We are excited to share our new video encapsulating our vision for American arts, culture, design, and craft. 

Here at 4A Arts, we know that in order to create an arts ecosystem that thrives instead of merely survives, we will have to develop and initiate new approaches to arts advocacy. We seek to move beyond “preaching to the choir” of artists and arts advocates who already understand both the importance of arts and culture and the challenges that face them today. Instead, we hope to reach everyday Americans, whose support is essential for galvanizing any kind of social movement.

With this in mind, we base our advocacy materials firmly on research on narrative change and the science of what makes people care and change, including work from the Stanford Social Innovation Review, We Make the Future Action, the Center for Public Interest Communications, and more. Our advocacy materials are grounded in the understandings that:

• Until everyday Americans change their beliefs about the value of arts and culture, meaningful change is impossible.
• People need to be able to see and imagine what change looks like in order to effect it.
• Storytelling that makes people feel good about doing something is the best way to encourage them to do it.
• Advocacy without specific calls to action is simply “preaching to the choir.”

We’re appealing to all citizens to join the fight and change the prioritization, the appreciation, and the narrative around American creativity. If you care about American identity, you already care about American culture, since one sculpts the other. And in this age of political polarization, AI, social media, and distracted overstimulation, culture needs our active support. 

4A Arts takes an expansive and inclusive approach to defining American culture. We believe that every person is an artist, and that American culture is crafted as much by quilters, leatherworkers, weavers, and graphic designers as much as by dancers, authors, or Hollywood producers. 

Join us and reach for greater possibilities of a healthier, stronger United States when we lift up the essence of what makes America American: arts, culture, design, and craft.