Our Vision
We envision our region as a sustainable crossroads of innovation where artists and creatives thrive and are valued across all disciplines, where organizations both for-profit and non-profit inspire and lead their sectors, and where arts, culture, and creativity all a part of everyday life for all citizens.
Our Backstory
The history, purpose, and even the name and aesthetic of our organization go hand-in-hand with these different communities. Northwest Arkansas has always been a treasure trove of hidden gems, glistening pockets of insight and innovation. Our artists and creative industries form the equivalent of a beautiful network of caverns and hideaways, valuable underground caches, strong foundations of rock and stone, and winding interconnected waterways.
As a 501c3 nonprofit and service organization, we help coordinate, connect, augment, export, and exchange these inspiring resources with the rest of the world. Hence the imagery – but more importantly the ethos – of CACHE, a proud ambassador of our region’s artists, culture-bearers, makers, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and collectives.
Our Ecosystem
We experience our arts scene and our creative economy in all their complex and holistic depth, and as such work alongside nonprofits, businesses, academia, government, tribal nations, and individuals alike.
Our Creatives
Ultimately, though, it is creatives and arts organizations at the core of any thriving, innovative, and relevant marketplace. We advocate tirelessly that they be recognized for their work itself, for their vital contributors to the authentic vibrancy and economic prosperity of our communities, and as neighbors whose everyday lives and livelihoods matter to us.
Our Challenge
Like many places, the full community and economic potential of our region’s creative ecosystems remains unrealized and inequitably distributed. We see this across the research we collect, quantitative and qualitative, and we work in all phases of all projects we take on to address this challenge head on.
Our Commitment
It follows that, while we celebrate and regularly collaborate with organizations of every size and type, we first prioritize emerging, underrepresented, and underinvested pockets of creativity.
