Championing Public Investment in the Creative Sector:

Our first year of work coincided with one of the worst economic periods for the region’s creative sector because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Assembly mobilized community partners to plead the case for American Rescue Plan Act funds with Cuyahoga County and City of Cleveland government.

Thanks to the advocacy of the Assembly board and the partnership of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC), Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and Cuyahoga County Council President Pernel Jones jointly committed to $3.3M in ARPA funds for arts and culture. Approved by Council in July 2022, Assembly and CAC will split the $3.3 million equally and will establish processes to equitably distribute the funds to the for-profit and non-profit creative economy and artists.

During 2021’s Cleveland Mayoral Election, Assembly engaged with candidates to ensure arts and culture was represented in public debates. Assembly also partnered with CAN Journal to launch a candidate survey on their policy vision for arts and culture.

When Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb took office in January 2022, Assembly set out to build relationships with the new mayor and his administration to elevate arts and culture in the public agenda. In the Fall of 2021, Assembly held multiple forums with artist coalitions, creative businesses, and nonprofits to develop a set of arts-informed recommendations for the new administration.  One of our many recommendations was to establish an arts liaison at City Hall to drive a strategic cultural agenda. The Mayor’s Chief Strategy Officer Bradford Davy confirmed that an appointment of an arts leader/liaison will be forthcoming.

Data are vital to demonstrate the creative sector’s impact when we speak with public officials. We partnered with Ohio Citizens for the Arts (OCA) and Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, along with six other regional arts councils, and Bowling Green State University’s Center for Regional Development on a study about the Cleveland creative industry’s economic contribution.

The results were sobering and clear: the creative sector in Cleveland is an economic powerhouse, which generated more than $6.7 billion in economic output in 2019 – and the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the industry, which has yet to rebound.