The development of culture is the purpose of the work, with arts being the activity. Taking an outcome focus, as we are recommending, rather than an activity focus, as many teams are used to doing, we are best identifying our work with the outcome we are aiming for (cultural development) rather than the activity we are undertaking to get there (arts). Therefore, departments and their staff would be better entitled Cultural Development teams, managers and officers.
Cultural development is the process of enabling cultural activities, including the arts, towards the realization of a desired future, particularly of a culturally rich and vibrant community.
We distinguish this area of work from that undertaken by council staff known as Multicultural or Diversity officers, also sometimes known as Cultural Development Officers. Those staff members are usually working to ensure that people from CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds) have equal access to council, and other, services. Thus, their work has outcomes that are aligned better with the social domain (such as equality of access for all people in the community and bridging social capital- positive connection between unlike others), than the cultural, which is more about how that diversity is expressed. Sometimes the two areas of work overlap, in activities such as community festivals, where the desired outcome is the opportunity for people of diverse cultural backgrounds to express their own culture. Thus a social outcome is reached in the equal opportunity for those who might not otherwise have it, and the cultural outcome is reached in the expression of that group’s own culture.