Jay Dick

I recently found myself in Santa Fe, NM for a meeting of the Steering Committee of the National Association of Counties’ (NACo) Rural Action Caucus (RAC). While Americans for the Arts has partnered with NACo for over two decades, this was the first time that we have taken the arts out of the NACo Arts Commission and into one of the two the larger caucuses of the association (the other being the Large Urban Caucus).

While working with the NACo Arts Commission has proven to be beneficial in promoting the arts on the county level, it has been limited in scope. Many of NACo’s members didn’t even know there was an Arts Committee. Moving the conversation to the RAC exposes the benefits of the arts on a much larger scale.  There are 3,069 counties in America. Of this number, 70% are considered rural with populations under 50,000.  As we know, in every county there is always some form of arts and culture already in existence, but people often take them for granted. For example, at the beginning of my talk, I asked the attendees who had cultural resources, most, but not all raised their hand. After my talk, one County Commissioner approached me to say she didn’t raise her hand, but as I talked, she realized that in fact she did have cultural assets. She just took them for granted and didn’t see them as economic engines.  

Jay Dick speaking to the RAC Steering Committee on the economic impact of the arts in rural counties.

I showed the Commissioners our Arts and Economic Prosperity Study and Creative Industry Reports. It would be an understatement if I said they were totally captivated and surprised by the number of arts related activity that was going on in their mostly small, rural counties. My favorite example is Custer County, ID, a very small county in central Idaho with a population of 4,342 spread over 4,936 square miles. Commissioner Lin Hintze was amazed to hear that he had 10 different cultural businesses in his very rural county. He then went on to pick my brain on how they could make use of their old ghost towns to attract tourism!

Walking away from the meeting, I was approached separately by several other commissioners who told me that my presentation/topic was new to the RAC, but how they thought it was the most useful of the conference. I heard the same from NACo staff. I am confident this is the beginning of a new opportunity to advance the arts in rural settings across America.

After returning home, I was contacted by NACo leadership and asked if I would do the same style of presentation at NACo’s Large Urban Caucus meeting in March.

Please reach out to your county officials and get to know them if you don’t already. They can be a tremendous asset to the arts! If you have any questions, please email me.