Recap of Arts, Heritage, and Science Week

Picture from AHS Week 2025

Dear Cultural Partners, Allies, and Supporters,

During the first week of February, Inspire Washington and our state cultural partners hosted Arts, Heritage, & Science (AHS) Week. As a unified and resounding chorus, advocates from communities across the state raised their voices to champion state-level support for cultural programming. Even snowy conditions couldn't dampen their enthusiasm!

We are thrilled to report this was our biggest AHS Week to date! Here is a breakdown of our 2025 stats:

257 total registrations (210 advocates in person, 47 virtual only)
115 meetings with 119 lawmakers or staffers. That's over 80% of the Legislature!
48 out of Washington's 49 legislative districts were represented by at least one advocate.
82 hearty advocates made it to Olympia despite snowy conditions with many pivoting to virtual participation.

If you advocated this year, thank you! We are so grateful for your significant contribution of time and passion. Your storytelling animates our legislative requests and articulates the vital need for cultural programming in every Washington community. If you weren't an AHS Week advocate this year, please join us in 2026 to benefit from this amazing advocacy, networking, and conscious-raising event.

What's Next?

AHS Week is a critical step in our annual state campaign, but the work is far from over. Over the next 8 weeks, the Legislature will approve a final budget and lucky bills will become law before the Session ends on April 27th.

Please stay engaged:

If you haven't already, join our online advocacy platform, the Inspiration League to receive action alerts.
Track legislation that matters to you and/or your community.
Attend in the weekly Heritage Caucus on Wednesdays at 7am.
Stay tuned for advocacy opportunities in the state budget process. First drafts will be released mid April.

This is a challenging time for government advocacy but together we are lifting up the importance of science, heritage, and arts programs; protecting the resources you need; and building a stronger and more unified cultural sector in Washington.

Community Accelerator Grant 2025

ArtsFund is pleased to partner with the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation on a third round of the Community Accelerator Grant, a $10 million investment in Washington state’s arts and culture sector. The program, provides unrestricted grants to cultural nonprofit organizations across Washington state. In the program’s second year, it awarded 811 grants to organizations reaching 37 of Washington’s 39 counties. The funds are intended to boost arts organizations’ ability to invest in their missions and essential roles serving communities across the state.

To learn more click here

Inspire WA is going to DC!

From March 1-7, we will be in DC and meeting with your Congressional representatives to advocate for continued cultural support, freedom of expression, and a hands-off approach to your programming. This is critical work, so we need your support to fuel and fortify our efforts!

We aren't doing this work alone. We will be advocating under the banner of the Arts Leadership Advocacy Seminar. Convened by Creative West (formerly WESTAF), Inspire Washington will be part of a 100-member advocacy force representing the 13 Western States and the 3 Pacific Jurisdictions. We have spent over 6 months developing our legislative agenda and will add new stories to represent the threats that have emerged over the last month. An incredible amount of energy and time has gone into planning and developing our congressional strategy. We are deeply grateful to Creative West for leading the seminar and their generous contribution to our travel costs. Right now, we need our Washington community to make up the difference.

Please contribute to Inspire Washington to help us offset the tremendous staffing time this federal advocacy work entails. You can do this in a variety of ways:

Individuals may make a tax-deductible donation here. We encourage donations of any size and frequency. We recently added monthly recurring giving options to our donation platform and we're so grateful for the individuals that have taken that up!

Cultural Businesses and allies may join Inspire Washington as a dues-paying partner here. Our advocacy has delivered tangible results like Working Washington 5 grants and our five Cultural Access Programs (Tacoma Creates, Inspire Olympia, Doors Open King County, Inspire San Juan County, and City of Vancouver), to name a few. If half of the organizations that benefit from our work joined Inspire Washington, we'd have all the financial resources to get through this year with strength and certainty. That's less time fundraising and more time advocating!

We hope you will support our efforts. It is an honor to advocate for Washington's cultural sector and the need for a unified voice to push back on threats is more important than ever. While we are deeply passionate about supporting you, we cannot succeed without increased support. Please stand with us so that we may protect all of Washington’s valuable and uplifting cultural programs.

In Solidarity,

The Inspire Washington Team

About Inspire Washington

Inspire Washington nurtures the human spirit and strengthens communities by increasing access to science, heritage, and arts programming through advocacy, resource development, education, and coalition building.

Inspire Washington

info@inspirewashington.org

P.O. Box 806, Seattle, WA 98111

InspireWashington.org

Manuel R. Cawaling, Executive Director: manny@inspirewashington.org

Jessi Wasson, Deputy Director: jessi@inspirewashington.org

Anna Tatelman, Annual Fund Manager: anna@inspirewashington.org

Madeline Dalton, Outreach Coordinator: advocacy@inspirewashington.org

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