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Arts Impact Area: what did we learn in 2016?

June 26, 2017
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In 2016, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta launched Impact Areas with measurable objectives as a way to focus our financial, partnership and advocacy investments in the Atlanta region. As a starting point for future trend analysis, we have created an Impact Area dashboard that captures baseline values. The following narrative, drafted by Lisa Cremin, our Arts Impact Area lead, provides analysis and commentary of that data. The full set of metrics, in addition to all demographic and socioeconomic variables, can be found on the Foundation’s dashboard.

Arts
Lisa Cremin, director, community advancement

The ‘Arts’ encompass a variety of disciplines, including all types of visual and performing arts that exist in cities and communities as independent nonprofits, and also commercial entities – such as galleries and Broadway productions; and within institutions such as universities. The arts are also experienced in the public realm, in festivals and performances adding to vitality to communities.

The metro Atlanta nonprofit arts economy is complex. The Woodruff Arts Center is one of the larger organizations in the U.S., with an annual budget of $97 million. There are only five other Atlanta arts organizations with budgets over the $2 million threshold. In the 23-county region, these “large organizations” generate 74% of the total revenue. The remaining 26% ($95.8 million in revenue) is split among small to midsized organizations. Smaller organizations are culturally important, financially fragile and add an essential diversity of voices to the field. The Foundation focuses on these small and mid-sized nonprofit arts organizations with budgets under $2 million to maximize impact.

Participation in the arts has a measurable, positive impact on individuals’ well-being while also bringing vibrancy to towns and cities – rural or urban. Data shows that the arts promote early childhood social and emotional development and improved education outcomes for all ages. From a broader view, the arts also build civic engagement and cohesion, advancing understanding and empathy among and within communities.

The Foundation focuses on the revenue growth of these small and mid-sized organizations’ as they are a key indicator of resident participation. In the 2014 Metro Atlanta Speaks survey of 10 metro counties, 77 percent of respondents said they were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with arts and culture opportunities. The most satisfied? Cherokee (84%), Cobb (82%) and Fayette counties (81%).

Atlanta’s nonprofit arts and culture industry contributes more than $700 million to the annual local economy. These funds are generated by both direct ticket sales (earned income) and through related arts patrons’ expenditures. In many communities, restaurants and shops close when the local theater is not performing – or when museums are closed. The Foundation tracks the revenue growth of arts groups’ budgets because they reveal not only the health of these nonprofit organizations but also the vibrancy of communities in which they take place.