Art Economics
By Steve Downing
You’ve probably heard, read, or know of someone like this: a small-town lawyer who, at night in her garage-studio, turns out gorgeous, nonfunctional clay bowls with signature, offbeat glazing or a county engineer who spends his weekends painting Provencal landscapes in a combination impressionist-cubist style unlike anybody else, anywhere, ever. These two artists, like many, are defined and, conditionally, confined by their day-jobs. Their art cuts them loose.
In your community there might be a storefront consignment gallery where hobby lawyer-potters and engineer-painters sell their work. You might have a chamber orchestra, with a violinist accomplished enough to contract occasionally with big-city orchestras. This person may even give private lessons to local kids. You may even know of a local theater group doing two or three shows a year on a five-figure budget.
In Minnesota’s Arrowhead, you can make the case that, concerning artists and arts organizations, we have a trove of riches. Art is a thriving component of our environment. There are thousands of full-time jobs in the arts. Hundreds of incorporated 501(c)3 non-profit and for-profit arts businesses. Dozens of active, staffed, year-round performance and visual art centers breathe life into many of our communities, some of them with national and international connections.
But how prominently do ‘the arts’ figure into community visioning, partnering, and strategic planning? How often are ‘the arts’ included in formal debates about economic development and investment? Should they be?
Consider:
~ Annually in the Arrowhead, nonprofit arts/cultural organizations generate $31.1 million in local economic activity: $7.1 million by the organizations, themselves; $24.0 million in event-related spending by their audiences.
~ Annually in the Arrowhead, $16.9 million in household income and $4.0 million in local and state government revenue are generated by nonprofit arts/cultural organizations.
~ In any of northeastern Minnesota’s community of communities, when people attend a local arts event, they spend an additional $20 (per-person, after tickets) directly related to the night out; visitors from out of town spend $45 (per-person, after tickets). They have dinner. Buy gas. Shop. Indulge in desert and drinks after the show. Spend on overnight lodging.
Here’s how the arts-and-dollars numbers are counted:
For an upcoming concert, the Itasca Orchestra purchases $100 worth of paper to copy music. Part of that $100 goes to the salary of the clerk who sold the paper to the Orchestra. The sales clerk ‘re-spends’ that money on groceries. The grocery store owners use a portion of this to pay their staff, who use their earnings to pay utility bills, real estate taxes and so on. When the calculus is fully functioning, someone in that loop will be paying for violin lessons, too.
This is input/output analysis, a procedure that’s won two Nobel Prize awards in economics. It’s a system of equations combining statistical methods and economic theory, using detailed data on employment, incomes and government revenuhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifes provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce, local tax data and survey results from nonprofit arts organizations in urban and rural Minnesota. The research was conducted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts and the Forum of Regional Arts Councils of Minnesota, in partnership with Americans for the Arts. It was funded primarily by The McKnight Foundation, which has zero tolerance for smoke-and-mirrors math. Ask anyone who’s ever submitted or received a McKnight Foundation grant.
The data confirmed the economic machine that is ‘the arts.’ Every dollar invested in the arts returns eleven dollars. It didn’t surprise anyone working in the field, and it didn’t surprise The McKnight Foundation, but this is illuminating: $1 = $11. Investing in art is investment-wise.
So, when the Minnesota State Arts Board awards $20,000 to the Reif Arts Council in Grand Rapids, by the time those dollars are done running around town (impacting salaries, commerce, taxes, etc.) they account for $220,000 worth of economic activity.
Should Art be on the agenda when economic development/investment is being discussed? Depends on how serious you are about economic development.
You’ve probably heard, read, or know of someone like this: a small-town lawyer who, at night in her garage-studio, turns out gorgeous, nonfunctional clay bowls with signature, offbeat glazing or a county engineer who spends his weekends painting Provencal landscapes in a combination impressionist-cubist style unlike anybody else, anywhere, ever. These two artists, like many, are defined and, conditionally, confined by their day-jobs. Their art cuts them loose.
In your community there might be a storefront consignment gallery where hobby lawyer-potters and engineer-painters sell their work. You might have a chamber orchestra, with a violinist accomplished enough to contract occasionally with big-city orchestras. This person may even give private lessons to local kids. You may even know of a local theater group doing two or three shows a year on a five-figure budget.
In Minnesota’s Arrowhead, you can make the case that, concerning artists and arts organizations, we have a trove of riches. Art is a thriving component of our environment. There are thousands of full-time jobs in the arts. Hundreds of incorporated 501(c)3 non-profit and for-profit arts businesses. Dozens of active, staffed, year-round performance and visual art centers breathe life into many of our communities, some of them with national and international connections.
But how prominently do ‘the arts’ figure into community visioning, partnering, and strategic planning? How often are ‘the arts’ included in formal debates about economic development and investment? Should they be?
Consider:
~ Annually in the Arrowhead, nonprofit arts/cultural organizations generate $31.1 million in local economic activity: $7.1 million by the organizations, themselves; $24.0 million in event-related spending by their audiences.
~ Annually in the Arrowhead, $16.9 million in household income and $4.0 million in local and state government revenue are generated by nonprofit arts/cultural organizations.
~ In any of northeastern Minnesota’s community of communities, when people attend a local arts event, they spend an additional $20 (per-person, after tickets) directly related to the night out; visitors from out of town spend $45 (per-person, after tickets). They have dinner. Buy gas. Shop. Indulge in desert and drinks after the show. Spend on overnight lodging.
Here’s how the arts-and-dollars numbers are counted:
For an upcoming concert, the Itasca Orchestra purchases $100 worth of paper to copy music. Part of that $100 goes to the salary of the clerk who sold the paper to the Orchestra. The sales clerk ‘re-spends’ that money on groceries. The grocery store owners use a portion of this to pay their staff, who use their earnings to pay utility bills, real estate taxes and so on. When the calculus is fully functioning, someone in that loop will be paying for violin lessons, too.
This is input/output analysis, a procedure that’s won two Nobel Prize awards in economics. It’s a system of equations combining statistical methods and economic theory, using detailed data on employment, incomes and government revenuhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifes provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce, local tax data and survey results from nonprofit arts organizations in urban and rural Minnesota. The research was conducted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts and the Forum of Regional Arts Councils of Minnesota, in partnership with Americans for the Arts. It was funded primarily by The McKnight Foundation, which has zero tolerance for smoke-and-mirrors math. Ask anyone who’s ever submitted or received a McKnight Foundation grant.
The data confirmed the economic machine that is ‘the arts.’ Every dollar invested in the arts returns eleven dollars. It didn’t surprise anyone working in the field, and it didn’t surprise The McKnight Foundation, but this is illuminating: $1 = $11. Investing in art is investment-wise.
So, when the Minnesota State Arts Board awards $20,000 to the Reif Arts Council in Grand Rapids, by the time those dollars are done running around town (impacting salaries, commerce, taxes, etc.) they account for $220,000 worth of economic activity.
Should Art be on the agenda when economic development/investment is being discussed? Depends on how serious you are about economic development.
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