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Maine Cultural Affairs Council

WHY IT STARTED

Beginning with its native peoples, Maine has long been a place where artists and craftspeople intimately engaged with their natural environment. In modern times institutions have been developed to support and encourage these aspects of a full life for Maine people.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Maine’s cultural, historical, and arts organizations – the state library, state museum, historic preservation, and the arts commission – were part of the Department of Education. As these agencies began working together in the late 1980s, they learned that they could bring more cohesion to arts and cultural communities across the state and provide a uniform vision for cultural policies in Maine. They approached state leaders to create a mandate for this vision, and a special legislative study commission confirmed the importance of this collaborative partnership.

In 1989, the state legislature created the Maine State Cultural Affairs Council to include four state agencies: the Maine Arts Commission, Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum. Based on its initial success the CAC was expanded with the addition of one more state entity, the Maine State Archives; and two private, nonprofit groups, the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Historical Society. The mission of each of these organizations involves outreach across the state within the cultural domain. The purpose of the CAC is to maintain strong alliances across all these organizations and to speak with a unified voice on state cultural matters.

WHO IS INVOLVED

The Council itself is comprised of the chairs and vice-chairs of the seven partner agencies, and the Governor may designate a staff member to serve as a non-voting liaison. There is also a working group comprised of the CAC Chair and the agency directors who serve ex-officio.

HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER

The Council is led by a chairperson appointed by the Governor from within one of the governing bodies. Traditionally the chairmanship has rotated through the seven agencies. The Council meets quarterly, focusing on joint activities, updates from partners on individual efforts and legislative activity relating to culture. These meetings promote coordination and collaboration, but also provide individual partner agency boards with the knowledge of developments in culture and the arts around the state. The smaller working group, made up of the directors of each partner agency and the chair of the CAC, meets frequently to coordinate activities and initiatives.

Administrative duties are shared and partner agencies collaborate on an annual report to the Governor and legislature.

An important and unique focus of the Cultural Affairs Council has been the New Century Community Program. Since 1999, this program has delivered more than six million dollars in matching funds for a wide range of cultural projects, from historic building restoration, artifact conservation and library development to family literacy programming and the Maine Memory Network, a state-of-the art online history museum. (See the Maine Memory Network.) The grants leveraged more than three times the number of state dollars in private and federal funds. The agencies believe that obtaining this level of funding from the legislature, all of which was returned to Maine communities in grants and direct services, would have been impossible in the absence of the unified message that the seven agencies working together were able to present.

Although other states have programs that are similar to parts of the New Century program, the CAC feels that the New Century Community Program is a unique representation of the degree of collaboration and trust among the Maine cultural agencies. When partner agencies came together to begin this program, the agencies set aside individual interests to work together. This experience formed the process for the way partners would collaborate in the future.

CHALLENGES

The members of the CAC believe there is a distinct advantage to working together in Maine where there is a long tradition of partnership and collaboration. However, the current state fiscal environment represents a challenge for all nonprofits and state agencies in Maine.

When the CAC was founded over 20 years ago, representatives from the partner agencies had all known and trusted one another for many years as they worked together through common projects and initiatives. As the original founding directors retire or move on, the new directors have found a strong partnership to welcome and support them.

PROGRESS TOWARDS GOAL

Besides the initial success of the New Century Community Program, recognized in 2002 as a finalist in the Harvard Kennedy School / Ford Foundation Innovations in American Government Awards program, the partners point proudly to a Pew Charitable Trusts report citing Maine as one of ten states that have led the way in developing statewide funding programs for arts and culture through coalitions of public and private agencies. The Council has from time to time conducted surveys of the field to identify the needs of the cultural sector. This information has been helpful and should prove invaluable for future collaborative planning.

The vision of the Cultural Affairs Council is to ensure that culture, the arts, and life-long learning continue to be prominent and delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible to the people of Maine; the partners believe strongly that cultural programs are an important part of community health and vitality.