Analysis: Creative Advocacy Network and a taxpayer based arts funding mechanism
By D.K. Row, The Oregonian
December 14, 2009, 7:00AM
Today, 51 politicians, business leaders, arts professionals and educators from Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties will embark on a special mission: Crafting the details of a request for a $15 million-$20 million annual investment in local arts and culture.
These people are pie-in-the-sky dreamers, you might be thinking.
But you’d only be half right. Because the members of this committee are nothing if not practical. The challenge in this economy is this: Because so many arts groups have their hands out, is there a way to squeeze more even in a community that’s tops in concert attendance?
Organized by the Creative Advocacy Network, the nonprofit founded to drive the movement for permanent, taxpayer-supported arts funding, the group will decide how the money will be raised, who will distribute it and then get it….