Guide for Business Districts to Work with Local Artists

Springboard for the Arts / International Downtown Association / National Endowment for the Arts, 2017

Resource Overview

This guide provides strategies for partnerships between artists and business districts to address a wide variety of goals. It outlines the typical steps in creative placemaking project planning and implementation but geared specifically to potential ROIs for business districts.

Key Sections

Realizing Partnerships

Page 8 outlines nine best practices business districts who want to work with artists.

Pages 12-14 provide questions and suggestions to think about when identifying project stakeholders and their roles.

Pages 30-43 give narratives of six different creative placemaking projects involving partnerships between artists and business districts.

Securing Capital

Pages 15-16 give an overview of funding and budgeting strategies, including a sample budget.

Working with Artists

Pages 18-22 provide questions and suggestions to think about when writing and disseminating a call for artists, and then selecting an artist.

Pages 24-25 provide suggestions for artist management tasks such as contract development, artist insurance and copyright, press releases and social media, and project documentation. 

Page 48 is a sample artist partnership agreement. 

Page 49-50 is a sample artist project application. 

Page 51-52 is a sample artist contract. 

Page 53 is a sample transfer of title agreement.

Learning and Iterating

Pages 26-28 provide questions and suggestions to think about when creating an evaluation plan.

Page 54 is a sample artist final report template.

Page 55 is a sample project collaborator survey.