The Delaware Division of the Arts is gearing up to take public input on its new strategic plan for Fiscal Years 2022 through 2026. Here's how you can get involved.
The Division of the Arts is working with the Delaware Alliance for Nonprofit Advancement (DANA) on the plan, which seeks to incorporate ideas, issues and initiatives from Delaware’s arts community, including its artists, organizations, audiences and educators.
“The strategic planning process is a process we undergo periodically in response to a requirement of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which is our federal funder. The purpose of the planning is to seek input from the public as to the needs of the public in arts programming, economic development, community building and arts education,” said Paul Weagraff, director of the Delaware Division of the Arts.
Weagraff notes that the input allows the Division to equitably allocate resources it receives from the NEA and state lawmakers.
“One of the goals we have in this plan is to expand our issues of equity, diversity and inclusion," said Weagraff. "And in order for us to be able to do that effectively, I really encourage all people to participate in this process of public input,”
He says the Division understands the COVID-19 pandemic has been putting arts organizations and individual artists under great stress for months. So one piece of the strategic plan will focus on how to sustain them.
He says they are gathering public input this month through phone and virtual interviews with individuals and focus groups, by invitation only.
Next month the process will be opened up to the general public with online surveys and virtual town halls.
A draft of the Division’s new strategic plan is expected to be available for public review in February before the final plan is put before the Delaware State Arts Council in March for formal approval.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
