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Creative West is thrilled to share a new resource for anyone working to sustain the folk and traditional arts across our region. Finding Shared Values: Methods for Aligning Cultural Management with Practitioners – prepared by the Oregon Folklife Network in partnership with Center for Traditional Music and Dance (NYC) and Texas Folklife, and supported by Live Oak Consulting, Creative West, and the National Endowment for the Arts – offers a replicable, community-engaged model that helps cultural managers surface the values embedded in their own programs. With that clarity, agencies and organizations can better align programming, evaluate impact honestly, and support long-term cultural sustainability.
Working alongside First Nations, Sri Lankan, and Tejano practitioners, researchers in Oregon, Texas and New York identified five shared values that cross cultural and geographic lines:
- Social responsibility and community accountability
- Cultural continuity and lineage
- Connection to land, stewardship and materials
- Resilience, resistance and individual expression
- Cultural generosity and hospitality
Each community expresses these principles in its own way, yet the underlying threads align – offering folk and traditional arts managers, state arts agencies, funders, and cultural organizations a shared language for the work ahead. The report also includes practical recommendations for revising applications, terminology, and evaluation so programs can honor community-defined measures of success.
“Anyone who has worked closely in and with communities has heard culture bearers express these values in their own words,” claims Emily Hartlerode, director of the Oregon Folklife Network. “Summarizing these shared values through research does more than validate what culture workers and culture bearers already know. It provides the tools and terminology to improve our services.”
If you’ve ever felt caught between what your programs require and what your communities truly value, this report speaks directly to that and offers a thoughtful way forward. We invite you to dive in and consider how these findings might shape your next steps.
Read the Full Report
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