Current study examines economic impact of the arts

The arts and culture industry generates billions of dollars to the nation’s economy, supporting millions of jobs and generating millions of dollars in tax revenue, according to published reports. Now, a wide-ranging effort is underway through the Arts & Economic Prosperity 6, or AEP6, to look at the current impact. In this effort, attendees at arts and culture events at venues across the nation, including Long Island, are taking surveys to shed light on the relationship between the arts and the economy.

Administered by Americans for the Arts approximately every five years, the survey is considered to be “the most comprehensive economic impact study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry ever conducted in the United States,” according to the Long Island Arts Alliance, or LIAA, which is driving the data-collection effort locally. AEP6 will examine the economic impact of the arts and culture on Long Island and 398 additional communities representing all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

“LIAA is proud to be working with Americans for the Arts because this kind of widespread data collection goes a long way in demonstrating the value of arts and culture nonprofit organizations in our country,”  Lauren Wagner, LIAA executive director, said in a news release about the survey.

Under LIAA’s leadership, surveys are currently being collected from attendees at arts events in Nassau and Suffolk counties through May 2023.

The surveys are described as simple and anonymous and take about three minutes to complete. In the surveys, attendees are asked about expenses that are related to the particular arts event, including meals, parking and babysitting.

New for AEP6, the traditional paper version of the survey has been translated into 23 languages, and is also available electronically via customized QR codes in English and Spanish. LIAA is nearly halfway to their goal of collecting 800 surveys by the end of May. An additional survey of nonprofit arts and culture organizations will occur from February through April 2023.

Americans for the Arts aims to address equity and inclusion as a critical component of the methodology, organizational participation, and collection of data for AEP6 by centering and representing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American) identifying communities—a segment of the nonprofit arts and culture sector that has been underrepresented in past studies.

For the first time, AEP6 will require that the local and state research partners collect a portion of audience surveys from attendees at events hosted by arts and culture organizations that primarily serve BIPOC/ALAANA communities. On a local level, the AEP6 study will help the LIAA establish a benchmark of arts and culture organizations that primarily serve these communities, and the audiences that attend their events. It will also aim to identify organizations that have a chief executive who identifies as BIPOC/ALAANA. Researchers will use this data to calculate and report on the economic impact of the BIPOC/ALAANA arts sector in each of the 399 study regions.

Findings for Long Island as well as nationally will be made public in October 2023, to lead off National Arts & Humanities Month. LIAA will receive a customized report on the unique economic impact results for Long Island including the number of jobs that are supported and the amount of government revenue that is generated by our community’s nonprofit arts industry. An additional analysis will be done on the economic impact of each community’s BIPOC/ALAANA arts organizations as well as the event-related spending by their audiences, documenting for the first time both their economic and social impact benefits to the community.

“I’ve used the metrics from prior AEP studies in my work at the Alliance, and I would bet that most of our members have as well. But, in the past, I’d use their general formula to calculate impact,” Wagner said. “With our Island-wide participation, we’ll have numbers that directly reflect the impact of our local arts community. The information gleaned from this study will help all 750 arts and culture nonprofits on Long Island build talking points and paint pictures that show how vital the arts are to our local economy, leading to better changes at grant funding and more leverage for lobbyists to drive legislative change in support of our sector.”

Wagner pointed out that this is a “challenging time to administer such a massive project, especially for an organization of LIAA’s size, but knowing just how much this would benefit our members and the sector as a whole, we made it our mission to ensure Long Island was a part of it and thanks to a generous grant from the Long Island Community Foundation, we are.”

Experts point to the role that arts and culture play in communities across the country.

“The arts are fundamental to our humanity,” Nolen Bivens, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, said in a statement. “Arts and culture inspires us—fostering creativity, empathy, and beauty. The arts also strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically. Community is where the arts make a difference, and while the national impact data are impressive, at its core, AEP6 is a local story. We are at a critical moment where data collection in local communities will provide a necessary narrative to support the arts, which will be key in persuading decision-makers that the arts benefit all people in all communities.”

In 2017, AEP5 documented that the nonprofit arts and culture industry generated $166.3 billion in economic activity (spending by organizations plus the event-related spending by their audiences) which supported 4.6 million jobs and generated $27.5 billion in government revenue. The AEP series demonstrates that an investment in the arts provides both cultural and economic benefits.