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WHAT IS A CULTURAL PLAN?

A cultural plan is a community conversation that identifies opportunities for broadening public participation in arts and cultural activities. The City of Columbia and One Columbia for Arts and Culture are collaborating to oversee the cultural planning process. Facilitated community conversations involving a  broad cross sector of our community will focus on four core areas:

  1. Economic prosperity for the Columbia region
  2. Cultural vitality
  3. Social and cultural equity
  4. Ways to imbed arts and culture across the City’s Comprehensive Plan

WHAT IS AMPLIFY?

AMPLIFY is the name given to the planning process and helps make visible its progress. As the name implies, the planning process will highlight existing arts, cultural and heritage resources of Columbia and recommend ways to strengthen these valuable assets in our community

WHAT WILL WE LEARN DURING THIS PROCESS?

Columbia has a vibrant and historically strong arts community. The cultural planning process will identify the community’s aspirations for increasing  support for arts organizations, artist and arts patrons. The Cultural Plan is being managed by One Columbia for Arts and Culture in tandem with Columbia Compass, the City Planning Department’s comprehensive planning process. This parallel process will discover opportunities for alignment between arts and other civic priorities.

ARE OTHER CITIES CURRENTLY OPERATING UNDER CULTURAL PLANS?

Cities of all sizes are commissioning or have recently completed a Cultural Plan, including: Dallas, Kansas City, Houston, Denver, Raleigh, Salt Lake, and Boston. The South Carolina Arts Commission adopted a Long Range Plan for the Arts 2011-2020 which will be referenced throughout this planning process.

WHEN DID THE PLANNING PROCESS OFFICIALLY START?

Background work for the plan began early in 2017. The planning process officially started on January 29, 2018 from 2:00-3:30 with a kick-off event at Township Auditorium.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT?

Over the next 18-months, the planning process will unfold in three phases:

  1. Community engagement – neighborhood town hall meetings, artists led focus group sessions, interviews and other types of engagements that promote dialogue and visioning;

  2. Analysis of public input – review and development of priories and strategies that align with the City of Columbia’s Planning Comprehensive Plan;

  3. Draft and final development of the Cultural Plan for review and adoption by the Mayor and City Council.

HOW LONG WILL THE PLANNING PROCESS TAKE? 

The cultural planning initiative, from start to finish, is approximately a 12-18 month process.

HOW WILL ONE COLUMBIA ACCOMPLISH ALL THIS WORK? 

The One Columbia board has engaged a consulting team, led by Margie Johnson Reese, a nationally recognized arts management professional to guide the planning process; and Katie Alice Walker, a local marketing and communications firm, to help with communications and messaging. Two other volunteer advisory groups will inform the process: a Steering Committee and a Thought Leaders group. These volunteer citizen groups are in place to make sure that input and ideas are collected and honored from a cross sector of the Columbia community. A team of Artists Facilitators (local artists, who live or work in our community) will facilitate many of the neighborhood conversations. Their role is to encourage residents to express their ideas so that the plan is inclusive and representative of our diverse city

HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?

PARTNERS

The following agencies, organizations and corporations have partnered to make the Amplify cultural planning process possible.