Catalyze 2020: James Briggs

We asked some of St. Pete’s best and brightest citizens to share one catalyzing idea for making St. Pete a better place to live. We asked not for lists of problems, but for meaty, actionable and impactful solutions, no matter how big or how small.

James Briggs is the owner of Carroway + Rose, Board Member of Gulfport Merchants Chamber of Commerce and Operation Regroup Post Traumatic Strength Development. He writes:

We believe that the organizations making the largest economic and cultural impacts in our communities and lives will be those who can harness the dialogue between our burgeoning business and art communities into a new paradigm. This new paradigm is found at the crossroads of business and art.

This will be accomplished through an increased awareness within the business community that investing in both public and private art, as well as the organizations that support them, is a sound business principle. In return, individual artists and arts organizations will come to view the businesses that hold this mindset to be allies to their creative efforts and use the resources of these like-minded businesses to develop platforms for themselves to broadcast their work to larger audiences. In time, the crossroads of these two communities can be both the profit center economically and the heart of funding for our cultural community. And as business owners we know that a robust cultural community is integral to attracting and retaining quality jobs to our community.