professional membership

Featured Member

Project:	Art Bomb Wisconsin
Organization:	Arts Wisonsin

For Wisconsin's 16th annual Arts Day, a statewide rally for the arts, advocates participated in ‘Art Bomb Wisconsin.’ The state’s arts advocacy organization, Arts Wisconsin, joined with Arts Milwaukee and a local marketing organization, Flipeleven Creative, to organize the campaign. Arts Bomb Wisconsin encouraged artists and supporters to ‘bomb’ state legislator’s social media accounts with art in picture, video, or text. #artbombwi began trending on Twitter, eventually reaching more than 65,000 participating accounts and making impressions on a total of 175,000 accounts.

Arts Day was a comprehensive advocacy effort that brought together a wide combination of strategies formulated to raise visibility and create change. Busloads of supporters from all over the state gathered in the capital of Wisconsin. Upon arrival in Milwaukee, legislators joined arts advocates for a breakfast with entertainment provided by the state’s poet laureate Max Garland and a drum and dance performance by children from a nearby elementary school. The President of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation attended and spoke in support of the arts and in recognition of the economic benefit of investing in a creative economy. The Secretary of Tourism also spoke and shared her own experiences with music and spoke positively about the connection between art and tourism.

Advocates headed to the legislative offices to meet with their representatives, and half of the state's legislative office hosted advocates for meetings. The other legislators were reached as materials were distributed to all offices around the capital. Advocates who were either unable to attend, or unable to secure a meeting with their legislator on that day, were still able to reach their representatives online through the Art Bomb campaign and through Arts Wisconsin’s online legislative action center which prompted advocates to email their representatives.

Arts Wisconsin reported that the 2013 Arts Day brought a record number of supporters to the capital, bringing together state legislators with advocates that included the state’s top leaders and representatives from both small arts councils and large organizations from Milwaukee.

Project Contact:

Anne Katz