Operating Support Grant

One of the OACC's Board's greatest strengths is its focus on quality and outcomes. Every Board meeting includes an in-depth discussion of what we are hearing from our constituents and how that informs our success indicators, theory of change and logic model, and evaluation metrics. One of the best tools we've found is from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. Their 2007 report 'Understanding Excellence in Arts Education' helps us define what we mean by high quality art, how to set initial markers of excellence, and how to observe the way day-to-day decisions affect artistic quality. Though our interests are broader than arts education, we embrace the study's thesis: continuous reflection about what constitutes artistic quality and how to achieve is both a catalyst and an indicator. Talking about it, worrying about it, continually revisiting ideas about its characteristics and its metrics ? is essential to achieving it. As noted earlier, OACC's current quantitative and qualitative measures (Artistic, Business and Community Vitality Indicators) consider constituent satisfaction and organizational impact. As we moved into creative community development, we have worked with UMD's Bureau of Business and Economic Research and Extension Economists. They assisted us in designing an assessment tool to evaluate the current economic impact of arts and culture which we integrated into our regional creative placemaking efforts. The Improve Group informs our theory of change, logic model and outcome measures: Economic change: increased investment in the regional economy, increased job creation and workforce participation, improved average hourly wages and median household income, increased in-migration of new residents, increased tourism. Social change: improvements in health and education outcomes, more diverse leadership of civic groups, increased numbers of artists and culture bearers in creative placemaking. Physical change: improved appearance of public spaces, streetscapes, parks, byways, heritage sites; inclusion of arts in new construction and redevelopment. System Change: increased embeddedness of arts and culture in community development efforts, increased input from diverse residents, improved County and Reservation policies and practices to support cross-sector creative placemaking partnerships, strengthened limits on housing displacement. Two success indicators speak to OACC's commitment to offer approachable programs for broad public audiences: OPENNESS-constituents feeling welcomed and willing to consider new and sometimes contradictory perspectives. DIVERSITY-seeking out, recognizing, and leveraging the shared and varied values. OACC is committed to broad access to the arts for residents and fair compensation for creatives. 2017-- Cookin' at the O jazz dinners began. Sold-out events provided fair compensation for musicians; comped tickets gave access to income-challenged residents. Launched Holiday Market. 2018-- Started Magnolia Salons, gatherings for creative exploration. Launched Honey Bee Festival (HBF), paid creatives fairly. Led to the NE MN Bee Friendly Corridor - 30 subsidized habitats, Bee Friendly Events including Bee Friendly Arts Camp (BFAC). 2019--Sponsors, the Chamber, Lions Club supported 12 local venues and 40 creatives to do scenes from recent productions to 800; led to new partnerships constituents. Art Roundabout began; led to West End Flourish (WEF), an artists-business effort to revitalize Cloquet's historic district. 2020-21 Despite pandemic pressures, a partnership with Library of Congress enabled us to invite US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, to our region for ?Bringing Joy, A Literary Welcome? in partnership with FDLTCC and AICHO. FDLTCC created curriculum and students write poetry in response to publish an e-book. COVID caused a switch to virtual event; over 400 participants joined. HBF and BFAC resumed with much appreciation from those craving a return to arts and live mus