SRAC leader teases long-term plan details

Springfield Regional Arts Council Inc. Executive Director Leslie Forrester teased portions of the nonprofit’s long-term plan for developing the arts throughout the community yesterday.

Forrester was Springfield Business Journal's June guest for the People You Need to Know live interview series. The event was held at The Backlot at Alamo Drafthouse Springfield.

Forrester said the 10-year planning document, slated for release next month, is the culmination of around 1,000 voices who contributed to the plan through surveys, focus groups and targeted industry conversations.

"It's just like any other business; if we want to see growth, if we want to see more access, if we want to see better facilities, we have to work toward that," she said. "We need a plan to do that."

Forrester said the amount of feedback received gives authority to the plan.

"It's not just Leslie's list of things to do for the next 10 years. It's identified as a list of dreams and hopes and things that we need to do in order to get to a different place a decade from now."

The feedback was also intentionally representative of both the arts community and the broader community, she said, in order to "make sure that the things that we were hearing were truly representative of people who live here and in our surrounding region."


Arts plan details
SRAC’s long-term cultural plan has three goals, according to a review of the draft plan by SBJ. They comprise the following:
• Broaden and deepen Springfield’s engagement in arts and culture
• Cultivate and elevate Springfield’s creative sector
• Develop sustainable infrastructure for Springfield’s arts and culture

Forrester said SRAC is currently brainstorming strategies to accomplish those goals.

The nonprofit is seeking to stage a longer-term arts festival inspired by ones put on in big U.S. cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. It would be held for a period longer than just a single weekend and would combine multiple venues and art forms.

"That's part of the next step of this process is identifying as a community and as arts organizations what we want that broader range arts festival to exist," she said. "It's not just a quick shot one weekend in the spring, but it's a bigger, deeper relationship that we build with the community."

In the wake of the Robert E. Smith mural being painted over with a new mural in downtown Springfield earlier this year, SRAC seeks to create a governance structure for public art throughout the city.

And, Forrester said, SRAC wants the city of Springfield to create a citywide art master plan informed by the city’s existing comprehensive plan, Forward SGF. In keeping with that goal, SRAC wants to seek a sustainable funding mechanism for both public art and for annual SRAC funding.

As SBJ previously reported, Gov. Mike Kehoe cut arts funding in FY26 and FY27, and the Springfield City Council voted in March to allocate $100,000 in one-time funds to fill a gap after another city funding source for SRAC dried up.

The goal is to create a go-to arts and cultural affairs center for the city, Forrester said.

“We’re doing the things,” Forrester said. “If you look at any size city of ours, most of those will have some kind of office of cultural affairs, somebody that can be the group that you call when some business owner calls and says, ‘Who does this mural stuff?’”

She added, “The Art Council’s role is to be that go-to support for the city ... in all of the different ways. ... We’re filling a role that the city cannot do or does not have the capacity to do.”