Click here to read the 2021 Annual Report!

Founded in 1980, the Utah Cultural Alliance (UCA) is a statewide voice for culture working to advance arts, museums, and humanities. As an industry association representing 400+ cultural organizations and thousands of creative professionals, UCA’s two arms, a 501c3 and 501c4, share a unified vision and mission thereby allowing it to advance culture in both the public and private sectors. 

The Utah Culture Alliance Foundation (501c3 arm) works to facilitate an environment in Utah that values the transformative power of arts, humanities, and culture; and prioritizes robust public and private investment in culture through programming, attendance, and lifelong cultural education. To reach this end, we are expanding our major program areas which are 1) providing career development for creative professionals to expand the capacity of the cultural sector to do their work and share their stories; 2) maintaining a state cultural asset map which provides a space for arts and cultural organizations to market their work, as well as connect with each other and patrons; and 3) collecting and reporting data to show the positive impact of the cultural sector on the economic, family, and community life of Utahns. 

The organization began in 1980 as Utah Citizens for the Arts and lobbied for the passage of legislation that created "1% for art" public art programs for the state of Utah. In 1993, with the conception of the 1/10th of 1% RAP-type sales tax to benefit cultural organizations (known as ZAP in Salt Lake County, RAMP in Weber County, RAPZ in Cache, etc.), Utah Citizens for the Arts added humanities, zoos, and botanical organizations to its scope and became the Utah Cultural Alliance to lobby for the passage of this legislation. There are now 41 RAP type taxes in Utah municipalities. In 2016, we grew to include a 501c4 arm focused on advocacy. To keep the focus of these arms separate, the 501c3 arm is now known as Utah Cultural Alliance Foundation, while the 501c4 arm is known as Utah Cultural Alliance. 

Founded by Visit Salt Lake, Utah Division of Arts and Museums, and ZAP, NPU has been managed by Visit Salt Lake since 2008. In mid-2018, Visit Salt Lake CEO approached UCA's Crystal Young to propose that NPU should be managed by a statewide cultural service organization and that he thought the best home was Utah Cultural Alliance. The boards agreed and by fall 2018, NPU has been managed by Utah Cultural Alliance Foundation. The boards wished to remain separate entities and thus NPU contracts with Utah Cultural Alliance Foundation for management. The finances are separate. NPU does not contribute to the salaries of UCAF staff (including its ED) and employs its own staff including a full-time Director of Outreach and part-time content administrator and website administrator. The UCAF executive director does function as the chief vision officer and manager for both entities. This management change was made for a variety of reasons, including the close alignment of our visions and mission.

Since that change, NPU has seen significant changes. In 2018, content management was brought in-house and is overseen by a full-time Director of Operations of NPU. Previously, it was outsourced to a firm in Seattle. The board and UCAF executive director worked to draft NPU’s first strategic plan. NPU surveyed stakeholders and users and in 2019 and 2020 have worked on a complete site overhaul. Traffic has increased by 91.9% increasing site impact (click through to purchase tickets) by an unprecedented 2707% since UCA incorporated NPU into its programming.

Today, 108,560 Utahns are employed in the arts, humanities, and cultural sector—including nonprofit staff, independent artists, and creative business professionals—across the state. In the last year, arts and cultural businesses in Utah generated $17.8 billion in sales and impacted the state by $309 million in total tax revenue. Despite the positive impact of their work on Utah’s economy and quality of life, they are continually threatened by lack of funding, partnerships, and other support necessary to sustain their organizations. The Utah Cultural Alliance serves as a major force in shaping statewide arts, culture, and humanities by providing capacity-building resources