Our Mission:
Advance community driven cultural work, Connect resources to the culture, arts, music and preservation sector, and Advocate for the growth of sustainable cultural investment.
J Muzacz’s portrait of Dolores Huerta at Native Hostel.
Our Impact
3000+
Artists Served Annually
ACA serves artists & organizations across disciplines, connecting them to resources and a broad community network to support their work.
400+
Sponsored Cultural Events
ACA supports over 400 cultural events each year, empowering both emerging and established artists & organizations with access to funding, insurance and employment services.
50
Years of Service
Founded in 1974 as the Austin Circle of Theatres, ACA is approaching half a century of helping artists build successful and sustainable careers.
ACA Believes in An Affirmative Obligation to Confront Systemic Inequalities.
We believe that ACA is in a unique position to act against discrimination within our areas of influence. By fostering inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility we spark innovation and impactful change, better enabling new ideas to be tested and scaled for equitable impact in the nonprofit cultural sector.
These Are The Definitions We Use:
Inclusion: The practice of providing access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded.
Diversity: The practice of including or involving people from a range of different backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, socioeconomic positions, orientations, ages, abilities and anything else that makes a person unique.
Equity: The quality of being fair and impartial while striving to repair historic or ongoing injustice and inequality.
Accessibility: The design of programs, services or environments for people who experience disabilities or marginalization.
ACA Commits…
…to treating all people with dignity and creating an environment that values our differences, including but not limited to age, ancestry, disability, gender expression, gender identity, race, religion, economic and social status, body type and sexual orientation.
ACA Recognizes…
…the systemically rooted power and privilege assigned to dominant groups in our societies, which has shaped the cultural sector. We also understand that any resulting sense of superiority, conscious or not, by dominant groups serves as a foundation for oppressive behaviors, such as ableism, ageism, classism, heterosexism, homophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia and xenophobia. We strive to dismantle these oppressive behaviors and, when possible, seek to change systems that may perpetuate these behaviors within our areas of influence.
ACA Pledges…
…time and resources to enable diverse leadership within our Board, staff, committee, advisory bodies and artists with whom we work. This includes systems that serve to counteract conscious and unconscious bias in recruitment, employment and membership practices.
ACA Advocates…
…for inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility within the cultural sector and the dismantling of barriers to implementing these values. We commit to challenging systems and policies that create and perpetuate inequity, oppression and disparity.