Arts NC History
Throughout its history, Arts North Carolina has been a strong membership network for individuals and arts organizations across North Carolina. Founded in 1974 as the North Carolina Association of Arts Councils, the organization was instrumental in developing and advocating for the Grassroots Arts Program, a nationally recognized program of decentralized, per capita funding for the arts through the North Carolina Arts Council and local arts councils.
Service and Support
Early on, the organization dedicated itself to providing services to its members. Fundraising tool kits, board development workshops, solicitation license coverage, and an executive director retreat became key services. Soon, more workshops were offered, a quarterly newsletter and an awards program were produced. An annual trade show of performing artists, now ArtsMarket produced by the North Carolina Presenters Consortium and the North Carolina Arts Council, was begun at the 1984 annual conference.
The organization hired its first full-time executive director and established its first permanent office in 1986 after being staffed through an association management firm for three years. Several programs were created working closely with the North Carolina Arts Council while also forming and nurturing partnerships among statewide arts organizations and nonprofit service organizations. In 1991 through a partnership with the NC Arts Council, the Peer Advisory Network (PAN) was established, a nationally recognized program of trained peer professionals available to work with arts organizations for short-term management/technical assistance.
New Name, New Mission
The organization entered a strategic planning process in the spring of 1992. It created a new mission, focus areas, and changed its name from the North Carolina Association of Arts Councils to Arts North Carolina in April 1993, setting a new course for leadership and service to the arts in our state. The strategic planning and resulting name change were driven by the need to address issues of racial inclusion within its governing body and membership and to become an organization that reflected the growing maturity and diversity of the arts industry in North Carolina.
In early 1996 Arts North Carolina entered discussions with Arts Advocates of North Carolina (a 501 c4 organization) to plan for consolidation of the two organizations. By November 1996 the consolidation was successfully completed, and another strategic plan and mission were adopted in the spring of 1997 that included advocacy, networking, and services as key components of the organization’s work. Arts Advocates 501 c4 status was left dormant within the Secretary of State’s purview, and the merged organization did business as Arts North Carolina from then on.
In 2000, fiscal challenges within the organization prompted another strategic planning process to ensure continuing service to the arts industry in North Carolina. Advocacy, communications, and member services were identified as three key areas of focus.
In 2007, the Board of Directors determined that Arts North Carolina should diversify their financial support and began focused efforts to create the Charter Leadership Council of Arts North Carolina which was formed through gifts of $500 an above.
In the years 2002-2008, Arts North Carolina found a new voice and purpose with unprecedented increases in public funding (81%) reflecting the industry’s growing advocacy for support from the NC Legislature. ARTS Day became a successful legislative event drawing more than 300 advocates to Raleigh annually. As the recession overcame the state, these efforts sustained most recurring funds for arts grants with only a 15% reduction during that difficult economic period.
In 2008 Arts North Carolina took on the charge of advocacy for arts education in the public schools, resulting in the Legislative appointment of the Joint Select Committee on Arts Education. By 2009 a high school graduation requirement in the arts passed the NC Senate but not the NC House of Representatives. In 2010, the NC House and Senate unanimously passed S66 to form a joint Task Force to create a Comprehensive Arts Education Plan for K-12. The NC General Assembly then established a Legislative Arts Education Commission in 2011 whose primary purpose was to move the Comprehensive plan from the shelf to the schools. The House passed legislation to establish the arts high school graduation requirement by large margins in 2013, 2015 and 2017. However, each time the bill was not taken up in the NC Senate.
Lobbyists and the Arts Caucus
The balance of North Carolina political power shifted quickly when Republicans took control of both the NC House and NC Senate in 2011 and the Governor’s mansion in 2013. Arts North Carolina adapted to the changing environment by engaging a professional lobbyist beginning in 2013 to navigate the new landscape which was made possible by increased donations and the introduction of new revenue from the sale of The Creative State license plate which now covers 100% of the organization’s lobbying costs annually.
By 2019 Arts North Carolina had leveraged legislative relationships to create the Joint Caucus in Arts and Arts Education, a bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators led by four Co-Chairs, a republican and a Democrat from each chamber, to inform legislators about the economic, civic and educational value of the arts. The “Arts Caucus” quickly included over one third of the entire NC General Assembly with equitable representation from both political parties and empowered a new era of arts investment and policy in the state.
Arts Education Victories
A 2017 law reducing the size of K-3 classroom sizes, but providing no funding for additional teachers, posed an imminent threat to elementary arts educators. Arts NC partnered with several arts educator associations as part of the NC Arts Education Leadership Coalition (AELC) leading a statewide outcry to preserve arts, foreign language, and physical education in elementary schools. This resulted in additional recurring funding being instituted in 2018 which currently totals over $250,000,000 annually, though the legislation did not force local districts to spend the funding specifically for those educator positions.
In 2019 Arts Caucus Co-Chairs in the House filed a fourth bill to create an arts high school graduation requirement, attracting co-sponsors from both parties, which helped it to pass the House 115-3. Several weeks later the Arts Caucus held its first official meeting where the two Senate Co-Chairs announced that they had filed an identical piece of legislation in the Senate earlier that day. The announcement enabled the Senate bill to also gain a bipartisan group of cosponsors, and because of that bipartisan-bicameral support the arts high school graduation requirement was signed into law in 2020 as part of a broad omnibus bill after nearly a decade of advocacy.
In 2023 House Arts Caucus Co-Chairs introduced an arts proficiency high school diploma endorsement which passed that chamber unanimously and, with the support of Arts Caucus Co-Chairs in the Senate, became law as part of the state budget later that same year. The House Arts Caucus Co-Chairs also sponsored legislation to require all public-school K-5 students to receive both performing and visual arts instruction weekly from an instructor certified in each subject in a standard-sized class. In 2025 this language was included in the House version of the state budget, but not the Senate version, and may still be included in a compromise bill between those two chambers, finally securing the investments made by the legislature in 2018 to provide young students with arts education, as was originally intended.
Leadership for Relief and Recovery
The Covid-19 pandemic devastated the arts more than any other sector of the economy in 2020, shuttering theaters and museums around the world. Arts NC moved into action quickly by supporting areas of the federal response that would directly relieve the strain on arts workers and the creative economy as well as by advocating directly to the NC General Assembly for relief funding. The call was answered in September of 2020 when $9.4 million of the state’s federal CARES Act funding was allocated by the state legislators for arts relief grants through the NC Arts Council. Arts NC was also crucial to organizing a coalition to create thoroughly researched recommendations for safely reopening and returning to arts facilities across the state such as theatres and museums, as well as restarting arts instruction at schools statewide in theatre, dance, visual arts, and music. The latter was the product of Arts NC’s leadership within the NC Arts Education Leadership Coalition, which also helped to create the industry consensus needed to pass the NC Arts High School Graduation Requirement.
In 2021 the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was signed into law infusing local and state governments with unprecedented funding to aid economic recovery. Not only did Arts NC ensure that $15 million of state ARPA funding was allocated for arts relief through the NC Arts Council, but they also launched an awareness and training campaign which empowered arts leaders across the state to access millions of ARPA dollars through local governments and school boards.
Funding and Fundraising
Across the 2022 and 2023 NC General Assembly sessions Arts NC successfully advanced recurring funding for the Grassroots Arts Program by $3.5 million, an increase of 125% from $2.8 million to $6.3 million, which enabled local arts councils across the state that receive and regrant those funds to expand their work and increase access to the arts in urban and rural areas alike. In 2023 the NC Arts Foundation secured a matching grant from the Windgate Foundation which Arts NC was able to leverage for $1.5 million in nonrecurring state funding over two years for A+ Schools of North Carolina, a whole-school reform arts integration program housed within the NC Arts Council.
In 2024 flooding caused by Hurricane Helene devastated much of western North Carolina and its creative economy. Within days of the storm NC was partnered in a fundraising effort for relief with the NC Arts Foundation to create the NC Arts Disaster Relief Fund, which raised nearly $1 million and focused the energy of the statewide arts sector toward assisting colleagues impacted by the storm. Arts NC also partnered with Arts AVL to provide the most up-to-date resources and information for artists and arts businesses with our NC Arts Emergency Resources web page. Of course, Arts NC also made the case for relief and recovery support to the NC General Assembly and remains a leading advocate for recovery funding for these catastrophic events and emergency preparedness across the statewide creative sector.
Arts NC continues to be a voice for the entire creative sector, advancing public funding and policy for the arts and arts education.
Arts North Carolina is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization guided by a Board of Directors representative of individuals and organizations who believe every community should have access to public resources and opportunity to build healthy communities through the arts. Staff include one full-time Executive Director/Lobbyist, a part-time Operations Director, and a contract Marketing Director and are represented in the North Carolina General Assembly by Ken Melton and Associates.
Arts North Carolina Leadership
Board Chairs of ARTS North Carolina
Matthew McEnnerney 1974-75
Jim McIntyre 1975-77
Chic Dambach 1977-78
Reid Cone 1978-79
Carolyn Cone Weaver 1979-80
Julian Long 1980
Charles Hesse 1980-81
Jan Eric Strohl 1981-82
Elaine Lorber 1982-83
Jon Gossett 1983
Jan Ellis Kohl 1983-85
Marvin Miller 1985-86
Robert Bush 1986-87
Michael Marsicano 1987-88
Jane Lonon 1988-89
Reggie Johnson 1989-90
Chris Griffith 1990-91
Bruce LaRowe 1991-92
Karen Wells 1992-93
David C. Hudson 1993-94
Sharon Kanter 1994-96
Vincent Marron 1996-97
Blucher Erhinghaus 1998-99
Nancy Dawson-Sauser 1999-2001
Linda Wilkerson 2001-02
David zum Brunnen 2002-04
Georgann Eubanks 2004-07
Deborah Martin Mintz 2007-08
Barbara Benisch 2008-10
Pierce Egerton 2010-2012
Jim Hoyle 2012-2015
Sarah Merritt 2015-2016
Nate McGaha 2016 – Jan 2017
Gilda McDaniel Jan 2017 – 2020
Tim Scales 2020 – 2022
Rhonda Bellamy 2022 – 2024
Katie Cornell 2024 – Present
Board Chairs of Arts Advocates of North Carolina
Mary D.B.T. Semans 1984-86
Betty Cone 1986-88
Dave Phillips 1988-90
Roy Parker 1990-92
Scott Parker 1992-94
Margaret Baddour 1994-96