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A Long-Range Plan for the Arts in
South Carolina, 2011- 2020
How the Canvas of the People was conducted
The Canvas process included a citizen survey, public forums, and other ways of gathering input.
Citizen Survey
The 2010 Canvas of the People began in fall 2009, with a survey of S.C. citizens 18 and older conducted by the University of South Carolina's Institute for Public Service and Policy Research. The South Carolina Arts Commission placed several questions in the survey to gauge the public's participation in and attitudes about the arts.
The survey, weighted to accurately reflect the demographics of the state, is conducted twice a year to provide timely, reliable and cost-effective data for policy makers and researchers. The Arts Commission has participated in this citizen survey four times since 1990, relying on the data to establish a "snapshot" of arts awareness and involvement among the state's general population.
Findings
The full report includes the questionnaire, demographic data and more. Here are some highlights:
Canvas of the People Forums
The Canvas of the People included public forums in seven locations, beginning in February 2010 in Columbia and visiting Beaufort, Greenville, Hartsville, Aiken and North Charleston before wrapping up in Spartanburg in April. The forums were open to anyone interested in the arts.
Additionally, in each community, local leaders were invited to share their thoughts about the state of their communities. The diverse groups included representatives from business, local government, chambers of commerce, real estate, the faith community, civil rights organizations, health care, libraries, higher education and K-12 education, foundations and nonprofits. Although the arts were not off limits as a topic, participants were encouraged to talk about any issues important to their communities.
By design, the input from these community leaders focused less on arts issues and more on larger issues and aspirations and took shape around these “public outcomes”:
During the forums attended by the public, the conversation focused on what's working and what needs improvement in the arts. The conversations were wide-ranging, but results were grouped into these major “arts outcomes”:
The Canvas process was, naturally, designed to include the arts community, but also deliberately to reach out to those who work in other sectors. Woven together, the intersections between the “public outcomes” and the “arts outcomes” create the broad public value of the arts, and it is these intersections that make up the fabric of our plan.
Additional Input
Tthe Arts Commission employed the agency's website and e-newsletter, along with Facebook and Twitter, to help promote the Canvas process and the forums and to gather input. Those who could not attend a forum were encouraged to share their thoughts through an online public survey. The survey questions mirrored those asked during the public forums.
Other information-gathering opportunities arose. Board members from the S.C. Arts Alliance, the state's leading arts policy advocacy organization, assessed the state's progress on major issues identified in the last plan and provided new input. Participants at the 2009 Statewide Arts Conference and artists at the 2010 S.C. Artists' Ventures retreat provided input.
All told, almost 1,400 people took the time to participate by sharing their ideas and thoughts about the future of the arts in South Carolina.
All of this input—from the anonymous answers given on the S.C. State Survey to additional thoughts received from a participant the day after a forum—was carefully recorded, considered and distilled to identify common themes, determine needs voiced by citizens and develop target objectives.