1. Our 501c4 surveyed 200+ municipal candidates and endorsed 55. We shared survey results with voters. Nearly all endorsed candidates won their election. Scott Phillips who is present was an endorsed candidate!
  2. Cultural Caucus chairs: Senators Lyle Hillyard & Jim Dabakis in the Senate and Representatives Becky Edwards & Patrice Arent in the House.
  3. Three board members in addition to staff attended National Arts Advocacy Day in DC and one attended National Humanities Advocacy Day in DC. Students from SUU and the U were also in attendance. Our petition to save NEA, NEH, and CPB reached over 3,500 signatures. We kept in direct contact with our federal representatives and worked with them to convince them to support federal funding for culture, as well as working closely with Senator Hatch’s office to mitigate the negative impacts of tax reform to the cultural sector.
  4. Our ED, Crystal Young became more involved with cultural advocacy on the national level, and was invited to join the advisory council for SAAN (State Arts Action Network) at Americans for the Arts.
  5. Successfully lobbied for passage of HB 211, adding the Spiral Jetty as the State Work of Land Art; SB 171 adding Native America Rock Art as the State Works of Art; HB 188 which improved the onerous regulations placed around historic districts from the session prior; HCR4 recognizing 50 years of public television; HCR2 recognizing Utah’s participation and history in WWI; and HB137 which improves the regulations set around nonprofits several sessions ago
  6. Successfully lobbied for $4,782,000 in NEW money to arts & humanities projects. This $ amount includes $250,000 in ongoing funds for Utah Division of Arts & Museums’s grants budget. We think that’s the first increase to the grants budget in 12 years.
  7. Our 501c4 graded legislators on their voting record for the first time! Over half of the legislature scored an A or better. It is thrilling to see how many of Utah’s elected officials care about arts & humanities.
  8. When BYU Broadcasting announced that they were getting rid of Classical 89, UCA was there to fight back. Over 16,000 people signed our petition! Classical 89 was saved in 2018.
  9. When the State School board voted to cut the Middle School arts education credits, we were there to fight back. Our petition grew to over 5,000 signatures and thousands of our statewide grassroots advocates reached out to their school board representatives. We worked on a compromise with the school board that maintains arts ed as a requirement for all students. The compromise passed in 2018.
  10. Every year since 2009, we co-hosted Arts Day on the Hill with Utah Division of Arts & Museums and Art Works for Kids. The 2017 Arts Day had over 300 attendees and was our best organized advocacy day. We added a two-day training opportunity in 2016 and have continued it. We also hosted legislative forums before and after the session in partnership with our colleagues at the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts
  11. Hosted culture bytes professional development forums in Moab, Cedar City, Logan, Bountiful, SLC, Ogden, and Orem. We are proud to partner with Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts, and Parks on the professional development forums in Salt Lake City. The Moab forum was the first “Now Serving Utah” panel that we shared with Utah Division of Arts & Museums, Utah Humanities, and nowplayingutah.com. 
  12. Adopted the Arts Alive Collective Impact Project and conducted a listening tour around the state as part of our adoption of that project.
  13. Launched our Cultural Asset Map! This is a culmination of years of research and work.
  14. Authored our second State of Utah Culture report that details the economic impact of Utah’s cultural businesses. We are presenting it to BEDL at the start of the 2018 legislative session).
  15. Worked to foster regular meetings of the cultural community in various geographic areas. We attended Cache’s quarterly meetings twice and we now foster Davis County’s regular meetings. Davis County wants their meetings to be more than information sharing. They also want to set joint advocacy and awareness building goals. We think this is a model that we can replicate in more regions next year.