Who Do You Know?

From Carol White, Associate Director of Operations —

As you may have heard, Tennessee is participating for the first time on a statewide level in Arts and Economic Prosperity 5 (AEP5) conducted by Americans for the Arts. AEP5 measures the economic impact of nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences and is the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind. Tennessee is being led as a whole by the Tennessee Arts Commission with 25 local study partners across the state.  Study results will be a great advocacy tool.  Data is being collected throughout 2016, with the study to be released in the summer of 2017.

You may already have been asked to collect audience surveys or be ready to take an online organizational profile survey in June 2016. Thank you for participating.

Now we’re asking who you know. To be truly representative of the breadth and depth of the arts and culture in Tennessee, we need to move beyond the major urban areas, rural local study partners and counties with arts councils.  At this moment we have 19 counties that do not have a local arts council or contact committed to supporting AEP5. See list of counties below.

Please take a look at the list. Are you or your organization located in one of these counties? Do you know anybody in one of these counties who could be a knowledgeable resource about that county’s local arts and culture?  Our overall goal is a comprehensive list of nonprofit arts and culture groups from all 95 Tennessee counties who can help paint the picture for Tennessee by the national due date of March 31, 2016.

If you know someone who can help identify local arts and culture organizations in the counties without an arts council, please contact Carol White at carol.white@tn.gov or 615.253.8914; or Grace Robinson at grace.robinson@tn.gov or 615.253.5133 now. Thanks for your help!