AB760 is a grant program to support creative industries, job creation, or economic development in this state and making an appropriation.

Elizabeth Aguillera

I thank you, Representative Kaufert and members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak today in support of the Creative Economy Development Initiative, Assembly Bill 760.

I am Elizabeth Aguillera from the City of Stevens Point in Portage County. I am the executive director of the Arts Alliance of Portage County, a private, nonprofit arts and culture advocacy organization. Our mission is to connect, engage and advocate for arts & culture across Portage County. Our population is around 70,000 people.

I am here today to support this bill because it reflects the work the Art Alliance has been doing on the local level since 2012. We annually measure the economic impact of our nonprofit arts & culture organizations.  We have been raising awareness of the creative assets we have in our county and have inventoried these assets and uncovered a data profile of our creative industry.  In presenting this data to the community and local government leaders, we have discovered Portage County has a Creative Economy that with some support, vision and investment is ready to grow.

We have great cultural assets – the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, community theater, children’s community theater, UW-Stevens Point’s Noel Fine Art Center, Suzuki Center, art galleries, breweries, and a distillery, just to name a few. Bill AB760 could positively affect our organization, arts & culture nonprofits, for profit businesses and individual working artists and students in our county in so many ways.  By making matched funding available at the state level for creative industry development, it inspires matching investment by local companies into our cultural assets. It puts arts & culture at the table as an important part of the development of a thriving, vibrant economic community.

Specifically, it could fund arts & culture tourism and promotion expanding our local brand, “Arts & Culture: No Shortage in Portage.” It could assist in funding creative start-ups, partnerships, cooperatives and incubators.  It could help fund teaching artist programs that bridge the gap between local artists and schools, providing arts integration education for students and workforce development training and a new income stream for local artists.  It could leverage existing small business development and entrepreneurship services to benefit graduating students of UW-Stevens Point, as well as local individual artists, musicians and performers.

These examples are but a few of the incredible possibilities this funding could provide.  Please support the Creative Economy Development Initiative and invest in Wisconsin’s Creative Industry Sector!  Thank you.