Engagement, Giving, and Economic Impact
Engagement Funder Round Up
This month I thought I’d share a blog post from Inside Philanthropy that looks at efforts to increase the engagement between arts organizations and communities. The seven examples of how funders are channeling resources toward community engagement could be a stimulus for more research by students. Funders are also interested in achieving diversity goals for staffing and board composition to better aligning organizations and communities. Both topic areas offer opportunities for conversations about how change is occurring in the complex mix of diverse communities, artists, arts managers and leaders, and the funding sources that keep to whole system functioning.
Essential Philanthropy
It’s June, and therefore it’s time for the annual Giving USA report. I find it interesting to review what’s new each year and to reflect on what seems to stay constant. For example, arts, culture, and humanities giving stay around 5% of the total. The good news is that arts giving was estimated to have increased 6.4% to $18.21 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2016. Giving as a percentage of GDP seems to hover around 2.1%. Individual giving as a percentage of disposable personal income is also steady at 2.0%. Online giving was reported to be increasing in the arts and culture sector. The macro level reporting by Giving USA is a good starting point for a class discussion. However, what may be more interesting to explore are the trends in giving to the arts in your community or region.
Economic Impact and Advocacy
This month we also had the roll out of the latest Americans for the Arts “Arts & Economic Impact Prosperity 5” report. “The Arts Mean Business” is one theme of the report and is a good example of the positive impact of the advocacy work of the Americans for the Arts. Prosperity 5 indicates that “82% of American believe arts & culture are important to local business and the economy.” And, “87% of Americans believe arts & culture are important to the quality of life.”
Who would want to push back on these survey results? What I would hope for is that you and your students would have an in-depth discussion about the Prosperity 5 report. While I am pleased to read these positive percentages, which were based on a 2016 survey of 3020 adults, I am also mindful of the fact that opinions about the efficacy of the arts can also be in the eye of the beholder. The report is a free download and chock full of very detailed data tables that will inform, amuse, and maybe even puzzle you.
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How Are Funders Boosting Arts Engagement Across Diverse Communities?
By Mike Scutari, Inside Philanthropy, June 8, 2017
We occasionally stumble across a news item that compels us to step back and take stock of the larger arts philanthropy landscape as a whole. Such is the case with news out of New York City, where an impressive cadre of funders joined forces earlier this spring to engage diverse audiences.
A new $6 million program launched by the North Carolina-based William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, The Met, NYU, and 19 New York City organizations will explore how arts-based organizations can serve as “positive, relevant, and inspiring forces in the daily lives of diverse communities.”
The gift, which I’ll look at in greater detail a bit later in this post, speaks to the broader challenge of arts engagement and underscores the reality that while practically all major arts funders are committed to reaching diverse audiences, their approaches vary. Here I look at the breadth of this challenge and then hone in on the engagement strategies of different funders.
Let’s begin by laying out a premise that everyone can agree on. Given the litany of distractions vying for people’s attention nowadays, arts organizations need to do a better job at engaging everyone, “diverse communities” or otherwise. The engagement challenge spans demographics, and that’s because the very definition of the arts experience is changing.
For the full blog post go to https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/6/8/how-are-funders-boosting-engagement-across-diverse-communities
Giving USA Annual Report
Giving by individuals grows nearly 4 percent, driving the rise in total giving; contributions to all nine major philanthropy subsectors increase—the sixth time in the last four decades.
American individuals, estates, foundations and corporations contributed an estimated $390.05 billion to U.S. charities in 2016, according to Giving USA 2017: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2016.
Total giving rose 2.7 percent in current dollars (1.4 percent adjusted for inflation) from the revised estimate of $379.89 billion for total giving in 2015. (Please see below for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers for each philanthropic source and sector.)
Giving USA, the longest-running and most comprehensive report of its kind in America, is published by Giving USA Foundation, a public service initiative of The Giving Institute. It is researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
Charitable giving from individuals, foundations and corporations all increased in 2016, while gifts by estates decreased sharply.
Giving to all nine major categories of recipient organizations grew, making 2016 just the sixth time in the past 40 years that this has occurred. The nine categories are religion; education; human services; giving to foundations; health; public-society benefit; arts, culture and humanities; international affairs; and environment and animals.
To access the report in a variety of formats go to https://store.givingusa.org/collections/2017-products
Arts and Economic Prosperity
Americans for the Arts Report Released
From coast to coast and from our smallest rural towns to our largest urban cities, America’s 100,000 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations make their communities more desirable places to live and work every day of the year. The arts provide inspiration and joy to residents, beautify public spaces, and strengthen the social fabric of our communities. Nonprofit arts and cultural organizations are also businesses. They employ people locally, purchase goods and services from local businesses, make communities more vibrant, and attract tourists. Event-related spending by arts audiences generates valuable revenue for local merchants such as restaurants, retail stores, hotels, and parking garages.
Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 (AEP5) is our fifth study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry’s impact on the economy. AEP5 is the most comprehensive economic impact study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry ever conducted. It documents the economic contributions of the arts in 341 diverse communities and regions across the country, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The participating communities range in population from 1,500 to 4 million and include rural, suburban, and urban areas (113 cities and 115 counties, 81 multicity or multicounty regions, 20 statewide study areas, and 12 cultural districts). Project economists from the Georgia Institute of Technology customized an input-output analysis model for each community to provide specific and localized data on four measures of economic impact: full-time equivalent jobs, household income, and local and state government revenue. These localized models allow for the uniqueness of each local economy to be reflected in the findings.
To download various reports go to http://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-data/research-studies-publications/arts-economic-prosperity-5/use/download-the-report