You can put a price tag on impact of arts in America

AT RANDOM GRANTS AND GIVING

Chicago Tribune
By Charles Storch
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 7, 2007
original link

Chicago, city in an arts garden — a garden of economic delights.

A new report calculates that Chicago’s non-profit arts and cultural industry and its audiences generated $1.09 billion in spending in 2005. That spending is said to have supported 30,134 full-time equivalent jobs, provided household income of $628.7 million, and yielded more than $103 million in revenue to local and state government.

The report released Wednesday by Americans for the Arts, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy and lobbying organization, parses data from the group’s national economic-impact study “Arts and Economic Prosperity,” published last month. That research showed non-profit cultural groups and their audiences were responsible in 2005 for $166.2 billion in spending, which supported 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs and generated $104.2 billion in household income and $29.6 billion in government revenue.

The figures are meant to impress budget writers and lawmakers. The report claims that “leaders who care about community and economic development can feel good about choosing to invest in the arts.”

The Chicago report compiled data from 115 cultural organizations and 925 audience members. Using a method called input/output analysis, it calculated how many times a dollar expended by a non-profit arts group — or one of its patrons — is respent in the local economy.

The report states that audience members spent an average $38.12 per outing, excluding the price of admission, on such things as transportation, parking, food, souvenirs, baby-sitters and the like. Cook County residents spent an average $31.32; non-Cook residents averaged $46.26.

Non-Cook residents also accounted for 46 percent of the 11.4 million arts attendees in 2005.

Ra Joy, executive director of the Illinois Arts Alliance, said the report shows that the arts are “a renewable energy source that fuels the Chicago economy” and are a “cornerstone and foundation of tourism.”

The report’s release comes as the alliance is lobbying in Springfield for budget increases for the Illinois Arts Council and for the Illinois State Board of Education’s arts and foreign language program.

Not everyone is convinced that arguments for arts funding should concentrate on economic benefits.

“That gets the attention of policy-makers. But if it turns out that building a highway or stadium has higher impact, then you’re in trouble,” said Elizabeth Heneghan Ondaatje.

She is co-author of the 2004 Rand Corp. study “Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts.” It suggested touting the intrinsic value of the arts to people so as to increase the demand for culture, not just the supply.

“People don’t get involved in the arts to boost the economy or their test scores,” she said in an interview last week.

Nonetheless, Ondaatje believes Chicago has been a standout for the way it supports its cultural sector. She and her Rand colleagues studied Chicago and 10 other U.S. cities for “Strategies for Sustaining Arts and Culture in the Metropolis,” a report published in March.

She said that Chicago’s cultural groups recognize the benefits of collaboration, and its civic leaders “see how the arts fit into broader community goals,” such as revitalizing neighborhoods, boosting tourism and attracting new businesses. She was very impressed with the role played by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs in promoting arts and tourism.

“It’s a remarkable single point of coordination,” she said.

Grants: McCormick Tribune Foundation is giving $5 million to help support the Children’s Memorial Hospital planned for Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.Raymond and Patricia Smerge of Dallas have pledged $2 million to endow a dean’s chair in liberal arts and science at his alma mater, Northern Illinois University. Raymond Smerge, a former executive with home builder Centex Corp., now heads a real estate development firm.

The Polk Bros. Foundation gave $65,000 to the Family Institute at Northwestern University for counseling services in Chicago’s Logan Square, Cabrini Green/West Town and Bronzeville neighborhoods.

Kudos: A new Illinois Institute of Technology scholarship program earmarked for Chicago Public Schools graduates has been named for Lew Collens, who is retiring after 17 years as IIT’s president.

The Chicago Sinfonietta was cited for its diversity practices by the United Nations Global Compact, a network of UN agencies and business, labor and civil society groups.

People: Braden Berkey was named director of Center on Halsted’s new Sexual Orientation and Gender Institute. … Lakeside Community Development Corp. named Brenna Scanlon education specialist.