Arts North Carolina is a not-for-profit arts organization based in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose goal is to strengthen public awareness of and provide support for the arts industry of North Carolina. Arts North Carolina solicits memberships, primarily from local arts councils and other arts organizations who have been direct recipients of grant monies, but also individuals, artists, and businesses who have an interest in seeing the arts industry grow and flourish in North Carolina.
A not-for-profit arts organization usually takes the form of a not-for-profit corporation, association, or foundation. Such organizations are formed for the purpose of developing and promoting the work of artists in various visual and performing art forms such as film, sculpture, dance, painting, multimedia, poetry, and performance art.
Raleigh is the capital of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. Raleigh is the second-largest city in the state, after Charlotte. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city. The city covers a land area of 142.8 square miles (370 km2). The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population as 479,332 as of July 1, 2018. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. The city of Raleigh is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who established the lost Roanoke Colony in present-day Dare County.
North Carolina is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west, Virginia to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. North Carolina is the 28th-most extensive and the 9th-most populous of the U.S. states. The state is divided into 100 counties. The capital is Raleigh, which along with Durham and Chapel Hill is home to the largest research park in the United States. The most populous municipality is Charlotte, which is the second-largest banking center in the United States after New York City.
In addition to providing support for arts organizations in the forms of technical assistance, professional development, and networking opportunities, Arts North Carolina provides support for a full-time arts lobbyist and a yearly grassroots lobbying event, Arts Day. These lobbying efforts are designed to increase funding for the local arts councils, which in turn increase the amount of grant money available to local artists and arts organizations.
Lobbying, persuasion, or interest representation is the act of attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of officials in their daily life, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by many types of people, associations and organized groups, including individuals in the private sector, corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy groups. Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituencies, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within their electoral district; they may engage in lobbying as a business. Professional lobbyists are people whose business is trying to influence legislation, regulation, or other government decisions, actions, or policies on behalf of a group or individual who hires them. Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering or as a small part of their normal job. Governments often define and regulate organized group lobbying that has become influential.
A grassroots movement is one which uses the people in a given district, region, or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national, or international level. Grassroots movements are associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision making, and are sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures. Grassroots movements, using self-organization, encourage community members to contribute by taking responsibility and action for their community. Grassroots movements utilize a variety of strategies from fundraising and registering voters, to simply encouraging political conversation. Goals of specific movements vary, but the movements are consistent in their focus on increasing mass participation in politics. These political movements may begin as small and at the local level, but grassroots politics as Cornel West contends are necessary in shaping progressive politics as they bring public attention to regional political concerns.
Their current campaign is entitled Plant the Arts: Grow North Carolina, which has identifiable connections with a similar campaign by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, entitled Goodness Grows in North Carolina. The campaign makes the claim that investment in the arts industry will lead, through various direct and indirect channels, to a better economy for North Carolina.
The current Executive Director and Registered Lobbyist is Karen Wells, and the current Board President is Pierce Egerton.
An executive director is a chief executive officer (CEO) or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. The title is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though many United States nonprofits have adopted the title president or CEO.
