Denver’s nonprofit arts and culture activity reached nearly $2 billion last year, new study finds
Nonprofit arts and culture action in the seven-country metro region reached a record $1.9 billion in 2017, supporting improved employment, capital spending and tourism, according to another study by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts.
That’s an 8-percent growth since 2015, the previous year the study was conducted, CBCA officials said.
“It is a really special slice of this country ’s entire activity,” stated Christin Crampton Day, executive director of the CBCA. “Can you imagine what these numbers would be if you should look at it statewide, or include for-profit industries? ”
The CBCA research, released every two years since 1992, is based on data from the approximately 300 nonprofit arts organizations that include the Denver-metro area’s nationally special Scientific & Cultural Facilities District. Having a 1-cent-per-$10 taxation, the voter-approved SCFD has for 3 years affirmed arts and culture nonprofits in the metro region with funding and other resources.
“What makes this study different is it helps educate people, government officials and the business community that this is cash well-spent,” Crampton Day explained. “It benefits not only business but our lifestyle in Colorado, because cultural vitality is something which ’s so important to our DNA. Folks today need to live and operate in regions with critical arts and culture industries. ”
Beyondillustrating the financial impact of arts, culture and science, the analysis also shows how far the metro region has exploded in the last couple of decades.
Total financial activity, characterized by the CBCA as direct and indirect spending from surgeries, audiences and capital jobs, might have reached almost $2 billion in 2017. But overall financial impact (or new cash to the region) gained $573 million — per 12-percent increase over 2015, according to the report, adding a record-breaking $400 million in economic impact from cultural tourists.
From 2015-17, researchers watched a 40-percent growth in capital spending, an 8.5-percent growth in both cultural attendance and outreach to school kids, along with a 35-percent growth in youth and adult class enrollment.
“Those are large jumps, and surely that may go up and down based on the life cycle of unique endeavors,” Crampton-Day stated. “But we also anticipate it being high in another study, as there are a great deal of capital projects happening now. ”
It’s ’s not simply a matter of Denver’s population boom driving the gains. Since 1992, cultural attendance has increased at almost twice the speed of this metro area’s population growth, the research found.
Crampton Day explained the data from the analysis is gleaned from detailed grant reports composed by nonprofit organizations to get their funding.
Other findings of this research included:
Arts and culture encouraged 11,820 occupations in 2017, a 10-percent increase over 2015
Giving to the arts increased by 3.5 percent to $182.6 million
Attendance at arts and culture supplies clocked in 15 million individuals at 2017, up 8.5 percent over 2015
On average, a cultural player spends $22.50 on non-ticket items per arts experience (Consumer Price Index corrected ).
Areas of concern in the analysis include a recession in foundation and corporate giving, which Crampton Day could not clarify — owing to a volatile, up-and-down tendency over the decades that appears disconnected from federal financial problems.
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“Corporate sponsorships were pretty much, at 23 percent, and bases were down 13 percent,” she said. “That was unexpected to us. But diving to that, we also saw a healthy growth from human donors (up 13 percent), in-kind goods and services (up 6 percent) and gains from endowments. ”
The complete report was released at CBCA’s breakfast meeting Nov. 1 at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. It may be accessed, such as a bilingual edition, in cbca.org/economic-activitystudy.
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