With a tightening economy and a city hall threatening to drastically slash spending on arts – as well as virtually every city service, the Business Council for the Arts has good news for those looking to jusitify increased funding of local arts organizations. This morning, the non-profit organization of arts-supporting businesses and the accounting firm Deloitte released their 2010 Economic Impact Study of Arts and Cultural Organizations in North Texas, which estimated a total economic impact of over $1 billion in 2009, the first time the impact has reached the billion dollar mark since the survey began in 1990.
The survey gathers financial and attendance data from arts and cultural organizations throughout the North Texas region in order to determine the dollar impact of direct and indirect spending on cultural activities. This is achieved by looking at both audience spending as well as estimating the impact of money spent on staff and related activities, such as food and parking, breaking the results into three main spending components: audience, operating, and construction.
One caveat, however, is while the study did show positive growth in 2009, the increase is entirely related to the construction of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. Both audience and operating impact in 2009 trailed the two previous years, reflecting the impact of the nationwide economic slowdown.
Every three years, The Business Council for the Arts partners with Deloitte to produce the study. Of the estimated 540 plus arts and cultural groups in North Texas, only 87 submitted their data to the most recent survey, or about 16 percent. In addition, only 31 groups that participated in 2006 participated in the new study. The results of the study, therefore, only show data from a small sampling of the local organizations.
At the conference that accompanied the release of the results, a representative with Deloitte admitted that the numbers could have been dramatically different depending on how many and which organizations responded. Significantly, many Fort Worth-based groups did not participate in the survey.
Much of the discussion at the conference among members of arts organizations that did participate in the survey centered around encouraging better data in future studies by encouraging increased participation.
But Sherry Tucker David, a member of the Business Council of the Arts board of directors, said in many cases it not a matter of organizations contributing data, but of those organizations collecting the information in the first place.
“Lots of organizations operate on such a shoestring budget that they don’t even capture the data,” she said.
You can download the entire study here.
