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Goal 3: Value Educate the community about the potential of contemporary craft and design to inform public agendas, promote wellbeing and community cohesion, and forge viable commercial pathways. Weaving City Sessions with Jessika Spencer, DESIGN Canberra Festival, <strong>2022</strong>. Photography 5foot Effective communications Our <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> and DESIGN Canberra Festival activities continue to be well-supported by the local media. The power of our contemporary craft and design has been effectively communicated to inform public agendas, promote wellbeing, and our continuous efforts in forging viable commercial pathways. <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> engaged the digital marketing agency, Tilt, to advertise the DESIGN Canberra Festival programs to regional and interstate audiences and raise brand awareness of Canberra as a global city of design. This resulted in a significant increase of 95% in new audiences engaging with the Festival website with interstate visitors to the Festival increasing by 35% from 2019. Sydney-based creative media public relations specialists, Articulate, were engaged to provide a strategic communications campaign designed to support the objectives of DESIGN Canberra with particular focus on expanding the national profile of the Festival in published media articles nationally. The results of this were articles and interviews with highlights such as; Australian Financial Review’s Life & Leisure, The Australian Design Review, Architecture & Design, Concrete Playground, The Canberra Times: Panorama, and the Canberra Weekly; and radio interviews with ABC Radio Canberra. Effective communications snapshot: 247,517 DESIGN Canberra website visits (↑21%) 157,983 <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> website visits (↑84%) 14,922 social media followers (↑ 65%) 85 media articles 7 radio interviews 4 video interviews Enhanced digital presence + engagement <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> is dedicated to engaging its community of artists and supporters in as many ways possible. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we provided opportunities for digital engagement with our Artists' Studios Stories videos, Nurture online workshop programs, and the DESIGN Canberra Creative Journalling Challenge. In <strong>2022</strong> we continued to grow on this foundation of digital offerings with an online exhibition, online workshops, Meet the Maker videos (supported by Home by Holly), and live streaming of all openings and public talks via Instagram. This resulted in an expansion of the reach in the types of audiences we connected with online. Our DESIGN Canberra Instagram page grew its following to 10,178 people and our <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> page grew its followers to over 8,075 people— demonstrating the success in our digital engagement strategies. The 2021 Creative Journalling Challenge online exhibition was made available online early in the year to coincide with the beginning of the <strong>2022</strong> Artistic Program. The online platform enabled the online community to have an intimate look into the submitted and winning journals with 1,382 page views. As part of DESIGN Canberra Festival we held two online Daily Creative Practice workshops, Pen and Watercolour with Sally Black and Ideation and Sketching with Tom Skeehan. With 82 participants across both workshops, we were able to involve a new and wider audience that otherwise could not engage with the Festival. Expanding our reach, <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> live streamed all exhibition opening speeches, artists talks, launches, and parts of symposiums via the <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong> and DESIGN Canberra Instagram pages. Improving accessibility using new technologies available through social media platforms has been a game changer in how audiences participate in our creative spaces. In addition, it has not only increased our reach, but made it accessible to those who cannot or could not attend. Membership Our membership of craft practitioners, artists, designers, and makers at all career stages is at the heart of <strong>Craft</strong> <strong>ACT</strong>. Our members give us purpose; bring a regional, national, and international perspective and expertise to our artistic programs; and inspire us consistently. It is an honour 31