Columbus Metropolitan Club: Creative Capital: How the Arts Power Community Infrastructure

Columbus Metropolitan Club: Creative Capital: How the Arts Power Community Infrastructure
December 3, 2025

The arts are more than inspiration—they’re critical infrastructure. Across Central Ohio, cultural organizations are using shared data and collaborative evaluation to show how the arts drive workforce readiness, economic development, public health, and community well-being. This forum spotlights the Central Ohio Arts Impact Initiative and a growing movement to position the arts as essential to the region’s social and economic infrastructure. Hear from arts leaders, data experts, and civic partners on how creative work is delivering measurable outcomes that align with Central Ohio’s priorities to nurture vibrant urban suburban, and exurban communities.

Whether you’re a funder, policymaker, nonprofit leader, or arts advocate, this conversation will offer bold, cross-sector strategies for investing in the arts as a force for community transformation.

Featuring Dr. Kimberlee Goodman, Executive Director, The McConnell Arts Center; Angela Meleca, Chief Advocate Officer, Meleca Creative Advisors; Priscilla R. Tyson, Former Columbus City Councilmember, and Founder, Priscilla Tyson Consulting, with moderator Sheri Chaney Jones, Co-Founder & CEO, SureImpact.

If you would like to dive more deeply into this topic, our friends at the Columbus Metropolitan Library suggest checking out Run It Like a Business: Strategies for Arts Organizations to Increase Audiences, Remain Relevant, and Multiply Money– Without Losing the Art, by Aubrey Bergauer, 2024.