Why support the arts?

Every year, the nonprofit arts and culture industry has a $213.7 million impact in the Dayton Region, supports 8,829 full-time equivalent jobs, and generates $23.9 million in local and state government revenues. These are just some of the findings from Americans for the Arts’ Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 (AEP5), the most comprehensive economic impact study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry ever conducted in the United States.

As the Dayton Region study partner, Culture Works worked with cultural nonprofits in Clark, Greene, Miami, and Montgomery Counties throughout 2016 to gather data on spending by the organizations and their audiences. 113 organizations provided detailed budget information and attendance figures through organizational surveys, and 857 individuals completed audience-intercept surveys at cultural events. Thanks to this incredible response from our community, we now have clear evidence showing that the Dayton Region’s arts and culture industry means business.

Explore the Dayton Region Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 Study Results

• Download the full Dayton Region AEP5 report
• Download the one-page Dayton Region report summary
• Discover the impact of your cultural organization using the Dayton Region Economic Impact Calculator, which has been customized by Americans for the Arts using data from our region
• Read the full national report from Americans for the Arts

Learn More About the Impact of the Arts

Randy Cohen, Vice President of Research and Policy at Americans for the Arts, presented the Dayton Region AEP5 study results to our community at a Culture Works town hall meeting on September 18, 2017. In addition to the AEP5 results, he shared a wealth of information about other research that demonstrates the importance of the arts:

Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account – Bureau of Economic Analysis
Arts and cultural economic activity (including for-profit) accounts for 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or 877.8 billion.

Arts and Education – Americans for the Arts
Arts in schools increase test scores and decrease dropout rates among students of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Among disadvantaged students, arts engagement in secondary school leads to a higher likelihood of finding gainful employment, earning a degree, and volunteering in adulthood. Unfortunately, it’s often students who could most benefit from arts education who have the least access to it.

Arts in Healthcare State of the Field Report – Arts and Health Alliance
Using the arts in healthcare leads to shortened hospital stays, better patient/caregiver communication, reduced healthcare costs, and many other benefits. From the report: “Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, using the arts during the preparation period for pediatric CT scans, saved $567 per procedure, put three hours of nursing time back on the floors, reduced the medications needed by the young patients, cut down on overnight stays, and boasted a 98% procedure success rate for a test that is very difficult for kids (Walworth, 2005).”

Arts, Health and Well-Being across the Military Continuum – Americans for the Arts
The arts have a multitude of applications in healthcare for service men and women–from using art therapy to reduce anxiety and depression to providing dance instruction in order to reduce balance and coordination deficits.

Creative Industries – Americans for the Arts
Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industries. Create a free account to gain access to customized reports for the Dayton Region.

Ohio Arts Education Data Project – Ohio Alliance for Arts Education
Review school-level, district, county, and statewide data. The interactive, color-coded dashboard displays arts access and enrollment data for Ohio’s preK-12 schools as reported annually via the state’s Education Management Information System (EMIS). Data from ensuing school years will be added annually, allowing the project to show the status of arts education over time. Demographic data is from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Get Inspired

Americans love the arts, but how and where they want to experience the arts has changed. Learn how communities across the country are bringing the arts to unexpected places.

• Community Bookshelf
  • Turn a parking garage into a work of art.
• Opera in the Outfield
  • Enjoy your opera with a hot dog.
• Performance in the Borderlands
  • Revive the site of a former landfill with live performances.
• Revolution Recovery – Art at the Philly Dump
  • Catch a movie or tour an artist’s exhibit…at a recycling facility.