About the Fostering Arts Partnership

Welcome to the Fostering the Arts & Culture Partnership and to our new website!

This is an exciting organization of six unique partners working to assist all artists in the Franklin County region by offering business courses and trainings that will make a difference for individual artists and the Creative Economy as a whole.

The arts are a powerful industry in New England. We influence spending, have employment power, create a regional identity, and generate interest and excitement. Our creative efforts help make "home" more vibrant and interesting, and bring cultural dollars to our towns that support local restaurants, hotels and b&bs, gas stations, and stores, as well as our own creative work.

According to a study by The New England Council: The Creative Economy, both nonprofit arts organizations and commercial organizations and individual artists "supports almost 245,000 jobs in New England, an amount that nearly equals the computer equipment cluster and more than the software and healthcare technology clusters combined." As a collective, we have great power, but as individuals, there remain significant needs, the most important of which is to make a living from one's work.

The goals of the Fostering the Arts and Partnership are to:

• Learn from area artists of all genres what you need to succeed
• Offer one or two evening business courses so artists can help themselves and better manage the creative, marketing, financial and other aspects of work
• Offer information and support in the form of workshops, individualized business plans and one-on-one counseling through the individual partners
• Build a database of area artists, musicians, crafters, graphic designers, and others
• Provide this website to serve as a place to promote your work, and continually add articles and resources
• Discover how a Performing Arts Space could serve the region by becoming an exceptional art gallery, a performing artist's showcase, home base for the Pioneer Valley Symphony and other performing arts, and the host site for materials shared resources for recording artists and visual artists to record or document their art, offer classes in well-constructed facilities, and much more
• Hold an important Summit to pull together 2006 discoveries and plan for 2007 and beyond

Building the database is critical in stressing to potential funders, tourism organizations, and others just how large the region's creative sector really is, and why dollars invested in building the arts and the arts infrastructure can make a significant difference not only to artists, but to the larger region.

To boost some of this potential, the Fostering the Arts & Culture Partnership invites every artist or creative person in the region to:

• Join the database and be counted
• Sign up for email alerts, information on exhibition opportunities, and general news
• Create your artist profile for our webpage &/or
• Link your existing website to by visiting the Join page at massartandculture.org
• Take a class or series of classes to improve your business skills and make it easier to focus on your work, or learn about copywright laws, marketing, bookkeeping, and more
• Attend one or all of our upcoming Creative Conversations, an evening of guided discussion on topics planned to stimulate thinking and your work
• Attend an Upcoming Event
• Check our site often for new features, calendar of events, and new classes and workshops.

The Fostering the Arts and Culture Partnership is a project of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation (FCCDC), Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and Greenfield Business Association (FCCC), Franklin-Hampshire Regional Employment Board (FH-REB), Greenfield Community College (GCC), MassCountryRoads.com,River Culture, and the Shelburne Falls Area Business Association (SFABA).