NEMA News
Spring 2009
By Dee Schneidman, Research Manager, New England Foundation for the Arts
New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) has leveraged our 30 year history of assessing the economic impact of arts and culture inthe region to establish a flexible, yet structured, definition of who counts as part of the creative economy. First, we define the creative economy, then we look at how to measure it, and finally we see how to build upon those current systems of measurement.
Creative Economy Definition
NEFA’s most recent report, The Creative Economy: A New Definition, defines the creative economy as the organizations and individuals who produce and/or distribute cultural goods and services. This focus on the “cultural core” is due to the way employment is measured in this country, the landscape of New England, and the inevitable priority NEFA has for highlighting arts and culture. While other definitions stem from other agendas and are equally valuable, NEFA chose to be relatively conservative, and start with a core of cultural activity that can be reasonably measured anywhere in the U.S. The core can be expanded upon in certain situations to reflect the particular characteristics of a geographic area, but the idea is that the core represents totally cultural activity,no matter where you are. Ideally, data about the employment of that core would come directly from each organization and creative worker in the creative economy. We’re working on building that direct data collection mechanism (more about CultureCount below); in the meantime, our data has to come from the standard collection of federal systems.
Federal Data
Employment data for the creative economy—cultural nonprofits, creativebusinesses and creative professionals—are all tracked separately in the federal system. Businesses are tracked through the U.S. Economic Census and County Business Patterns with the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS); workers are tracked through the U.S.Population Census and Current Population Survey by Census Occupational Code; nonprofits are tracked through IRS Form990 by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE). It’s the combination and intersections of these people and places that make up the creative economy. Specifically, cultural organizations and creative businesses employ both creative and non-creativeworkers, and creative workers work in both cultural and non-cultural settings.
Museum Employment
Let’s look at museums as a group oforganizations. Which museums are counted as part of the creative economy? While this is not necessarily consistent across the country, NEFA has parameters for including museums in New England. Because we’re working with federal data on businesses, a good place to start is how your organization files its taxes. If you file with the industry code 712110 (museums) or 712120 (historical sites), you’re counted. Or, you may fall under one of the 83 other industry categories, including 519120 (libraries and archives). Museums and historical sites employ creative workers like archivists and non-creative workers like accountants. The economic impact that those museums make on their communities is based on their whole budgets and all of their employees—not just those considered creative workers. Not only because museums don’t have to report to the federal government how many of their employees they deem “creative,” but also because economic impact is a ripple effect. If that museum didn’t exist, the accountant would be out of a job too—not just the archivist! How do we count those creative workers? Again, we use federal classification systems. The categories of interest here are: Anthropologists and archeologists, historians, teachers (art,cultural studies, communications, etc.),archivists, curators, museum technicians and conservators, librarians, and library technicians.
Local Data
A concerted effort NEFA has made in the last eight years to fill in some ofthe gaps of this federal data—and truly highlight the economic impact of artsand culture—is the creation of CultureCount (www.culturecount.org). CultureCount is NEFA’s online creative economy database that actively supports the visibility and growth of New England’s cultural assets by providinga free, centralized data source on New England’s cultural nonprofits, businesses, and professionals. All of the categories of the creative economy that we count in our research reports are also reflected, and built upon, in CultureCount. Anyone using the web can search the CultureCount directory by any of these systems—and users are invited to submit additions or edits to listings to help keep the data current. A search of CultureCount institution types “museums–art” and “museums–other” yields 641 records in New England. These listings include private art museums, public art museums, school museums, heritage sites, craft museums, maritime museums, and museums of natural history, cultural history,and science.
CultureCount can also immediately assess the economic impact of museums in Massachusetts. The Impact Calculator generates customized estimates of the impact of every cultural nonprofit for which we have financial information on every community in Massachusetts. For example, based on the most recent available data, the museums in Essex County, MA, spend about $29.7 million annually, making an economic impact of $58.5 million. Included in this analysis are the Peabody Essex Museum, the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, and the Lighthouse Preservation Society, among others. In the city of Worcester, MA, museums make a $20.8 million economic impact. Organizations have successfully used the data from the Impact Calculator to build strong cases for support! We are working to get the Impact Calculator built for each New England state; please let your state arts agency know that this would help you with advocacy efforts. [Editors note: Contact information is available on www.nemanet.org under “Resources”]
Get Counted
Right now, we are using CultureCount to survey every cultural nonprofit in New England. It is necessary to supplement the limited data available from the federal systems described above. The survey is open until May 15, 2009, and all nonprofit museums—especially those who do not file their own IRS 990—are encouraged to go to CultureCount.org and click on the survey link. You’ll be asked for financial and employment data, which helps us better assess the cultural landscape of New England and highlight its impact in our research reports.
NEFA is a 501 (c)3 that operates withfunding from the National Endowment forthe Arts, the New England state arts agen-cies, and from corporations, foundations andindividuals.
