Jeremy Nowak

Many of the feature articles in this issue offer tools for responding to GIA Executive Director Janet Brown's call to speak up, to not sit silently in the back but to stand up and illustrate or make the case for why arts and culture matters.

Between 2006 and 2008, the Social Impact of the Arts Project, a research group at the University of Pennsylvania (SIAP), collaborated with The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a community development financial institution, on an investigation of the creative sector's potential contribution to neighborhood economic and community development.