Pennsylvania’s Creative Sector - From Impact to Opportunity
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
Economic Resilience
The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) is a Commonwealth agency governed by a council of private citizens and General Assembly members, who set the agency’s mission and goals. The PCA aims to strengthen the cultural, educational, and economic vitality of Pennsylvania’s communities through the arts.
PCA engaged Fourth Economy to help understand the creative sector’s importance to communities and economic development statewide, the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on the sector in Pennsylvania, how to support the sector’s short-term economic recovery, and how to integrate the sector into long-term community and economic resilience planning as the world emerged from the pandemic.
Our Approach
Fourth Economy began by analyzing data from multiple sources to create a comprehensive, widely agreeable definition for the challenging to define creative sector. In addition to quantitative data, Fourth Economy held five virtual town hall meetings across the state in spring 2021. These meetings provided a venue for creative sector practitioners and support organizations to share their COVID-19 impact experiences and brainstorm recovery policies, investments, and interventions. Approximately 200 creative sector professionals, arts workers, business owners, nonprofit leaders, funders, policymakers, and support organization representatives participated in these brainstorming workshops.
The Results
The report stimulated conversations between the creative sector and economic developers statewide and economic development and planning agencies engaged with arts and cultural organizations in their Main Street and comprehensive planning, to implement strategies like zoning and code changes that encourage vibrancy and attract talent. This work also helped spur the launch of PCA’s Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator in 2021, designed to pair access to existing small business consulting services with $2,000 grants for creative entrepreneurs who aspire to start their own for-profit business or who operate an existing for-profit micro business.
Location
Pennsylvania