A “relationship guide” to forging strong and sustainable creative partnerships between local governments and artists.

In 2017, A Blade of Grass and Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, began their own partnership to create this guide with the support of an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It reflects our interest to understand what good municipal/artist partnerships look like, from the experiences of practitioners who have effectively done good work together. Our goals were to communicate the artfulness, dynamics, best practices and common challenges of these partnerships and their resulting creative projects; and assist those who want to integrate creative practices to advance civic goals and improve the workings of municipal government.

Our research centered on interviews with partnering municipal agencies and artists, third-party partners, and administrators from some two-dozen projects and programs. We also reviewed a large amount of related material including articles and reports. Our process aimed for a strong but by no means comprehensive scan. And, as fundamental as community participants are in these projects, the scope of our research did not allow for full articulation of their roles and perspectives. It is an important subject for the future.

This guide is also grounded in work that we have done with municipal/artist programs in New York, Portland ME, and Boston. These cities’ programs place artists in multiple city agencies, tapping their creative thinking and skills to generate new approaches to urban issues and municipal agency concerns.