Primary tabs

Montgomery County Arts & Culture Initiative

August 13, 2010

Thank you for taking the time to join us on July 30th at the Montgomery County Arts & Culture Summit.

Below are links to a number of documents from the Summit that may be useful to you and your organizations.

Montgomery County State of the Arts Presentation

Summit Attendees - Alphabetically

Summit Attendees - By Organization Name

Breakout Session - Report Out - Goals

Here's a brief recap of what happened on the 30th.

The beautiful Fine Arts Center at Montgomery County Community College was the setting for the first Montgomery County Arts & Culture Summit. On July 30, 2010 more than ninety of the county’s artists, cultural groups, businesses, residents and government officials gathered for a morning long session. The meeting was convened by the Montgomery County Commissioners, the Montgomery Community Foundation, Inc. and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

Rob Wonderling, President of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, kicked off the morning with remarks that emphasized the importance of arts and culture to a robust republic and capitalist economy. He challenged the group to “get in the paint” as they advocated for more support and a higher profile for arts and culture.

The “State of the Arts in Montgomery County”  was co-presented by Laura Burnham (Abington Arts Center), Mark Stern (University of Pennsylvania) and Tom Kaiden (Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance). Burnham provided an overview of the sector in the county; describing the 380 organizations that generate $68 million in annual revenues and employ nearly 1300 people. Stern talked about the need to understand the ecology of cultural assets, defining types of cultural clusters and discussed ways to best strengthen these assets.  Kaiden, wrapping up the presentation, talked about the current financial challenges as well as the longer term challenge of engaging new cultural customers.

The second half of the morning was spent in breakout sessions. Nine groups facilitated by staff from the Montgomery County Planning Department and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance provided input for a vision statement and proposed goals for a county cultural planning process.

After a report out, Steve Nelson, Director of Policy for Montgomery County, wrapped up the Summit and announced that the in the coming weeks the summit conveners would form a task force to start a cultural planning initiative in Montgomery County.

The Summit conveners will be meeting over the coming weeks to create a plan for moving forward with a county planning initiative. We want your continued participation and input as this process moves forward and will be contacting you soon with additional information.

For more information about the Summit, ongoing work in Montgomery County, or to be added to the distribution list please contact:
Nancy DeLucia
Regional Director, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
nancyd@philaculture.org – 215-326-9460