Towards a National Sector Development Initiative - Discussion Paper

Community Arts and Cultural Development

Towards a National Sector Development Initiative

 

Sector vibrancy and evolution

The Community Partnerships (CP) Committee regularly reviews its decisions and priorities to ensure that resources are effectively allocated to support excellence in community arts and cultural development (CACD). This is achieved through supporting CACD artists, arts organisations and communities to devise, produce and present projects. All supported projects are delivered with, by and for communities and result in long-term sustainable outcomes and high quality arts outputs.

The Committee supports vibrancy and excellence within the CACD sector. Key drivers of the practice require investment to enable necessary regeneration and renewal.

Due to the responsive nature of CACD practice, the sector is constantly evolving through innovative artistic approaches. As society is dynamic and changing, meaningful engagement is integral to the sector and its development.

The Committee has outlined priorities in the Community Arts and Cultural Development Sector Plan. This guides its investment in activities of the CACD sector.

The Committee in 2011 identified that over the past six years the sector has achieved strong and vibrant artistic, community and cross sector partnerships. This is reflected in the breadth and depth of the projects CP have been able to support across the entire suite of its programs. There is greater philanthropic support for CACD projects which have been facilitated to a significant extent by the work of Artsupport Australia.

The Committee considers that the strength and development of the sector lies in the delivery of high quality CACD projects. Production of new work provides individual practitioners greater opportunities to further their careers and incomes. New work uncovers new Australian narratives established through the active participation of individual community members. This impacts on changing notions of excellence and artistic aesthetics, and results in improved community wellbeing and arts and culture become a part of everyday life.

In light of these reflections the Committee regularly reviews options for providing future support and services to further develop and grow the CACD sector.

 

Current situation

Since 2006 the Committee has invested over $1million per annum in a network of agencies across most the country. This funding was to provide services aimed at supporting and growing the CACD sector. These services were, in the majority of cases, negotiated and supported in partnership with the State and Territory arts funding agencies. These arrangements were principally negotiated to disseminate information, build and facilitate relationships with communities and the CACD sector.

It should be noted that in addition to the support for service delivery, a number of the organisations have also been funded through other CP grant categories and initiatives to deliver significant CACD projects.

In May 2011 the Committee distributed a Discussion Paper to all the agencies and organisations directly involved in, or supported through, the CP Service Delivery Initiative. We received feedback from all the parties and this was considered by the Committee over two meetings in September and November 2011.

The feedback to the Discussion Paper covered a number of issues. Some were general and others were specific to the particular realities within which organisations operate. Key points drawn out by the Committee from the feedback received are noted below. CP actions/responses are provided in italics:

 

  • While recognising that the CP Committee and the Australia Council have to review their investments and initiatives, it is important to allow time for consultation regarding transition from current arrangements.
    • In response the Committee agreed to extend the current arrangements until 31 December 2012 to allow time for transition. This process involves undertaking a national consultation with service delivery partners and the broader CACD sector. This consultation will help define the focus areas of a National Sector Development Initiative. We will be conducting meetings with the sector across the country in early 2012 and will be providing opportunity for online feedback and comment on our deliberations.
  • More information has been requested around the evidence and evaluation that lead to the Discussion Paper and the proposed changes to investment levels and priorities.
    • In response, the Committee has from the outset stated that the proposed changes are not based on evaluation of specific performance or outcomes of the current arrangement. The Committee is refocussing its priorities, as is Council, on providing direct benefits to CACD artists and practitioners and the production and presentation of work. It is through providing opportunities to communities to be directly engaged in creating and presenting their narratives through artistic expression that community well-being and cultural vibrancy will be further enhanced.
  • More detail and clarification is required to explain what is meant by ‘National Sector Development Initiative’.
    • The Committee is engaging in the consultation process to define what will be the practical activities which may be supported under a National Sector Development Initiative. The elements which are being considered include:
      • increased access to mentorships for individual CACD practitioners
      • building cross sector partnership brokerage and management capacity
      • knowledge and learning dissemination of best practice in developing artistic and cultural development partnerships with communities
      • increased cross-artform collaborations between the CACD sector and other areas of arts practice
      • increased national networking and collaboration between CACD practitioners at an individual and organisational level which leads to providing advice and assistance at the professional, project and broader sector levels.
    • A number of these areas have been identified in the Community Arts and Cultural Development Sector Plan and also in submissions from the CACD sector to the National Cultural Policy consultation.
  • Specific and unique roles of regionally based organisations were highlighted. Regionally based organisations have noted that the services they deliver are integral to enabling communities’ access to the arts.
    • The Committee is aware of, and appreciate, the context and conditions in which regionally based service organisations operate. We are also aware of the specific conditions faced by organisations working with other specific communities such as people with a disability, young people, people from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds and Indigenous communities
    • The Committee considers it essential that any programs or activities supported through the National Sector Development Initiative would have to be able to address the issues of specific communities. This is central to ensuring that CACD projects are accessible to practitioners and communities no matter where they live or their life circumstances
    • In considering proposals within the National Sector Development Initiative, the Committee will assess the national impact and how these address the diversity of our priority areas.
  • Production versus service delivery: although production-based work is acknowledged by organisations as being key in delivering services; some agencies noted that core funding for the delivery of services allows for long term planning and activities to take place in and with communities.
    • The Committee acknowledges that it is placing a greater emphasis on production of works with, by and for communities. This refocussing will increase the opportunities for communities to be directly involved and acquire skills and capacities in a direct manner
    • The Committee is committed to providing sustained longer term support within its resources. We are aware that to develop projects and initiatives with communities and other partners is complex and can take significant time. This awareness of the complexities of CACD practice is reflected in our six-year funding arrangements in the Key Producer category and our three-year initiative funding through our Creative Communities Partnerships Initiatives. This was also reflected in our initial minimum three-year commitment to supporting service delivery agencies. In all these cases the support is for a specific program of activities and agreed outputs, not for the core running costs of an agency.
    • It is assumed that in most cases any activities or programs supported under a National Sector Development Initiative would be over a multi year period.

A new approach

Having considered the feedback and priorities for the future, the Committee determined that the current transitional arrangements for supporting service delivery will cease on 31 December 2012. We have informed all the parties involved in the current arrangements of this decision and that we will now engage them and the broader sector to define the next steps forward. The current budget allocation for service delivery will be reallocated to supporting a National Sector Development Initiative and to increase the support available for the production and presentation of CACD projects and programs.

 

Next steps

Following the national discussions the Committee will have the details of the National Sector Development Initiative finalised and will call for proposals by the end of June 2012.

The Committee is conscious of rapidly expanding opportunities and possibilities that have opened up over the last 5 to 10 years with advances in, and increased uptake of, online communication. It is expected that proposals will maximise digital online systems and explore opportunities offered by the trend towards increasing upload and download speeds of the internet.

The Committee expects that proposals will be reflective of, and informed by, the diversity of artistic, community and cross sector partnerships which make up the CACD sector.

The Committee is seeking to canvas the CACD sector’s views on a range of areas, including but not limited to proposals we could support at a national level to:

  1. Increase collaboration, networking, information and learning exchange focussed on benefitting individual CACD practitioners and producing organisations?
  2. Increase awareness of the opportunities and benefits of CACD practice for communities in artistic, cultural development and well being contexts?
  3. Expand and strengthen the cross sector and cross-artform partnerships within the CACD sector?
  4. Provide assistance to individual practitioners throughout their career stages to continually develop and enhance their sustainability as practising CACD artists (notwithstanding the current grant categories offered by CP)?

We will accept feedback on the ideas for the way forward until Monday 16 April 2012. The Committee will convene a meeting with representatives of the CACD sector as well as broader arts and community representatives on 20 April where the feedback, proposals and directions will be discussed. Following this, the Committee will finalise the National Sector Development Initiative and call for proposals to be supported under the initiative in June 2012. Proposals may commence from late 2012.

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Comments

  • Joey Ruigrok van der Werven 6:09pm on 09 Apr 2012
    Dear reader. I am relatively new to CACD world but I have been making theatre, (often through Theatre Board funded projects) as a freelance designer and performance maker, for 20 years now, and more often then not with and for a general public, i.e. community. I have been researching your website because I am deciding if I can and want to shift my focus strongly towards making work for and with regional and urban communities. So please see my comments in light of my recent wish to join your CACD world, and although I am not fully informed, I do wish to comment and I hope it is helpful. comment 1. I have not been able to determine, with certainty, who the 11, 6 year funded, Key Producers are, who the 11 annually funded program organizations are and I also found only 19 of the 30 Creative Community Case Studies that the webpage says there are. This means that I feel I do not have a full scope of what you fund, how the work is made and what you as a board stand for. comment 2. In principal I strongly applaud your shift towards supporting the artists and your increased focus on actual outcome. In most organizations that I have been involved with, the majority of funds go towards administration and infrastructure and very often not 1 artist is employed full-time. comment 3. I did not find though WHY or on WHAT concrete research this turnaround was based. The discussion paper, I am sorry to say, seems to be more of a notice board, unless of course the discussion has taken place via other platforms that I am not aware of. comment 4. In this light I feel for those organizations who are about to lose their funding by the end of 2012. I propose they are allowed at least another year in which they themselves can find ways to be producers of art and become cultural leaders themselves and less of administrators, provided that that is indeed the reason for you shift in policy. comment 5. There is actually a danger in cutting funding too quickly. Those organizations, again I am presuming, now play a large role in providing artist with infrastructure through their own program. If that program stops, does it then also mean that the newly to be funded artists do not have an infrastructure to work in? In that way the switch might work counterproductive. comment 6. My final and main concern is actually with the terminology you apply. Here is my reasoning. On page 2, 3rd paragraph, of the Community Partner Ship Sector Plan, you specifically mention that a "...new terminology that was being adopted at the time of the last survey and that has now become widely accepted replaces ‘community arts’ with ‘community cultural development’. Does this mean that it has been accepted that an artistic outcome is less important than a cultural development aspect of the work? If that is so: a. Why then the emphasis on more artist support? b. Why then the emphasis on Excellence and high artistic level, both of which I have encountered frequently in your policies and web page? In the sentence before that I sense a suggestion being made that the community arts movement was involved in that survey and that 'therefore' they themselves suggested this name change??? I personally do not know ANY community artist who would think that (and I know a few) and hence I am wondering strongly about that suggestion. Looking at all the partnerships that are established in your funded projects and the percentage of their support, it seem clear that "excellent" community arts hardly ever gets off the ground without significant funding of other government and private organizations. This being so I think it is all the more reason to fly the flag of THE ARTS higher and stronger, not less."The Australian Council of the "ARTS" (it is not the council of cultural development)" should promote the arts and not reduce it to just cultural development. In the true sense of the word, farmers also are busy with cultural development. What then is meant with that description? To already start with a watered down understanding of what you want to achieve, makes it much harder for artists. They are already under pressure to deliver all the key objectives of all he stake holders. I do not think it is a problem that at least one partner, YOU (or US I should say) is allowed to stay principal. Please, I would like to see a hefty discussion around this and hear why it was felt that the name had to change. The point being that I think it is NOT "excellence" if the work is not at least attempting to make art. I see too many projects where it seems enough if the community makes a lantern, if the street dancers and hip hoppers do their usual "thing" or the amateur performance troupe do a play that is bought off the shelf. Concluding. I am very happy with your shift towards supporting the artists and their art-making. I do think we need to give those organizations more time to shift and I dearly would like to see this discussion on art making, excellence and what exactly we are standing for. I also do understand the difficulty you are in, trying to define who you/WE!!! are with all that is at stake. Good luck. With kind regards Joey Ruigrok van der Werven. 0423 972 508
  • Tricia Walton 4:52pm on 13 Apr 2012
    Many young and emerging artists have a practice of community engagement which may look different to the established CACD practice; an emphasis and engagement with social entreprenurial development opportunities, DIY initiatives and blended finance and project models are being explored. Young artists seek opportunities to be mentored by people whose work and practice they admire and experienced CACD artists have a wealth of knowledge/experience that can be utilised to assist in the development of the next generation of artists who may move in and out of CACD work. They may not identify with CACD as it has been defined - they are more likely to identify with the issues of keenest interest to them. So mentoring and cross fertilisation of models and methodology is important. Face to face cannot be replaced by virtual engagement, but it can be enhanced, developed, maximised by the connections it offers. Services offered to the CACD sector need to be contemporary, flexible and relevent to a nimble and dynamic cohort of practitioners.
  • Lyndal Jones 2:24pm on 16 Apr 2012
    I'm curious to know who might a 'practicing CACD artist' be (eg specific personal criteria? track record? previous successful funding? attachment to specific communities or community arts organisations?) While I appreciate that there are specific skills involved in engaging with particular groups, the idea of a known clientele promoted by the term 'practicing CACD artist', suggests an extremely inward-looking, self-perpetuating group, serving its own, current, interests. I would like to suggest instead that, through clear criteria for funding, that any artist/s should surely be able to have the offers they put forward be taken seriously. This would render point 3 (cross sector/ cross art-form) redundant. Note: I believe that this should apply across all artform boards ,thus opening up the artform possibilities to create a radical change to creativity very simply and would quickly lead to a far richer cultural environment for communities across Australia.
  • Avril Duck 2:30pm on 18 Apr 2012
    I thank "the committee" for this document I think I understand and I think it possibly spoke about my sector. Unfortunately being under the pump trying to complete a jigsaw of grant applications for the current set of rounds, for a major CACD project, my ill humour is the voice in which I respond. As a community theatre director and freelance CACD practitioner, I'm generally upbeat and optimistic, however time frames bid me respond now - which is the voice you will hear... time poor and with multiple strands of thought to bring together. Firstly, it is very disappointing to know this whole conversation has been going on and whilst I've been busy out in the wilderness with community and partnerships and heavily in the SECTOR - I'm now informed at the end of the paper that I had to respond by the 16th. Why waste my time? never mind, it's done. And you'll probably, DEAR CoMMITTEE, never read this anyway. Secondly, yes please, stop funding Arts Nexus for service delivery and fund all of the practicing theatre makers and CACD workers in TROPICAL ARTS to engage directly with over 100 participants per show with diverse cast and creative team including people with a disability (30), children (10), people with mental health, homelessness and disadvantage (can't give the precise number, possibly 20 - because we are a strengths based NFP org and people's percieved "lack" is not nearly as important as their can do and their desires) and other various community members of diverse colour and background. Not to mention the wider community where the afore mentioned theatre makers and CACD workers try to eek out a living plying their trade which is still UNDERVALUED AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT. It would be great if you could advocate on the results - we can manage the processes. Tropical Arts has been going 5 years. Bits of funding here and there because people with vision tend to be wearers of lots of hats and while your doing the work, it's hard to be strategically applying for the right grants. Very diffic ult. Wish list is easy: a home, an office, a space, a place, whatever you call it to call our own and a manager who understands the arts and business so that the artists can get on with the arts with a bit of room left over for professional development and connection with regional, state, national and international peers. Please! Theatre is an umbrella art form, within which the concept of hybrid arts is not new. Why do we stimulate an area which is already .... Anyway, that's about all I have time for. unfortunately, because i have much more to say, contribute and also learn. Please consider there are regional and marginalised, trivialised groups doing really great CACD work even if you can't see them because they don't have time to look up!. (Is there any way to make funding application process simpler, less of a risk and more humane????) Thank you. Avril
  • Jolanta Gallagher 11:58am on 20 Apr 2012
    From the Australian Talented Youth Project (ATY Project) regarding young artists (and not only) - There is a strong need for: 1. Artistic mentorship across the country, particularly in regional and remote Australia - with both: locally based, ongoing programs AND a national, annual or biennial event in one of the larger cultural centres (such as the ATY Project in Canberra since 2007). - For young artists it is important to be recognised, challenged, and inspired within AND beyond their community. Face to face contact and collaboration with peers from other states develops young people's sense of connectedness to the larger artistic community. - The national mentoring program could be followed by an annual conference/forum of young artists. Both events would celebrate artistic achievements and contributions that arts make to the national well-being and economy. Those combined events should be well publicised and visible to public, government and policy makers to promote arts in Australia. 2. Increased state and national collaboration and network between youth organisations and young artists. Needed are both - the niche and the national networks, each of them naturally, organically evolving. 3. Increased cross-artform collaboration between young artists and youth organisations. 4. A good start to induce further positive developments into the arts and young people would be to have a first National Forum of Young Artists voicing their needs and aspirations. Such forum is being planned by the ATY Project for January 2013. 5. Allocation of longer-term, 3-6 year funding, for projects/programs involving young artists. Jolanta Gallagher Executive Director, ATY project

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