Application Guide:
Global Creative City Partners

Applicants indicate which sustained roles describe their organization and provide brief evidence:

• attracts or meaningfully serves visitors as part of San Diego’s cultural destination experience;
• produces or stewards cultural experiences, collections, spaces, programs, or events that contribute to San Diego’s destination identity;
• regularly reaches audiences, artists, partners, or markets beyond the San Diego region;
• participates in sustained national, international, or transborder artistic/cultural exchange;
• creates opportunities for San Diego artists or cultural work to reach broader markets or audiences;
• maintains meaningful partnerships connected to tourism, destination marketing, economic development, or cultural exchange;
• contributes to significant citywide, regional, or signature cultural experiences;
• contributes to how San Diego is understood or represented as a creative city outside the region.

Application Question

Which two or three indicators above are most defining of your organization’s role? Provide brief evidence.

150 words maximum

Application Question

How does your organization help position San Diego as a cultural and creative destination? Describe the role your work plays in San Diego’s cultural identity, visitor experience, broader-market visibility, signature cultural offerings, or national, international and/or transborder creative exchange.

You may discuss visitor reach; destination or signature experiences; national or international visibility; tourism partnerships; touring or exchange; transborder work; how the organization represents San Diego elsewhere; or how broader reach creates opportunities for local artists and cultural work.

450 words maximum

Why We Ask

This pathway invests directly in organizations whose sustained role advances San Diego’s Creative City goals related to destination marketing, cultural tourism, broader-market visibility, signature experiences, and transborder/global exchange.

Panelists Consider

• a sustained and clearly evidenced destination/global role;
• a meaningful connection to how San Diego is experienced or understood culturally;
• activity that extends beyond occasional visitor attendance;
• evidence of regional, national, global, and/or transborder reach appropriate to the organization;
• reciprocity between broader visibility and San Diego’s cultural ecosystem;
• alignment with one or more Creative City Global Creative City strategies.

Application Question

How does your organization ensure that the benefits of significant public investment are meaningfully available to San Diego residents? Tell us how people access, experience, participate in, or benefit from your work and where you believe that access can become stronger.

Discuss current practices and areas you intend to strengthen, such as affordability, free or resident access, SNAP/EBT or library-card access, disability or language access, youth/family access, neighborhood programming, community tickets, or public use of facilities.

Required Global Partner Community Benefit Plan

Propose at least five commitments across at least three areas. At least one commitment must address Resident Access, at least one must address Creative Ecosystem / Resource Sharing, and at least one must connect directly to the organization’s Global Creative City role.

Commitment areas:

• Resident Access
• Creative Ecosystem + Resource Sharing
• Local Artist + Cultural Worker Investment
• Cultural Tourism + Destination Partnership
• Global + Transborder Exchange
• Civic + Sector Leadership

For each commitment, identify: Current/New; FY28 Target; How It Will Work; Who Benefits.

400 words maximum

Why We Ask

Deeper municipal investment creates an expectation of deeper public benefit. The goal is not identical programming across institutions; it is a clear and meaningful exchange of value between public investment and public access.

Panelists Consider

• meaningful benefit for San Diego residents;
• specificity and credibility of commitments;
• attention to barriers;
• scale of commitment relative to organizational resources and City support;
• access that extends beyond symbolic or one-time activity;
• thoughtful balance between residents and visitors.

Application Question

How does your organization use its resources, reach, expertise, facilities, programs, or partnerships to strengthen San Diego’s artists, cultural workers, creative organizations, and broader creative ecosystem?

You may discuss paid local artist opportunities, commissions or contracts, apprenticeships, presentation opportunities, partnerships, shared space or resources, mentorship, creative-business relationships, transborder opportunities, or broader-market access.

Required structured data:

• number of San Diego-based artists/cultural workers paid;
• total dollars paid directly to San Diego-based artists/cultural workers;
• number of local creative businesses/vendors contracted;
• total dollars paid to local creative businesses/vendors;
• number of Cultural Affairs-funded organizations partnered with;
• number and estimated value of free/discounted facility-use opportunities provided to arts/cultural organizations, if applicable.
• “Not currently tracked” may be accepted in the pilot year for specific data points identified by Cultural Affairs. If selected, the organization may be required to establish tracking for renewal/reporting.

350 words maximum

Why We Ask

Global Creative City Partners occupy a position from which they can create opportunity throughout the ecosystem. We want to understand what flows through the institution and back into San Diego’s creative workforce.

Panelists Consider

• meaningful paid opportunities;
• local creative workforce investment;
• resource sharing;
• partnerships;
• evidence that institutional strength creates broader opportunity;
• and realistic potential to deepen that role.

Resource sharing is not charity. It is public cultural infrastructure functioning as an ecosystem.

Application Question

How does your organization steward the significant financial, human, cultural, and physical resources entrusted to it? Describe the practices that help your organization operate transparently, responsibly, and sustainably.

You may discuss financial oversight, risk management, accessibility, workforce practices, facilities or cultural assets, leadership accountability, decision-making, transparency, or organizational learning.

300 words maximum + required enhanced disclosures

Required Enhanced Disclosures

Global Creative City Partner applicants submit a complete staff compensation schedule without employee names, including:

• position title;
• full/part-time status;
• salary or hourly rate;
• annualized compensation;
• benefits eligibility;
• vacancy status.
• Also report, where applicable:
• highest annual salary;
• lowest full-time annual salary;
• median full-time annual salary;
• chief executive compensation;
• total personnel expense;
• benefits expense;
• number of union-represented employees;
• number of independent contractors and total contractor compensation;
• three-year operating revenue/expense trend;
• current approved operating budget;
• Statement of Activities and Statement of Financial Position;
• most recent independent audit/review where applicable;
• liquidity measure once finalized;
• reserve/endowment balance if applicable;
• material debt or organizational risk information where relevant.

Public records reminder: Information submitted to the City may be subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act. Do not submit Social Security numbers or personal information not specifically requested.

Why We Ask

Enhanced City investment requires enhanced transparency and stewardship.

Panelists Consider

• thoughtful stewardship appropriate to institutional scale;
• transparency;
• awareness of material risks;
• reasonable systems for overseeing significant resources;
• workforce practices in context;
• and evidence that public investment is managed responsibly.

Application Question

What could a deeper partnership between your organization and the City of San Diego make possible during the next three years? Consider both directions: what can City investment help your organization sustain or accomplish, and what can your organization contribute to San Diego’s broader Creative City goals and cultural ecosystem?

You may discuss cultural tourism, destination marketing, signature experiences, resident access, transborder exchange, global visibility, local artist opportunity, shared resources, data, civic partnerships, or major cultural moments.

250 words maximum

Why We Ask

Global Creative City Partners are intended to be more than recipients of operating support. They are potential strategic partners in implementing Creative City.

Panelists Consider

• reciprocal understanding of partnership;
• credible opportunities for collaboration;
• clear Creative City connection;
• strategic role of City operating investment;
• and capacity to contribute beyond the organization’s walls.

Consider both: How does this organization bring the world to San Diego? and What does that role give back to the people and creative ecosystem of San Diego?