The ArtsGaston Summit was a collaborative, one-day convening designed to bring together arts and culture leaders from across Gaston County for meaningful connection, shared learning, and collective visioning. This facilitated workshop day gathered nonprofit arts leaders for intentional conversation around strengthening our local arts ecosystem.
Through guided discussions, interactive exercises, and short presentations from guest speakers, participants explored topics including collaborative funding models, grant strategy, and sustainable organizational practices. The Summit served as a dedicated space for relationship-building – allowing organizations to better understand one another’s missions, challenges, and opportunities, and to identify ways to work together to lighten individual workloads while increasing collective impact.
The ArtsGaston Summit built on the momentum sparked at the inaugural ArtsGaston Showcase and represented a keystone moment for the arts in Gaston County. While each organization is doing powerful work independently, the Summit asked a larger question: What becomes possible when we move forward together?
By the end of the day, participants left with new connections, practical insights, and a stronger sense of shared purpose – laying the groundwork for a more cohesive, resilient, and visible arts community, countywide.
January 23, 2026 | 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Across Gaston County, arts organizations are doing extraordinary work – often with limited resources, small teams, and a great deal of heart. Each organization carries its own mission, serves its own audience, and navigates its own challenges. Yet many of those challenges are shared: funding pressures, capacity limits, visibility, sustainability, and the ongoing question of how to do more without burning out.
The ArtsGaston Summit was created in response to that reality.
In recent years, it has become clear that the future strength of the arts in Gaston County will not rest solely on individual organizations working in isolation, but on what becomes possible when those organizations are connected, aligned, and supported as part of a larger ecosystem. The Summit is a deliberate pause: a day to step out of the day-to-day and into a shared space of reflection, learning, and collaboration.
This gathering builds on conversations that began at the first ArtsGaston Showcase, where leaders expressed a desire for deeper connection, honest dialogue, and practical tools for working together more effectively. The Summit is the next step: an opportunity to move from knowing about each other to working with each other.
The Summit invites arts leaders to think collectively about the future. It asks important questions:
- What resources could we share?
- Where can collaboration create greater impact than competition?
- How can we strengthen the arts countywide while honoring the uniqueness of each organization?
At its core, the ArtsGaston Summit is about relationships – building trust, understanding, and a shared sense of purpose. It recognizes that when arts organizations are connected, the entire community benefits: artists are better supported, audiences are better served, and the arts become more visible, resilient, and valued.
The Summit is not about creating a single vision that fits everyone, but about weaving together many voices into a stronger, more cohesive whole. It is an investment in people, partnerships, and the belief that Gaston County’s arts community is stronger together than apart.
If you are with a non-profit organization that supports the arts in Gaston County and would like to attend the Summit, please email us at [email protected] to inquire.
The ArtsGaston Summit was made possible with funding from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and the Gaston Community Foundation.
