What we heard

Through the community and stakeholder engagement and research activities outlined above, the team was able to identify the strengths are areas of growth and opportunity for Garland’s creative sector and activities.

STRENGTHS

• A history of strong cultural arts leadership, which has led to a celebrated legacy creative activity in the city • A long history of success with core performing arts venues and nonprofits • The creative talent of Garland youth, as a core engine of local creativity • Pride in a diverse range of cultures and modes of cultural expression • Many civic-minded artists with a strong desire for connectivity who want to be a part of the larger civic picture of the city • Festivals and events that are cherished by residents and seeing higher attendance • Not all community members feel that current creative activities are for them. • Not all youth are tapped into information about extracurricular creative opportunities. • Creatives in Garland can sometimes be siloed or in pockets. It can sometimes be difficult to tell who is out there in the city doing creative work. • Downtown is not a frequent destination for some residents and visitors.

OPPORTUNITIES

• Expanding public art in neighborhoods as a means of fostering community pride and identi-ty • Updating the public art policy to support new and expanding activities and interest across different departments • Strengthening staff networks in order to in-crease interdepartmental communication that can support the increase of creative activities throughout the city • Providing expanded opportunities for show-casing youth creativity and talent to even wider audiences • Supporting enhanced programming within recreation centers, parks, libraries, and schools in order to reach out with a broader geograph-ical footprint • Collaborating with other existing career de-velopment programs in order to engage youth in the arts in more diverse ways • Facilitating singular and combined cultural offerings that pull from, and pull in, a diverse range of local residents • A need to identify emerging young creative leaders and provided the support to help them grow and flourish • Overcrowding and parking issues with downtown events • Lack of entrepreneurial leaders living (and giving) in Garland, which reduces impact of philanthropic fundraising • Need for improving recognition of Garland’s creative brand in the region • Confusion by some groups about rental and programming policies for city-owned performance venues and how that impacts programming • Difficulties in communicating with some racial and ethnic communities in Garland that are civically isolated and difficult to reach • Some emerging talent moving to Dallas or elsewhere for opportunity WEAKNESSES

THREATS