ABSTRACT
Governments may decide that it is in the public interest to intervene in culture because of the challenges culture faces and the values culture contributes. To do this, a variety of policy tools or instruments might be used. Some are instruments to regulate culture, others to provide it. This chapter focuses on provision, defining and discussing four key instruments used in the US to provide culture including: direct provision, subsidy, grant, and tax expenditure. The discussion closes with a policy lab that examines the use of nonprofit organizations as primary partners in the public provision of the arts and culture in the US, including a look at the structural inequities this model entails, and a case study of how a partnership between the nonprofit sector and government enabled the development of the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, Washington.
