The Creative Economy
Overview
The creative economy is comprised of creative enterprises -- both commercial and nonprofit -- and individuals that together provide a significant contribution to local and regional economies.
NEFA's creative economy work dates back to 1978, with its first economic impact study of the region's nonprofit cultural organizations as a service to the six state arts agencies of New England. These surveys and reports later evolved into The Creative Economy Initiative, a region-wide effort involving leadership from the commercial and nonprofit cultural sectors and served as models for many of the creative economy initiatives currently in progress across the region.
NEFA's current creative economy work includes research reports, with a special focus on refining the definitional framework used to collect this creative economy data. Additionally, NEFA provides web-based tools such as the New England Cultural Database for use by cultural organizations, arts policy makers, economic development officials and the general public in addition to the state arts agencies.
Projects
New England Cultural Database (NECD)
The NECD is a comprehensive online data warehouse containing financial, demographic, geographic, and other related information about the organizations and individuals that comprise the creative economy in New England. The NECD was built upon NEFA’s long history of surveying the public cultural sector of the region and is currently in expansion to reflect the entire creative economy, which includes both the public and for-profit cultural sector.
Defining the Creative Economy
As creative economy research becomes more and more widespread, the term ‘creative economy’ has taken on different meanings to different communities. To promote clarity and consistency in creative economy research, NEFA has recently modified its creative economy research model. This new model defines an updated framework of industries and occupations that are measured in NEFA’s creative economy analysis and reporting, and can also be used by others conducting similar research in their own communities.
Research Convening
To inform its efforts in defining a research model for the creative economy (see above), NEFA hosted a March, 2006 convening.
A panel of experts reviewed the recommendations of Douglas DeNatale, PhD. and Gregory Wassal, PhD. in a white paper that examines the definition of the creative economy developed in the Creative Economy Initiative: The Role of the Arts and Culture in New England’s Economic Competitiveness, released in 2000 by NEFA, Mt. Auburn Associates and The New England Council, as well as subsequent approaches advanced in the U.S. and abroad.
Other topics discussed included the wide variety of reasons for defining & measuring cultural activity, such as advocacy, planning, research and developing partnerships; the pros and cons of a “common” creative economy definition methodology as well as the potential for agreement on a flexible, transparent structure for secondary data collection.
Reports
NEFA updates its reports on the financial state of the nonprofit cultural sector of New England annually, collecting data from the IRS and direct survey. The 2005 report includes new methodology for classifying the organizations in the nonprofit cultural sector and in-depth analysis of the organizations that report their financial activity to the IRS by Thomas H. Pollack at the National Center for Charitable Statistics.
NEFA continues the work of the Creative Economy Initiative by publishing updates on the full spectrum of creative economy industries and occupations, which includes for-profit businesses as well as nonprofit organizations. The next Creative Economy Report will include a new definition and protocol for measuring the sector as well as an update of the data for each category.
To view NEFA reports, please visit our Publications Page.
Resources
Click here for a list of Creative Economy links.
This timeline gives a quick glimpse of the history of creative economy research.
Contact
For more information, or to share your organization’s creative economy work, please e-mail research@nefa.org or call NEFA at 617.951.0010.
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