CBCA’s 2024 Achievements and 2025 Priorities

As we usher in a new year and a 40^th anniversary milestone for CBCA, I am amazed how quickly time flies by! There were many highlights and achievements to celebrate at CBCA in 2024 and we couldn’t have done it without our member companies, board members, committee volunteers, donors, funders, sponsors, partners, and dedicated staff that contributed generously over the past year.  Thus, I want to briefly celebrate the successes of the past year while also providing a glimpse of what is to come in the new year.

Highlights from 2024:

• It was a standout year in advancing Colorado’s arts, culture and creative ecosystem through CBCA-led arts advocacy and policy initiatives. We are extremely grateful to our state legislators, CBCA’s policy committee, Colorado Cultural Champions and many others that contributed to help achieve the passage of record legislation this year in support of our creative sector.
• We engaged and delighted CBCA members and their employees with memorable monthly ArtsConnect arts and cultural experiences, Member Meet-Up events dedicated to networking, and produced another outstanding Business for the Arts Awards luncheon celebrating exemplary arts and business partnerships from across the state.
• We continued to grow our support of artists and creative entrepreneurs through our Advancing Creatives Intensive (ACI) and Colorado Attorneys for the Arts (CAFTA) programs designed to serve the unique needs of creative small business owners. CBCA also graduated the largest Leadership Arts class in 2024 and raised a record-breaking amount for the Deborah Jordy Leadership Arts Scholarship Fund.
  

  Advancing Creatives Intensive (ACI) 2024: Denver Metro cohort

• We completed Creative Dialogues, an arts advocacy community listening tour visiting all four corners of the state prioritizing historically marginalized and underserved communities with the consulting support of Empowered. This completed a 1.5-year community input process that resulted in the creation of Colorado’s Arts Policy Framework, which was recently unveiled publicly and also shared with legislators at an Arts Caucus convening.
• CBCA’s Board of Directors continues to demonstrate strategic leadership and governance to steward us into the future. In 2024, we welcomed a new board chair, Nancy Walsh, as well as several new board and committee members. We gathered at Cherokee Ranch & Castle Foundation for a full day retreat of board and staff. Through the guidance of our strategic planning committee and Centrality Research, we surveyed and facilitated focus groups with diverse CBCA stakeholders, analyzed qualitative and quantitative data, and continue to make progress on the development of our next strategic plan.

CBCA Board of Directors and Staff ay May 2024 Retreat at Cherokee Ranch & Castle Foundation

Looking ahead to our 40^th anniversary year, CBCA has several priorities for 2025:

• We are deep into planning the 2025 Business for the Arts Awards luncheon, which will celebrate new cross-sector partnerships and individual leaders while also celebrating CBCA’s 40^th anniversary.
• We will build on our 30-year research legacy, as the next Economic Activity Study of Metro Denver Culture will be released in the Fall of 2025. This is a critical advocacy tool for the regional nonprofit arts and cultural sector validating their substantial economic impact as a key industry sector that provides jobs, advances cultural tourism, as well as facilitates arts access, education, outreach and volunteerism.
• Colorado Attorneys for the Arts (CAFTA) will celebrate its 10^th anniversary of serving the nonprofit and for-profit creative sector with legal pro bono referrals and education to support their distinct business needs. This will culminate as CBCA hosts the annual National Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts convening in Denver next year.
• CBCA will continue to invest in its cohort training programs: ACI provides business planning and professional development for creative business owners; and Leadership Arts, provides a pipeline of diverse leaders to serve on nonprofit boards. ACI will travel to Manitou Springs and Aurora to serve creative business owners in 2025, while Leadership Arts will graduate its 2024-25 cohort in May and welcome the 2025-26 cohort in September. We will also embark on a feasibility study to determine potential for expanding access and impact of Leadership Arts to constituents in other parts of the state.
  

  CBCA’s 2024 Leadership Arts Graduates at the Board Fair and Graduation Celebration held at the Arvada Center, image by Austin James Photography

• We will continue to prioritize state and federal arts advocacy, including broadly sharing the new arts policy framework, develop a future legislative agenda, and work with new leaders of the Arts Caucus, as well as CBCA’s policy committee and Colorado Cultural Champions (CCC), to advance arts friendly policies. We will also lead Colorado’s delegation to Washington, D.C. in March with the support of Creative West and the Western Arts Advocacy Network (WAAN).

Colorado Cultural Champions

• CBCA’s board and staff will reconvene at another retreat in May, and we will launch CBCA’s next strategic plan in the summer to support the future vision of the organization.

CBCA’s 40^th anniversary milestone in 2025 is not one we take lightly. There have been so many people and organizations that have significantly contributed to CBCA’s success over the past 40 years. It’s exciting to envision what the next 40 years will be for CBCA and the impact we strive for in advancing our creative economy to help artists thrive, make arts accessible to all, and ultimately build healthier and more vibrant communities. Our mantra for the year: The Past Informs. The Future Transforms.

The Past Informs. The Future Transforms. Celebrating 40 Years Forward

At this time of reflection, I think of my own personal journey with CBCA shortly after I relocated to Colorado, which started with participating in the inaugural Leadership Arts program. I am humbled and inspired to see the growth of this signature program, which graduated our largest cohort ever in 2024, and now has nearly 1,200 alumni that serve as cultural leaders serving on nonprofit boards in communities around the metro region and state. As I approach my 8-year anniversary as CBCA’s executive director, it reminds me again just how fast time flies, especially when one is blessed to work in service to others and make Colorado a better place to live, work and play through the nexus of arts and business.

CBCA will continue to support our creative ecosystem’s future growth and sustainability to advance our economy, community health and well-being. I am inspired by CBCA’s advocacy and programming that continue to serve many diverse audiences, from our nonprofit arts and cultural sector, for-profit artists and creative small business owners to our vast and booming business community that choose to locate their companies and employees here in Colorado. As a small nonprofit with limited capacity, we continue to strive to meet the demands of all our stakeholders and expand our impact to additional communities, companies and individuals that desire and need our programs and services.

Left to right: CBCA Executive Director Christin Crampton Day, CBCA Membership and Development Manager Sarah Braverman and CBCA Board Member Maye Cordero at the 2024 Board of Directors Retreat

Although I am generally an optimist, I won’t sugar coat it. Not only will 2025 be a milestone year for CBCA to celebrate, but it will likely bring new challenges to our creative sector and CBCA where together we will need to be resilient, innovative and resolute in support of Colorado’s arts, culture and creative economy. This is certainly not a time to take our foot off the gas but to ramp up our collective advocacy, outreach and impact. In this time of fast-paced changes impacting both our arts and business climate, we will continue to assess the ongoing shifts in private, public and corporate engagement and philanthropy in the cultural and creative sector.

In summary, we are thankful to CBCA’s many champions and patrons for your contributions over the past year, steadfast support over the past 40 years, and I hope you will continue to invest in CBCA on behalf of our state’s arts, culture and creative ecosystem in 2025 and beyond. We simply can’t do it without you, and we are sincerely grateful to our CBCA village.

Happy New Year!

Christin