Kelowna’s 2020-2025 Cultural Plan Endorsed by Council

The following is excerpted from a communication issued by the City of Kelowna.

Kelowna City Council has approved a new strategic direction for the development of cultural services in Kelowna. The 2020-2025 Cultural Plan highlights five key theme areas for the next six years, including strategic investments, spaces, capacity, vitality and connections. Stemming from the theme areas are 10 goals and 50 strategies to be driven by community initiatives.

“This cultural plan is about what our community is asking for when it comes to arts, culture and heritage in Kelowna,” said Christine McWillis, Cultural Services Manager. “It’s about finding ways to work together to improve our cultural facilities, increase resources available, share meaningful stories, make it easier for the community to find information about culture and events and foster cross-sector connections to find innovative solutions to some of the challenges we are facing.”

The process to update the Cultural Plan for 2020-2025 began in July 2018 with input from, arts, culture and heritage organizations, artists, stakeholders and members of the public. The plan also had the support of a 19-person advisory group.

A “Share the Plan” event grant will launch in the coming weeks, where individuals, groups, businesses or organizations can apply to receive a small grant to share the Cultural Plan with like-minded individuals.

“The Host Your Own Engagement grants really helped to generate great feedback as we worked to develop the plan,” said McWillis. “The Share the Plan event grant program will be a follow up to help groups see themselves in the plan and start to create new ideas and community initiatives to support it.”

The supplementary reports and the 2020-2025 Cultural Plan are available online at kelowna.ca/culture.