Art and Democracy: Seeing the Full Picture Beneath the Surface
/By Clare Nolan
Last weekend, I attended Carnaval in San Francisco with friends. The streets were alive with color, movement, and music—people of all ages and backgrounds dancing together in celebration of culture and community. It was a joyful, defiant act of presence and pride.
But behind the scenes, many of the nonprofits and cultural organizations that make events like this possible are facing deep uncertainty. A recent article highlighted how longstanding organizations that support cultural celebration, community healing, and civic connection are struggling to stay afloat as public funding diminishes.
Carnaval isn’t just a parade. It’s an expression of shared civic life, alive in the streets. These moments of collective joy, cultural expression, and belonging are essential to how communities engage, participate, and imagine themselves as part of something larger. That day offered a glimpse of something bigger: the vital role of art in sustaining democracy, and the growing threats to the infrastructure that supports it.
Across the country, we’re seeing sharp reductions in public funding for the arts, alongside rising political attacks on free expression, civic participation, and social justice movements. Recent federal policies, including cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, content restrictions, and efforts to delegitimize nonprofit work, are not isolated decisions. They’re part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent and narrow the public imagination.
In this climate, the work of artists and cultural organizers is essential. As Vu Le shared in his recent blog, “Art is a means of speaking truth to power... a vital tool to wake people up and mobilize them.” Art helps shape culture, defend democratic values, and offer spaces for reflection, resistance, and relationship, especially when other institutions falter. As pressures mount, artists across the country continue to create spaces that help people stay connected to possibility and to each other.
For funders and evaluators alike, this raises an important question: How do we understand and convey the full range of what art makes possible, including contributions that are harder to see and measure?
The Iceberg Model: Understanding Art’s Influence
Our recent collaboration with For Freedoms and Movement Voter Fund (MVF) explored how art and artists can strengthen democracy. Through billboards in swing states, artist-led town halls, and the For Freedoms Congress, the initiative aimed to spark dialogue, connect communities, and inspire civic action.
At the outset, we recognized that many of art’s most meaningful contributions aren’t easily captured through traditional measures and set out to explore different ways of seeing and valuing art’s influence. We found that art’s influence often resembles an iceberg: what’s most visible is only a fraction of the whole. Tangible outcomes sit at the tip, while deeper shifts unfold below the surface.
Visible Impacts (Above the Waterline). Outcomes that can be easily counted, like the number of people who attended an event or impressions from a public campaign. These metrics are often prioritized because they are concrete and readily available.
Patterns and Trends (Just Below the Surface). Art shapes behaviors, public conversations, and cultural narratives. For example, it can spark dialogue around critical issues or influence how communities engage with one another over time.
Underlying Structures. At a deeper level, art strengthens the relationships, systems, and networks that sustain civic participation. This includes building connections between artists, organizers, and funders that create pathways for lasting collaboration.
Mental Models (Deepest Level). Art has the power to transform mindsets—how people perceive democracy, power, and their role within it. By sparking imagination, art invites us to see the world differently and envision new possibilities for change.
It’s important to note that not all art operates on all levels, nor does it need to. Some efforts prioritize immediate, visible action, while others aim to shift systems or inspire transformation over time. All of these contributions have value—even if some are harder to measure.
Infographic titled “ARt’s influence operates on multiple levels.” Visible impacts are illustrated above the waterline. underlying patterns, structures, and mental models are illustrated below the waterline.
Case in Point: Carnaval
San Francisco’s Carnaval is more than a parade; it’s a layered expression of civic life that illustrates how art operates across the iceberg levels:
Visible Impacts. Tens of thousands of people fill the Mission District streets. Local businesses see a surge in revenue. Media coverage and social media impressions spike. The city issues permits and shows up with infrastructure.
Patterns and Trends. Carnaval affirms joy, visibility, and cultural belonging for Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities in a city grappling with gentrification. It invites all San Franciscans to reconsider who public space is for—and who gets to be seen.
Underlying Structures. Behind the scenes are dozens of cultural groups like Loco Bloco, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and Dance Mission Theater whose organizing spans youth leadership, racial justice, and community healing. Carnaval serves as a connective hub where artists, organizers, and funders build long-term civic relationships.
Mental Models. At its deepest level, Carnaval challenges dominant ideas of what democracy looks like. It offers a vision grounded in cultural pride, solidarity, and joy as resistance and reminds us that participation isn’t only about voting. It’s about showing up, together, in public.
Carnaval makes visible the layered ways art can strengthen civic life—from public presence to deeper cultural meaning. It also reminds us that the most transformative contributions are often the hardest to quantify. As public funding retracts and philanthropic pressure to “show results” grows, it’s important to ask: What might we miss if we only value what we can easily see and measure?
What Funders Can Learn from the Full Picture
For funders investing in art as part of a civic or democratic strategy, this moment calls for deeper reflection. The question isn’t just whether art is effective, but whether we’re fully seeing and valuing the many ways it contributes to change. Through this learning effort, a few key lessons emerged:
Not all art focuses on the same outcomes. Some efforts emphasize visible engagement and reach, while others focus on shifting systems, relationships, or mindsets over time. Funders can embrace this full continuum of contribution and invest accordingly.
Look beyond what’s visible. The less tangible influences, like shifts in cultural narratives, relationships, and mindsets, are often harder to measure but more important. Funders can ask: What deeper shifts might this work be seeding over time?
Adapt evaluation to fit the work. Art’s contributions are often layered, relational, and emergent—qualities that traditional metrics can miss. Funders can support creative approaches to learning, including storytelling, participatory reflection, and community-centered methods.
Prioritize learning, not just measurement. Evaluation should be a tool for insight, adaptation, and collective meaning-making, not just a scorecard of results. When funders invest in learning, they help organizations stay responsive and creative in a rapidly changing landscape.
Looking Ahead: Urgency and Action
As democratic norms erode, art remains one of the few spaces where people can gather, express truth, and imagine new futures. It allows us to engage with complexity, challenge dominant narratives, and imagine new ways forward.
As learning partners to arts and culture organizations and their funders, we have an opportunity and responsibility to consider how our choices today shape the democratic possibilities of tomorrow. We invite you to reflect with us: What does it look like to support the full spectrum of art’s influence in this moment? How might we understand and convey the deeper shifts that art helps bring about? And what role can we play in ensuring those contributions are seen, valued, and sustained?
In my work, I’ve come to see arts and culture not just as expression, but as civic infrastructure that is essential to how people connect, participate, and imagine new futures. Especially now, funding the arts is not simply a cultural investment. It’s a strategic one.
