Increasingly, arts and cultural organizations have had to prove their worth when seeking public and private funding and support. A partnership between Onondaga County nonprofit arts groups and Le Moyne College will supply the hard data to make the case that the arts are a vital economic engine.
Arts & Economic Prosperity IV, part of a national arts study, will focus on the local economic impact of arts groups and the ripple effect of audience spending. The Arts and Culture Leadership Alliance of Central New York (ACLA) and the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County (CRC) have partnered with the Management Division of Le Moyne College on this project.
Arts and cultural organizations, as an industry, represent a substantial part of the local economic community, said Ronald Wright, the Michael D. Madden professor of business education at Le Moyne. Wright will oversee the study.
“In this economic environment, if we lost that industry, it would have a substantial impact on the economic well-being of our community,” he said. Wright stressed the study’s importance because it will present solid and specific data for Onondaga County.
“A study like this can inform policymakers of why support for the arts is so critical to a community and that actually the arts are a big part of the solution because it’s one industry that provides quality of life as well as economic benefits,” said Stephen Butler, executive director of the CRC. “It puts money back into the tax coffers through audience spending, through their own direct spending, because arts are very labor-intensive.”
Carol Sweet, president of ACLA, said arts groups armed with the survey’s findings can provide legislators with “substantive information” and show they are a viable industry.
Wright will direct the survey of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the county. Students will collect financial information from 100 arts groups, ranging from major institutions like the Everson Museum of Art to smaller operations affiliated with schools, churches or social service agencies. Arts organizations that already complete the county’s annual cultural data project, an online financial data collection tool, will be contacted first. Le Moyne will deploy 20 accounting students to follow up with other groups needing help assembling financial information. ACLA is identifying arts organizations to be contacted.
To determine audience expenditures, 100 students will pass out surveys at more than 16 events in Onondaga County for the next 11 months. This will give a snapshot of audience spending on costs connected to attending an event — dining, lodging, transportation, parking, baby sitters, etc. The one-page survey — at least 800 will be collected — also will include questions about age, education and income.
Wright says this sample will be the basis for a statistical profile of audiences in the county.
The findings will be plugged into an economic research model established by the Americans for the Arts (AFA), a national arts advocacy group that regularly conducts the Arts & Economic Prosperity survey. Local data will be extrapolated and give an economic picture of Onondaga County. It also will be included in AFA national survey and posted on its website. Locally, the findings will be released on a website and as a report in spring 2012. Le Moyne is underwriting the study, which costs $35,000 for faculty time and includes the $7,500 fee to participate in the AFA survey.
As Central New York maps its future, the study’s findings can be useful in reshaping economic strategies and business development, said David Holder, president of the Syracuse Convention & Visitors Bureau. Butler said the data also would be helpful in developing a regional arts plan to better serve arts groups and their communities.
Ideally, economic data from this survey and the audience and organization information collected by the Initiative to Develop and Engage Audiences in Syracuse, or IDEAS Collaborative, will provide a more complete arts picture locally.
“These are complementary, supporting things, looking at different sides of the same issue,” said Le Moyne’s Wright."
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