This report captures lessons learned from a set of management development programs for teams from the 13 states that had been awarded grants through The Wallace Foundation’s State Arts Partnerships for Cultural Participation initiative, or START.
An array of different public causes compete for limited resources. Among these causes are the arts. What does this mean for state arts agencies, or SAAs? How can they ensure that their efforts are understood and get the hearing and resources they deserve?
This report offers guidance on that. It looks specifically at how SAAs can accomplish three key tasks:
The report offers a framework for SAA leaders to develop a strategy for guiding SAA operations and completing these tasks well. The goal is to ensure that resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible to contribute to the public.
The report outlines three distinct issues public managers must address to develop a strategic vision:
The authors depict this trio as a triangle. It is drawn in a way to remind public managers that they are solving a puzzle. The solutions to one problem in the triangle have to “fit”with the solutions to the other parts of the strategic triangle.
The report emerged from a Wallace Foundation effort that provided grants to 13 SAAs to develop ways to build participation in the arts. The effort was known as START, short for State Arts Partnerships for Cultural Participation. As part of the effort, teams from the 13 agencies took part in a series of management development programs. This report captures lessons from this series. The report’s co-author is Mark H. Moore, a Harvard scholar of public management who helped lead the series. The idea of the strategic triangle is based on his theory of public value, described in his book Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government.
The report is aimed at those who lead or manage SAAs. It could also be helpful to those who:
![]()
[S]ociety needs those who lead state arts agencies to have the courage, imagination, and commitments of artists.
— Mark H. Moore and Gaylen Williams Moore
Related reports on state arts agencies and policy are:
Public managers must address three distinct issues in developing a strategic vision: