---
title: "Cultural plan"
description: "A municipality’s long-range strategy for arts and culture: what it will fund, build, program, and protect, and how it will know whether any of it worked."
glossary: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary"
source: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/cultural-plan"
---

# Cultural plan

> A municipality’s long-range strategy for arts and culture: what it will fund, build, program, and protect, and how it will know whether any of it worked.

Glossary: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary  
Source: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/cultural-plan

A cultural plan covers the whole cultural ecosystem (facilities, festivals,
grants, heritage, creative industries), with public art usually appearing as
one chapter or a companion document (the public art master plan). The
distinction matters when reading either one: the cultural plan sets the
city's ambitions; the master plan is where public art gets its mechanics.

Plans live or die on two details that have nothing to do with vision: every
action needs a named owner, and every owner needs a budget line. A cultural
plan without those is a mood board.

Related terms: [Public art master plan](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/public-art-master-plan), [Cultural asset mapping](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/cultural-asset-mapping), [Creative placemaking](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/creative-placemaking)

## Mentioned in

- [From Open Data to a Living Guide](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/from-open-data-to-a-living-guide)