilities and older adults.
- Our continued dedication to demonstrating and emphasizing the public value of the arts in creating a positive future for the state.
What We Want to Do
- Increase private and public support for the arts and access to new funding streams.
- Strengthen the arts industry's capacity to embrace diversity and engage our state's changing communities.
- Expand awareness about the importance of the arts to the lives of North Carolinians.
The North Carolina Arts Council is a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, a state agency.
D. Reid Wilson, Secretary; Roy Cooper, Governor
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