Facts for your Back Pocket.
Snapshots of art in action where I live, Ames, Iowa.
A few weeks back, I co-presented to our local city council about why art matters to our community, and specifically why art matters to our economic development. (It’s often really surprising to discover just how much arts and culture contribute to our national economies.) I was nervous. It was a push to ask the city to put a lot more resources into our art and culture sector.
Since then, I have had several folks reach out to me wanting stats and data to pass along to their local civic groups. Following is a list of some handy facts to use when people make, shall we say, uninformed comments about art and the economy, plus the cited sources of said facts.
***Disclaimer: The economic contribution is only a sliver of why art matters to our local and national communities. However, sometimes it helps to speak the language of the folks you are trying to persuade. And many folks like $ talk, particularly now.
Why is this important now? In the middle of a pandemic? A big reason.
First of all, I encourage you to think beyond the term “artist” and instead think of people who create for a living. Creatives include everyone from architects to choir directors to graphic designers to radio announcers to photographers to writers. These folks make up our creative classes. These people are also small business owners and entrepreneurs.
And as creative entrepreneurs in the age of digital technology, many of us have the option of being location independent. We can move to places simply to have an increased quality of life. Many communities are capitalizing on this by creating artist relocation programs (future blog post - stay tuned) to lure artists into moving in their towns. These places recognize that artists are small business owners, many times with national or international clientele and that often don’t compete with existing businesses where they choose to live.
5 FACTS for the Haters in Your Life.
In their 2018 financial report, the National Endowment for the Arts reported that for each dollar awarded by the NEA in direct grants to arts nonprofits leverages up to nine dollars in private and other public funds. In other words, artists create nine dollars from every one dollar they receive from a funder. That’s a solid return on investment.
According to this same NEA repost, arts and culture comprise 4.2% of the US GDP, a 39.9% growth since 1998. And according to the Americans for the Arts, this is more than agriculture, tourism, and construction sectors combined. (The Americans for the Arts is a national arts advocacy group that has created five Arts and Economic Prosperity Studies on the economic impact of nonprofit arts and culture organizations.)
Creative events - such as concerts, festivals, plays - are big business for local economies, even beyond ticket sales. The Americans for the Arts calculated that the average audience member spends $31.47 per event, not counting ticket sales. Folks go to dinner, they get a babysitter, they have drinks, they maybe get a fancy new outfit.
***An easy way to estimate the financial impact in your community is to connect with a local venue to see how many people attended events during the last year (pre-COVID). Multiply that number by $31.47. That is money to local businesses, beyond the ticket sales.
Surprisingly, Minnesota leads the United States in art and culture spending at $7.22 per person, per year. And currently, Minnesota’s art and culture sector stands at $12.2 billion per year. By comparison, where I live in Iowa, Iowa spends about 32 cents per capita per year and our art and culture sector is $4.2 billion per year.
Minnesota accomplished this by passing the Legacy Amendment in 2009. This increased the state sales tax by 3/8 of one percent. Nearly 20 percent of that 3/8 of a percent goes into an arts and cultural heritage fund, which has translated into $565.3 million for Minnesota arts and culture producers and organizations over the last decade.
***Creative Minnesota is a nonprofit advocacy group that actively tracks the economic impacts of the Legacy Amendment on the art and culture sector in each region and county of the state. If you heart data, it is a fun rabbit hole to go down.
How to Find What Your City Spends Per Year on Art and Culture:
If you visit your local city’s homepage, you should be able to locate recent city budgets under the Finance Department tab (for really small communities, look under Finance Officer). Depending on the size of the community, local expenditures will include things like “culture and recreation,” “arts agencies,” or “public art fund”. Some towns may have a local orchestra or city band, a theatre, or a community center, which would be listed. From there, you can see what is spent and where those monies come from, like the general fund or local option tax or a hotel/motel tax. It can take a little bit of digging, and you can always pick up the phone. If you are considering relocating, you can tell a lot about what a state or a community values (IMO) by where they spend their dollars.
Ames art at work.