Issue Framework

Issue Framework for The Big Canvas Issue Guide

Why an issue framework?
Discussions about what to do about important issues often elicit passionate and broad interactions. That passion and breadth demonstrate just how important the issues are and the intensity of our concern about them. But they also present a challenge in moving the conversation forward to action. Issue frameworks are designed to address just that challenge.

What is an issue framework?
Issue frameworks are a tool developed in the 1990s to help citizens have candid but civil and productive conversations about difficult issues. The framework outlines different approaches or strategies for addressing an issue. Each approach offers a distinct definition of the challenge that lies at the heart of the issue. Each problem definition advances different goals and values that lead to a different set of action steps.

The intent is not for participants to pick one choice and reject the others. Most people find at least a little bit to like in several choices. The goal is to help everyone in the dialogue reach a clearer, deeper understanding of the multiple viewpoints on an issue, including their own, and to identify some common ground for future action.

How is this arts and culture framework set up?
This Big Canvas issue guide outlines four distinct approaches to the goal of preserving and enhancing arts and culture in the Philadelphia region. The approaches reflect and distill the input citizens gave at Big Canvas forums over the summer.
The framework starts with a consensus that emerged at those forums: Arts and culture are vitally important and deserve more public support than they now get around Philadelphia. The question is “What to support and how?” The framework presents four distinct ways to make the case for that support, which lead logically to four different sets of proposed action steps.

Here are summaries of the four approaches:
EXTEND THE ARTS EXPERIENCE: Arts and culture can inspire, teach, connect and heal – benefits to individuals that are real and invaluable, but hard to measure in dollars and cents. Philadelphia is blessed with an array of great cultural activities. The problems are that information about them is spotty, and issues of cost, access, and intimidation pose obstacles. We need a regional arts and culture fund, fed by an earmarked tax, that would address those problems while supporting
art-making.

NURTURE CHILDREN'S FUTURES: Our resources are limited, and we must target our efforts wisely. In the case of arts and culture throughout the Philadelphia area, that means focusing on youth. Exposing young people early, consistently and well to arts and culture will achieve multiple goals: expand their horizons; improve academic performance; inspire them to stay in school and avoid trouble, and build audiences for the long-term. What’s needed is a comprehensive, compelling,
regional strategy to broaden and improve youth arts education. A good strategy would attract the needed funding.

BUILD THE CREATIVE ECONOMY: Arts and culture should proudly claim they rightful place in the larger struggle to rebuild the Philadelphia region’s economy for a 21st-century world. The arts are key to a “creative economy” strategy, focusing on the brainpower-driven sectors – high-tech, biotech, etc. – that produce jobs and wealth in modern America. The arts are a piece of the creative economy themselves, and they help attract and retain innovative companies and talented employees. A regional competitiveness fund should be set up to fund arts initiatives as part of a larger strategy to enhance the region as a magnet for innovation and talent.

FOSTER QUALITY OF COMMUNITY: Most people don’t experience arts in isolation; they don’t worry about government line items or institutional silos. They value the arts as part of the texture of their daily lives, something that enhances quality of life and community. Any bid for increased support of the arts must be framed in terms of community goals that people see as essential to their quality of life. Those goals may be expressed differently from city to suburb, but arts and culture should be a vital piece of a broader quality community initiative that bridges those gaps. The initiative should stress arts programs that build community, bridge divides, preserve heritage, or attack problems such as truancy, crime or family breakdown.

(Illustration by Tim Ogline)