City of Charlotte Arts and Culture Plan
Background
In partnership with the global firm Lord Cultural Planning, Civility Localized led a participatory process that engaged the diverse communities of the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The goal: to build a transformative arts and culture plan for a better understanding of the arts and to create a sustainable funding plan.
Challenges
This project required consulting teams to overcome many challenges including:
Diversity and inclusion: Charlotte is a diverse city, and it was important to ensure that the arts and culture plan reflected the needs and interests of all communities. This meant ensuring representation from all communities in the planning & participation process.
Collaboration: The arts and culture community in Charlotte has not always had the support of the City of Charlotte, and things have sometimes been fragmented. The arts and culture plan community engagement process sometimes required overcoming community apprehensions and reluctance. It required Civility Localized to find ways to bring different organizations and the City together to build a shared vision for the future.
What We Did
With our company's knowledge of the regional context, as well as a deep commitment to amplifying underserved voices of the region, Civility Localized led various inclusive engagement activities, each with an emphasis on reducing barriers to participation.
This included:
County-wide Public Meetings (in-person and virtual)
Stakeholder Interviews
City & County Roundtables
Developing an Online Survey of Cultural Participation in the City
Focused Conversations & Sector Workshops
Community Conversations
In-person tabling at Neighborhood Intercept Events
Developing and Training Community Ambassadors and custom Toolkit
Media
