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Advocacy Tools
Know the Key Points
- Massachusetts Cultural Council Funding Creates Jobs and Strengthens the Economy.
According to a 2000 report by the New England Council's
Creative
Economy Initiative, the state's creative workforce (employees
of cultural organizations and individual working artists)
accounted for more than 116,000 jobs in Massachusetts. That's
3.5 percent of the total workforce - more than the software
or biotech industries. The estimated economic impact of
nonprofit cultural organizations is $2.56 billion per
year. The state's cultural assets are also a primary engine
for tourism, the state's second largest industry. And they
play a key role in attracting businesses to the state -
a fact confirmed time and again by corporate relocation
strategists.
- MCC Funding is an Investment in Our Schools and our
Young People. Every year the MCC serves thousands of
children and teens - in school, out of school and after
school - through hands-on programs in the arts, sciences
and humanities. The Creative Schools program directly supports
efforts by schools to build a central place for the arts
in the curriculum. The PASS program supports cultural field
trips for thousands of students a year. And the award-winning
YouthReach Initiative provides essential after-school programs
for at-risk teens. These programs help kids perform better
academically, develop essential workforce skills and become
productive members of our communities.
- MCC Funding Strengthens Communities by Increasing Civic Engagement. Through its partnership with the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, MCC promotes the use of the arts and humanities to deepen public understanding of important issues, strengthen a sense of common purpose, and enrich both individual and community life. For example, in the last three years alone, 100 public libraries in Massachusetts communities have conducted scholar-led reading and discussion programs on a variety of crucial topics including education, the environment, race relations, and Islam. In Holyoke, Worcester and Dorchester, the Clemente Course in the Humanities has given dozens of adults living in or near poverty the power to change their lives and become active and responsible members of their communities.
- MCC's FY03 Cut Was the Largest of Any Agency in the
State. The MCC was cut 62 percent in the FY03 budget,
from $19.1 million to $7.3 million. This was the
largest percentage cut of any agency in Massachusetts and
the largest cut of any state arts agency in the country.
Massachusetts can and should do better in its state support
for the arts.
- MCC funds thousands of arts organizations of all sizes.
Including direct MCC grants to organizations, schools and districts
and individual artists, as well as grants made through Local Cultural
Councils in every city and town in the state, state funding supports
more than 6,000 cultural programs all across Massachusetts. As
is true throughout the state, the vast majority of MCC funding
supports cultural groups, schools, LCCs and other organizations
whose annual budgets are under $1 million (and in some cases,
as small as $5,000). In Worcester, 61 percent of MCC funding
supports organizations in that range.
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