The Monmouth County Arts Council, Red Bank, has been selected by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit organization for advancing the arts, to be one of 100 communities that will participate in the inaugural Local Arts Index. These local arts agencies will be part of an 18- month research initiative that serves as a complement to the National Arts Index. The findings from the Local Arts Index will be reported in fall 2011.
The Local Arts Index will be the first county-level study designed to measure the health and vitality of the arts industries throughout the United States. It will use a single methodology utilizing information gathered from research produced by the federal government and private research organizations and covering multiple industries, including nonprofit groups, for-profit arts businesses, and employment figures. When these quantitative measures are taken together, the Local Arts Index will provide a year-by-year and community by-community comparison of the nation’s arts sector.
MCAC was founded in 1971 and is the official county arts agency designated by the N.J. State Council on the Arts and the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders.
MCAC administers the Local Arts Grant Program through the N.J. State Council on the Arts for grants to local arts groups; works with over 75 arts groups and hundreds of artists covering all artistic disciplines; provides an interactive website, www.monmoutharts.org, including an online Artist Registry; publishes X.it Artzine, a magazine highlighting the art events and artists in Monmouth County; arts education programs, including the Teen Arts Festival, the Teen Arts Connection and the Arts Education Awards; This Week in the Arts eblast publicizing upcoming arts events; networking events and workshops for artists and arts organizations; and community arts planning. MCAC’s programs and the groups it supports serve over 745,000 people each year and support over 2,728 arts events in the county.