LAC Spotlight - Meet Kathy Mouacheupao!
Of our Local Advisory Committee members, I was particularly excited to interview my friend and colleague Kathy. And that’s not just because she and I are cut from the same arts-and-culture-loving cloth, but also because she is one of few LAC members to come from the LISC Twin Cities staff team! With the vantage point of both staff and LAC, I thought she would have some great insight to share with us during this time of transition - and I was right! I sat down with Kathy last week to ransack her thoughts for insights - read ahead to find out more.
Kathy currently serves as the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC), a position she stepped into following her time as a Creative Placemaking Program Officer at LISC.
Can you tell me a little bit about MRAC and your role there?
MRAC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit whose primary responsibility is to improve arts access as a steward of public resources. We’re a part of an 11 Regional Arts Council system across the state - Minnesota is divided into 11 different regions and each has an arts council. MRAC serves the 7-county metro, and is not a government organization. However because a majority of our money comes from the state, and because we were created out of the state, we have an accountability to these resources that's different than if we were privately funded.
How that works in practice: you can do whatever you want with your paycheck. But when you and your neighbors pool resources for a particular purpose, you have a different kind of responsibility and decision making when it comes to that pool of money. Like - you can’t just get your own lawn done every year and ignore everyone else. We do partner with the MN State Arts Board, which is a government agency. MRAC serves formal and informal groups with annual expenses less than $400,000, there is some overlap, but typically, the State Arts Board serves the larger organizations.
In some ways LISC really set me up for this work, as LISC does a lot of work with cities and municipalities, and LISC works with federal tax credits in various cross-sector relationships.
MRAC was created through the legislature, and all of the “RAC”s are 501(c)3s. We’re arms to reach “every community and every county in the state.” Through the regional arts councils we have a different feel for what is happening on the ground and in community - we work with much smaller, grassroots organizations than the State Arts Board in communities where the Regional Arts Councils are present. Our primary responsibility is to distribute resources to make sure we’re supporting all communities to create access to the arts.
The creation of the RAC system predates legacy funding. The RACs began in the 70s and 80s, and we’ve always received a small portion from the state’s general fund. These days, about $822,000 comes from the general fund while over 5 million comes from Legacy funding for MRAC.
Minnesota's Legacy funding, also known as the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment, is a state sales tax that funds programs and projects to preserve Minnesota's history and culture, protect clean water, and support parks and trails:
Last year MRAC funded over $5 million dollars to arts programming in the Metro area. If we did not have legacy, we’d be an $800,000 org with a staff of one or two, doing between $600,000-700,000 in grants. MRAC also gets approximately 200,000 from the McKnight Foundation each year to support artists in their professional development.
What was the pathway that led you to this work?
For the record, I loved my job at LISC, I was not looking for a new job. This job and this role was an opportunity that I felt like had to take, at a really exciting time.
Prior to LISC, I was the Executive Director at the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT). I was there for about 10 years, before I left in 2011.We were a small, scrappy organization that did a lot of stuff.
During that time, I met Erik Takeshita (another former LISCer and arts and culture advocate in the Twin Cities) while we were both serving on the board of Springboard for the Arts.
That's awesome! What brought you to LISC initally?
After I left CHAT I received a BUSH fellowship, and I spent the next few years reflecting and learning about Hmong artists, culture, and identity. When my fellowship was up, I was not sure what I was going to do next. I didn’t have a degree in nonprofit management or arts administration, it was all a labor of love that I learned along the way.
That’s when the Creative Placemaking position at LISC came up. The first 6 months at LISC were so hard for me. I felt like an imposter in the room. The language was entirely different from what I was used to. It took me a long time to realize that when LISC was talking about “projects” they were talking about buildings, but when I was talking about projects, I was talking about people coming together and doing cool stuff.
As I became acclimated, I began to think more about what community development could look like through the arts. Gradually, I built up my confidence in who I was and what I was bringing to the work. I started to see the things that were missing. After that, it was AWESOME!
What is something that’s exciting to you about the future- for LISC, MRAC, or both?
We hired a communications person at MRAC and we have new staff people. We’re going to be a team of nine which is the largest team MRAC has had. With additional team members it will be exciting to ramp up.
For LISC, leadership transition can be challenging - but it also feels like this is happening at a good time. It will be important to find leadership that understands the role of Arts & Culture, especially as part of a National organization. Only in the offices where there was actual leadership buy-in, did they see the Creative Placemaking work transcend to something more significant and not based on sporadic funding. That’s been the case for the Twin Cities - it has been steady, and it’s important to preserve that.
I think Erik’s leadership played a big role in why LISC Twin Cities became a leader in the National Creative Placemaking program. He saw the potential in what was already happening here.
We know that there’s arts and culture in every community. We know that there is vibrancy with arts and culture in the places where LISC is working.
Chair Maria Rosario Jackson of the National Endowment for the Arts is going to be rolling off soon, and a lot of the work she’s been doing has been getting arts and culture in other departments. Likewise, we need leadership and connectivity not just because they see the money in it, but because they understand the positive impact it has on the community and in the work.
Everybody thrives better in different settings. I think a good leader is somebody that is aware of their leadership style, and what team members need to thrive and set them up for success so that they can better accomplish the goals of the organization. LISC Twin Cities has a great existing team, an important tool kit for thoughtful and effective community and economic development, and authentic relationships. What an exciting time for new leadership!
More about Kathy: