Link: https://artsmidwest.org/resources/guides-tools/creating-and-activating-community-advisory-committees
by Katie Ortman
July 8, 2025
Community advisory committees offer a meaningful way for small arts organizations to stay grounded in the people they serve, inviting feedback, shaping programming, and building trust while sharing power.
But it’s not as simple as just starting a group and expecting it to flourish. Successful community advisory committees require intention, flexibility, and long-term care.
In this article, we explore how three small-but-mighty Midwestern organizations have created and activated community advisory committees in ways that reflect their values, center participant voices, and strengthen their work.
You’ll hear how each organization tailored their approach to meet their goals, what challenges they faced, what impact they’ve observed, and what advice they have for others.
Racing Magpie: A Community-Driven Outdoor Transformation
Founded in 2015, Racing Magpie is a Lakota-centric arts and culture organization located in Rapid City, South Dakota. Their mission is to center the Lakota practice of being a good relative in everything that they do, and to focus their work on elevating and amplifying the work that Lakota and other Native artists and culture bearers are already doing in their community.
A small organization of just one part-time and two full-time staff members, Racing Magpie considers their large volunteer base to be an important part of their organizational team, along with artists, culture bearers, and other community members. Their work comes to life through affordable studio spaces, a Native art gallery, arts and cultural programming, innovative collaborations, and creative community space.
One of Racing Magpie’s main goals is ensuring that their spaces are welcoming and comfortable for Lakota community members and making sure that their spaces directly reflect decision making by the community.
Over the years, they’ve had many requests (or shared dreams, as they call them) from Lakota community members for activating outdoor space, both to increase relationship with the earth and the plant world and to become a learning environment for traditional plant and medicine knowledge.
In the building they rented from 2016-2020, creating an outdoor space wasn’t an option. But, in 2021, when Racing Magpie acquired a new facility with yard space, an opportunity presented itself.
To maintain their goal of community-driven decision making, they reached out to community members they knew had an interest in the project— first to share the good news, and then to invite them to a series of planning meetings. They also reached out to a local landscape architect for support.
They then held hybrid meetings (on Zoom and in-person, to encourage attendance) where the group responded to a series of questions:
Who would the space be for?
What characteristics were important to them?
What did they want to see in the design?
How could they incorporate native plants?
How would they engage volunteers?
By 2023, they had the first pieces of the outdoor design installed and were planting their first vegetables. The following summer, they completed another round of installation, with more planned for the future.
While activity in the outdoor spaces has been building slowly so far, community members have responded positively, expressing curiosity and suggesting others who might want to get involved. Alongside this, a new program is gradually taking shape to invite elders into the space regularly, with the garden being one key area of involvement.
Racing Magpie recognizes that establishing meaningful change and community trust take time, sustained commitment, and consistent action. They see the garden as a reflection of their deeper goal: helping community members see themselves as part of Racing Magpie—and Racing Magpie as part of the community.
Racing Magpie’s advice for others?
“Fully lean into the process of involving community members in all parts of design, decision making, and programming. Organizations are there to serve a mission of supporting a community, and there is no better way than empowering that community to be part of the problem solving as well.
But remember: all of it takes time to do well. Time to build trust and real relationships with members of the community and time to do “the thing” as well. Often the work does not fit into funding timelines, and adding that flexibility into the process is integral to full engagement.”