AN END-OF-2023 LETTER FROM EMILY RUDDOCK
Image features (from left to right) Mayor John Vieau of Chicopee, Emily Ruddock, Senator Jake Oliveira, and Representative Pat Duffy. Background is decorative.
December 28, 2023
Dear Friends and Fellow Supporters of the Massachusetts Creative Sector,
On behalf of MASSCreative’s board of directors and staff, I want to share a year end report on our progress towards an arts and cultural sector that is an expected, valued, and publicly supported part of daily life for Massachusetts residents. 2023 came with its own unique set of challenges and opportunities for the creative sector. I am proud that through it all, we are still building a stronger circular relationship where elected officials understand the need to prioritize arts and culture in their decision making, and creative advocates engage with their representatives about cultural issues and policies.
I have been a member of MASSCreative’s team for six years now and this year we celebrated our 10th anniversary as an organization. I am so proud of the coalition we have built and the results we are realizing for the sector. Our consistent organizing means that artists and creatives throughout Massachusetts have greater access to grants and resources earned through increased public investments. We still have more work to do, but we also have cause for celebration. It’s with this sentiment that I share with you some of the milestones we achieved together this year.
CULTURAL POLICY ACHIEVEMENTS
In 2021, when Congress passed the American Recovery Plan Act, MASSCreative hosted an hour-long webinar featuring policy and organizing leaders to help the arts community better understand the scope of the bill, its value to the Commonwealth, and the advocacy work ahead of the creative sector to ensure inclusion in the Legislature’s spending plans. MASSCreative was appointed to the Legislature’s COVID-19 Cultural Impact Commission, which was charged with providing an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 to the creative sector and recommendations for its recovery and growth. As commission members, MASSCreative worked to ensure the needs of individual artists, cultural nonprofits, and local creative businesses across Massachusetts were elevated. We also mobilized advocates to participate in a public hearing that the Commission held.
As a result of sustained and coordinated advocacy, we secured more than $60 million in relief funding for the sector through the Cultural Sector Recovery Grants administered by the Mass Cultural Council. Those grants were awarded earlier this year to 1,218 cultural organizations and 4,000 artists, creatives, culture bearers, and gig workers across Massachusetts. 55% of individual recipients live in identified under-resourced communities and 98% of recipients had never previously received a grant from the Mass Cultural Council. These awards positioned Massachusetts among the top five states in the country for using public funding to support the sector’s recovery.
When MASSCreative was incorporated ten years ago, the Mass Cultural Council’s annual budget was closer to $8.1 million. Our organization was founded out of a necessity to unite the creative community and strengthen the advocacy skills of advocates across the Commonwealth to increase public support for arts, culture and creativity. After a decade of steady and focused organizing, we were pleased to secure $25 million for the Mass Cultural Council this year in the FY24 Budget. This historic increase did not happen by accident, but is a demonstration of the capabilities of independent and consistent advocacy, strong inter and intra-governmental partners, and the influence of equally strong cross-sector alliances. MASSCreative will continue to lead this advocacy work with our long-term campaign to eventually secure $5 per capita for creativity, or $35 million for the creative sector.
After completing a statewide listening tour in Fall 2022, MASSCreative heard loud and clear that artists and creatives require more than increased funding for the Mass Cultural Council to continue to create, work, and thrive in Massachusetts. In response to expressed needs from the field, we set out earlier this year to develop the 2023-2024 Creative Sector Legislative Agenda. This policy agenda includes five pieces of legislation that address various pain points experienced within the sector. These bills would:
Establish a defined property restriction under the Creative Space Preservation Act for creative maker space and performance or exhibition spaces. By legislating these definitions, we will give municipalities another tool they can use to mitigate further artist displacement.
Establish a grant program within the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism to support tourism marketing and promotional expenses for arts and cultural organizations through the Cultural Equity in Tourism Bill.
Create a grant program through the ACE Act that would allow cultural organizations to apply for funding to make their venues and programs more accessible to people with disabilities.
Codify a percent for public art program that could be used to create and maintain public art in Massachusetts through the PLACE Act.
Reallocate 5% of revenues from online sales tax back into downtown management entities, including cultural districts, under the Downtown Vitality Act. These are the very places that have been negatively impacted by the boon in online sales and this bill proposes an elegant solution to redirect a portion of those siphoned resources back into our local creative economies.
In Fall 2023, we successfully built coalitions around each of these bills. We gained endorsements from organizations and individuals alike, drove public and statewide testimony at each of the bill hearings, and hosted town hall style press conferences in New Bedford, Worcester, Boston, Great Barrington, and Chicopee. We will continue to organize support behind these proposals through the remainder of the 2023-2024 legislative session.
BUILDING STRONGER ADVOCACY INFRASTRUCTURE
Early in 2023, MASSCreative welcomed two full-time employees onto our leadership roster: Richeline Cadet as our Director of Organizing, and Kelsey Rode as our Director of External Relations. Richeline and Kelsey, respectively, bring a wealth of community organizing, relational, communications, and government affairs skills to the organization. We also welcomed two new cultural leaders onto our board of directors: A.J. Pietrantone joins us as the Deputy Director of Jacob’s Pillow, while Doneeca Thurston-Chavez joins us as the Director of Lynn Museum/LynnArts. A.J. and Doneeca complement the expertise we already enjoy on our board with their own professional backgrounds in organizational leadership and development. By adding personnel who can oversee our community organizing, communications, development work, and strategic planning, we are rapidly expanding MASSCreative’s capacity to support stronger grassroots efforts for the creative community.
MASSCreative continues to host Policy & Action Webinars on the second Friday of each month as an expected program. We started the Policy & Action Webinars in March 2020 as free 15-minute virtual segments to provide attendees with specific tools, resources, and actions they could take to be effective arts and cultural advocates in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. These Webinars continue to be popular and valuable.
Earlier this year, we also started monthly virtual Open Houses to offer additional opportunities for sector members to informally discuss their advocacy ideas, organizing questions, and receive guidance from both the team at MASSCreative and other colleagues in attendance.
MASSCreative remains committed to administering dedicated and comprehensive advocacy training. Between May and June of this year, thanks to the leadership of our Director of Organizing, Richeline Cadet, we completed a four-week Creative Advocacy Training with an average of 40 regular participants. Over the four weeks, we hosted training sessions on identifying different forms of “artivism,” organizing and community building via ladders of engagement, and cultural policy development.
Thanks to support from the Barr Foundation, we also redesigned and launched our 2023-2024 Advocacy and Organizing Fellowship. After receiving approximately 120 applications from artists and creatives throughout Massachusetts, we welcomed ten individuals with unique lived experiences, from diverse creative disciplines, and strong relationships with the creative sector into the year-long, compensated program. Representing distinct regions of Massachusetts, the Advocacy and Organizing Fellows are expected to develop sustainable, people-powered solutions to arts, culture, and community needs present within their regions. They will be supported throughout the year by MASSCreative’s staff, trainers with organizing expertise, and through funding reserved for implementing these projects.
SUPPORTING LOCAL ARTS ORGANIZERS AND COMMUNITIES: LOOKING AHEAD TO 2024
A hallmark of our work has always been collaboration with local arts and cultural leaders, supporting their growth as advocates and community organizers. In 2023, we unveiled our new brand and website to make it easier than ever before for advocates to access the resources they need to stay informed and engaged. We found ways to connect with constituencies throughout the state, tabling at festivals and events, and participating in or hosting convenings on pressing topics of the day. That work will continue into 2024.
In January 2024, MASSCreative is co-hosting a statewide Creative Advocacy Week from January 22nd through January 26th. Advocacy Week will consist of two days of regional convenings with elected officials, two days of one-on-one meetings between elected decision makers and constituents, and a day of visibility and celebration for the creative sector at the State House on Wednesday, January 24th. We are using the events of this week as an opportunity to showcase the breadth and impact of Massachusetts’ creative sector socially, culturally, and economically.
Creative Advocacy Week is scheduled shortly before two other legislative calendar events: the deadline for committees to report on the bills under their consideration, referred to as Joint Rule 10, and the FY25 Budget. MASSCreative will work with our partners for a desirable outcome for Creative Sector Agenda bills and to maintain, if not increase, the Commonwealth’s annual investment in the Mass Cultural Council.
In Spring 2024, MASSCreative will host a Creative Institute Conference to kick off a season of statewide Create the Vote forums. Create the Vote was designed to raise cultural policy awareness to elected officials and candidates before winning their seats so they can become arts and culture champions prior to entering public office. The Creative Institute Conference will include sessions led by seasoned organizers to equip leaders with the skills and tools needed to lead their own Create the Vote forums in their communities, thus building additional organizing capacity.
Thank you for your support of MASSCreative and, more broadly, a stronger grassroots network of advocates for the Massachusetts creative sector. We’re looking forward to deepening our collaboration in the new year and building on these successes. On behalf of everyone at MASSCreative, have a happy, healthy, and bright new year.
Sincerely,
Emily Ruddock
Executive Director, MASSCreative
