Friday, April 14, 2006

Economic Impact of the Arts

“There are 4,193 arts-related businesses in the state of Oklahoma, which employ 22,724 people.” Randy Cohen, VP of Research for the Americans for the Arts (www.artsusa.org), was one of the speakers at the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits Leadership Education and Arts Development Conference.

Cohen has meticulously documented the arts-centric businesses like museums, symphonies, theaters, architects and other creative industries having developed studies by state, county and even congressional district. He also has an Arts and Economic Prosperity Calculator that can show the impact of an organization upon a town or county.

“We measured the impact of the counties that were impacted by Katrina. We found that there were 24,003 arts-related businesses with 108,296 people that were impacted by the hurricane.”

As the arts become a more important economic development tool, Cohen’s site is one that you might want to bookmark.

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