Conservation Minnesota and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts (MCA) recognized the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council (SMAC) at Minnesota’s Arts Advocacy Day on March 27, 2014 for the impact the organization is having statewide utilizing funds provided by the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

“For the past few years, our organizations have been singling out communities that have done a good job of utilizing Legacy funds, and this year, we decided to include the State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils and some other organizations as a nod to the tremendous work they are each doing,” said Paul Austin, Executive Director of Conservation Minnesota.

The Minnesota State Arts Board and each of the eleven Regional Arts Councils received “Legacy Partners” awards for effective and extensive use of public panels to make grant decisions. Between them, the twelve agencies worked with 768 people providing more than 34,000 volunteer hours of expertise on the best use of arts state dollars.

“Other agencies should look to the Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils on how to effectively use public input in decision making,” said Sheila Smith, Executive Director of MCA. “While no process is perfect, their work takes place in transparent, open meetings and has resulted in great impact in arts access statewide.”