Event Roundup: What’s Happening Workshop on Michigan Advocacy

A quick reminder: What is the What’s Happening series?

The What’s Happening series is designed as a set of interactive workshops that help arts and culture leaders stay informed, build new skills, and connect with peers. Each session focuses on current trends, practical tools, and ideas participants can use right away. The throughline is community: leaving with insights and connections that support your work and strengthen our creative ecosystem.

This session focused on Michigan advocacy and created space for both grounding context and real-time dialogue.

Why we gathered

The intention was to:

• Clarify what advocacy infrastructure and resources are available right now
• Aggregate member questions, themes, and emerging trends across the sector
• Share context on how we got here in Michigan arts and culture policy
• Reserve time for participant reflection on what is needed next

That final point shaped the energy of the session. It was a working conversation about what the sector needs to defend, build, and imagine.

CultureSource’s role in advocacy

CultureSource shared a baseline view of how we understand our role right now. This framework may evolve, but it is our current starting point:

Connector
We help connect stakeholders and organizations, strengthen coordination between groups that should be in closer contact, and support new partnerships that might not be obvious at first glance.

Platform Influencer
We work to ensure that decision-makers in Lansing hear directly from arts and culture leaders across the state, including what is working, what is at risk, and what our communities need.

Advocacy Partner
As we deepen this work with our lobbying partner, we aim to be an active ally in shaping strategy and supporting advocacy initiatives across the sector.

Lobbying basics and what it does in practice

Melissa McKinley offered a clear overview of what lobbying is and how it functions day to day. At its core, lobbying helps organizations have a consistent voice at the Capitol. It involves:

• Relationship-building with all 148 legislators, department leadership, and the governor’s office
• Creating access for organizations to meet with policymakers
• Advising on what advocacy channels to activate and when

Melissa emphasized that advocacy works best when it is both collective and specific. A unified voice matters, and individual organizational stories and relationships matter too.

The policy moment: what we are up against

The conversation made it clear that the current environment is not neutral. Michigan arts and culture funding has been pulled into larger national narratives that are shaping budget debates and policy priorities.

Melissa described major challenges from the past year, including:

• Strong opposition to arts and culture funding in the Michigan House
• Rhetoric framing arts and culture support as “fraud, waste, and abuse” rather than community value
• A broader budget climate where “success” can mean holding the line rather than gaining ground
  

A key example raised during the session was the House’s unilateral decision to cut off $645 million in FY25 spending that many organizations expected to carry forward as standard “work project” appropriations. That disruption affected multiple sectors and left organizations mid-contract or on the edge of implementation without stability.

The takeaway was direct: the advocacy climate requires persistence, coordination, and a stronger strategy for public understanding.

What participants brought forward: priorities, tensions, and ideas

1) We need stronger shared data and storytelling

Participants named a clear need for Michigan-specific advocacy tools that connect arts and culture to outcomes people already care about: community wellbeing, education, neighborhood vitality, public health, and economic stability.

There was interest in:

• Shared metrics and a common data story
• Impact narratives grounded in evidence
• A clearer way to communicate the value of arts and culture to decision-makers

2) Advocacy doesn’t move in just one lane

Some participants questioned whether Lansing-focused work can deliver what the sector needs and called for more energy invested in public organizing, coalition-building, and electoral engagement.

There was also a strong “yes and” thread: that it is risky to abandon legislative engagement entirely, even while building broader public power. Multiple people emphasized that advocacy will require both.

3) Funding solutions must be broader than public dollars

Participants raised the need to explore funding strategies beyond state appropriations alone, including:

• Foundation partnerships
• Blended finance models
• Public-private partnerships
• Creative infrastructure investments that support many organizations at once

The conversation acknowledged that foundations are stretched too, and the path forward will likely require multiple strategies operating at the same time. We will continue exploring how foundations, private partners, and public-private strategies might support shared infrastructure and long-term sector resilience.

4) Infrastructure is an unmet creative need

A specific need surfaced that shared, accessible infrastructure for creative work.

Examples included:

• Shared film equipment and creative studio resources
• Maker space access
• Community-oriented creative production hubs

Participants noted that these needs come up consistently across disciplines and deserve attention as part of a longer-term ecosystem strategy.

5) New models worth exploring

Two ideas were introduced as potential future pathways:

• Arts on Prescription models (such as Arts Pharmacy) that connect arts participation with health systems and insurance partners
• Cross-sector coalition opportunities, including education funding efforts that may align naturally with arts advocacy

If you attended, thank you for bringing your questions, urgency, and ideas. If you could not attend, we still want your voice in the conversation. Advocacy is a collective practice, and 2026 will require coordination in Lansing and in our local communities.

What’s next

This workshop was the beginning of a longer arc, not a standalone conversation. Here are the next steps CultureSource is moving toward based on what we heard.

Upcoming conversation with Senator Mary Cavanagh
We are planning a future session with Senator Cavanagh, Majority Vice Chair on the Economic and Community Development, Appropriations Subcommittee. This conversation will help clarify:

• The appropriations process
• Where constituent voices matter most
• How to show up effectively both locally and in Lansing

Register below to join us.