Earlier this year, the Arizona Commission on the Arts invested $111,000 in arts-based, community-focused partnerships in 13 small and rural communities across the state.

welcome“Partnerships between arts and non-arts organizations can be effective drivers of economic development, cultural tourism, civic pride, neighborhood revitalization and youth engagement,” said Arts Commission Executive Director Robert Booker, describing the philosophy behind the Community Catalyst Grants program. “An investment in such partnerships is really an investment in the whole community.”

Recently, we spoke with the recipients of one of these grants to discuss how their unconventional, arts-led partnership is bolstering and promoting the community of Cottonwood, Arizona.

According to their grant application, “The Cottonwood Culture Challenge is a multi-tiered, multi-media cultural tourism project designed to create interest and awareness to the cultural uniqueness of Cottonwood.” Centered around Cottonwood’s Old Town Center for the Arts and developed in partnership with the City of Cottonwood, the Old Town Association, Local First Arizona and AZ Culture, the Cottonwood Culture Challenge is an ambitious “Amazing Race”-style scavenger-hunt/marketing event.

In the first in a series of Community Catalyst partnership profiles, the partners behind the Cottonwood Culture Challenge share how they are working together to catalyze change in their community.