Americans for the Arts, a Washington-based organization providing education and support to local arts entities, recently commissioned a study on the economic impact of the arts across the country; Tennessee's recently re leased report shows that there are 9,639 arts-related bus inesses across the state employing 50,474 people.
Those numbers are significant, said Americans for the Arts president and CEO Robert Lynch, because they're much higher than most people would expect.
"One of our goals is to come up with data that will help local organizations better make the case for the value of the arts and the breadth of arts," Lynch added. "Putting this kind of information in front of decision-makers, both public and private, is important so that they can see how substantial the arts industry has become."
When compiling the data, researchers at Americans for the Arts broke down the creative industries into six categories: museum/collections; performing arts, including music; visual arts and photography; film, radio and TV; design and publishing; and schools and services.
Nashville-Davidson County ranked No. 6 in the number of arts organizations per capita, behind Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Scottsdale, Ariz.
In terms of sheer numbers of arts entities, Nashville ranked No. 11, with 2,465 businesses employing 13,722 people. Many of the cities ahead of Music City in that ranking were much larger markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
This study follows up on a similar project undertaken in 2004, said Tom Turk, executive director of the local arts advocacy organization Tennesseans for the Arts, which released the results of the study locally.
Americans for the Arts took its data from Dun & Bradstreet, which maintains a database that indexes information about individual businesses nationwide.
"The critical thing to note," Turk said, "is that all the organizations included in the study are only those organizations that have registered with Dun & Bradstreet, so most of those are for-profit businesses. Nonprofits are really underreported because many of them don't see the value in registering. Part of what we're doing with this study is encouraging arts organizations to register with Dun & Bradstreet, so that the study can show more broadly how many people are employed by the arts."
Turk said his group plans to share the study with state legislators to demonstrate the strength of the arts in Tennessee.
"It clearly says that the arts are an important part of our economy, and that they seem to be growing a little bit faster than the overall economy."
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