Study: Arts and Economic Prosperity in Austin, Americans by the Arts, 2012

(cover: Americans for the Arts)

This fourth updated edition of the study bolsters the justification for the City of Austin to continue providing grants to cultural arts organizations from the revenue generated by the tax on hotel occupancy. Most of those funds from the tax go to the Austin Convention and Visitors Center and to undertakings associated with the hotel industry. Certain of their representatives have argued that Texas law mandates that all the revenue for promotion of tourism should go to those non-arts entities.

Excerpts from the authors' conclusions after analyzing data from 95 arts and cultural organizations in Austinfor City of Austin fiscal year 2010 :

The Economic Impact of the Nonprofit Arts and Culture Industry in the City of Austin, TX

Arts & Economic Prosperity IV provides compelling new evidence that the nonprofit arts and culture are a significant industry in the City of Austin—one that generates $236.1 million in total economic activity. This spending—$137.2 million bynonprofit arts and culture organizations and an additional $99 million in event-relatedspending by their audiences—supports 7,315 full-time equivalent jobs, generates $164.9 million in household income to local residents, and delivers $23.0 million in local and state government revenue. This economic impact study sends a strong signal that when we support the arts, we not only enhance our quality of life, but we also invest in the City of Austin’s economic well-being.

Economic Impact of Spending by Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations in the City of Austin

Nonprofit arts and culture organizations are active contributors to their business community. They are employers, producers, and consumers. They are members of the Chamber of Commerce as well as key partners in the marketing and promotion of their cities, regions, and states. Spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations totaled $137.2 million in the City of Austin during fiscal year 2010. This spending is far-reaching: organizations pay employees, purchase supplies, contract for services, and acquire assets within their community. These actions, in turn, support jobs, create household income, and generate revenue to the local and state governments.

The City of Austin’s nonprofit arts and culture organizations provide rewarding employment for more than just administrators, artists, curators, choreographers, and musicians. They also employ financial staff, facility managers, and salespeople. In addition, the spending by these organizations directly supports a wide array of other occupations spanning many industries (e.g., printing, event planning, legal, construction, and accounting).

Data were collected from 95 eligible nonprofit arts and culture organizations in the City of Austin. Each provided detailed budget information about more than 40 expenditure categories for fiscal year 2010 (e.g., labor, payments to local and nonlocal artists, operations, administration, programming, facilities, and capital expenditures/asset acquisition).

Read or download from AustinLiveTheatre.com the full 32-page study in .pdf format

City of Austin Releases Guidelines for Cultural Grants FY2013

The City of Austin has just published guidance for applying to the biennial program of grants to the arts, funded by the hotel occupancy tax. Deadline to apply is May. 1. From their webpage:

There are three specific programs which fall under the “core funding” umbrella.

They are:

• Organizational Support - Request levels up to $200,000 depending on organization’s budget size.
• Project Support - Requests of $25,000-$100,000 by organizations for specific arts project activities.
• Project Support II - Requests up to $25,000 by organizations for specific project activities. Requests up to $15,000 for individual artist projects.

Eligibility

Applicants must be incorporated, tax exempt organizations residing in Austin or its Extra Territorial Jurisdiction. Other organizations and individual professional artists residing in Austin or its Extra Territorial Jurisdiction may apply under the umbrella of a 501c organization.

Funding Cycle

Applications are due each year on May 1. Guidelines and application forms for the upcoming funding cycle are made available online in the early spring. Core programs follow a two-year funding cycle, accepting new applicants for odd-numbered fiscal years.

FY 2013 Core Funding Guidelines and Application - PDF or Word Doc

FY 2013 Core Funding Application Only - PDF or Word Doc

Updates to the FY 2013 Guidelines (PDF)

For extensive additional information, go to the website of the City's Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office

Kickstarter Appeal: Hidden Room's 'Original Practices' Taming of the Shrew Travels to the American Shakespeare Center

Received notice on line of the following

appeal for $3250 by October 21:

The Hidden Room has been invited to present a staging session at the world famous American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Conference. We will be performing scenes from last year's Taming of the Shrew - Original Practices and discussing Original Practices techniques. This is our big chance to have our amazing Austin actors perform for some of the world's most renowned Shakesperean scholars.

But, first we need to get to Staunton, VA.

And preferably survive while we're there.

Plus it would be nice to return to Austin when we're done. We're fond of it.

Your donation of any amount will help fly our Hidden Room team to Staunton and provide accommodations while we are there. All our folks have already taken care of their own conference fees, but additional moneys raised will go to reimbursing those and other costs incurred on the road. Like food and other such niceties.

Throughout our week in Staunton, the Hidden Room will have the opportunity to learn from and meet with some real academic heroes in the world of Renaissance Drama. Then on Thursday October 27th, we will perform and present on the Blackfriars stage - an exquisite recreation of Shakespeare's original indoor playing house. You can help make a dream come true for our band of players, and allow us the chance to bring Austin to the American Shakespeare Center.

Take us to the ASC. They're waiting for us.

We are grateful for your support - more than you know.

[image by Kimberly Mead: Judd Farris as Petrucio, Ryan Crowder as Kate]

Click for details, FAQ, enticements and to donate at Kickstarter.com. . . .

Upcoming: Seminar on Cultural Data Project, Creative Alliance and Wyatt Brand at Dougherty Arts Center, September 13

Received directly from David Wyatt of

The Austin Creative Alliance

presents

The Pew Memorial Trust Cultural Data Project

Dougherty Arts Center - 1110 Barton Springs Road (click for map)
Tuesday, September 13 from 6- 8 p.m.
free admission
www.austincreativealliance.org

In its third meeting on "crisis and opportunity," the Austin Creative Alliance is having a look at the numbers. Because earlier discussions touched on a recurring theme of understanding and strengthening organizations’ advocacy efforts, the Alliance is bringing in representatives from the Cultural Data Project operated by The Pew Charitable Trusts to help the area’s creatives make sense of their own institutional and community information. Neville Vakharia—the Director of the Cultural Data Project—and Senior Associate Flo Gardner are traveling from Philadelphia to facilitate.

The Cultural Data Project (CDP) is a powerful online management tool designed to strengthen the arts and cultural sector. [Click image or title to visit their website] Now operating in 11 states, the CDP is a unique system that enables arts and cultural organizations to enter financial, programmatic and operational data into a standardized online form.
Organizations can subsequently quickly and easily generate reports to use as part of the application process for participating funders. They can also use the CDP as a tool to track their own trends over time or to benchmark key components of their operations against others in aggregate by discipline, budget size, geographic location and many other criteria. This knowledge is power: organizations have leveraged increased board support or lowered their rental costs thanks to their findings.

With more than 11,500 arts and cultural organizations now entering data into the Cultural Data Project each year, the CDP’s database has become an important resource for arts advocacy organizations and researchers seeking to report on the value and needs of the cultural sector. The first resource of its kind for those involved in arts policy, the CDP can provide standardized, high-quality, comprehensive data to help arts advocates illustrate how many jobs are supported or how much earned income is generated by the cultural sector in a particular city or region. As a result, when public support for the arts is on the chopping block, the CDP helps decision makers to be informed by solid facts.

From the AustinLiveTheatre.com article of April, 2009 "Pew's Cultural Data Project: Why Not Texas?" -- an interview-discussion from 2008, via Collective Action, the blog of the Chicago League of Theatres:

Philanthropy Chat: Janet Camarena Interviews John McGuirk of the James Irvine Foundation and Bobbie Lippman of the Pew Charitable Trusts
San Francisco, CA March 12, 2008

For this edition of Philanthropy Chat, Janet Camarena, director of the Foundation Center-San Francisco, interviewed John McGuirk, program director for the arts at the James Irvine Foundation and Bobbie Lippman, senior officer for culture and director of the Cultural Data Project for the Pew Charitable Trusts. They discussed the new California Cultural Data Project, its impact on grantseeking and reporting for California arts and culture organizations, and other benefits to having a centralized, online data management system for arts organizations. (40 min., 32 sec)

Arts Funding: Cookie Ruiz Suggests Thanking the Commission

Cookie Ruiz of Ballet Austin, one of the arts community's chief spokespersons with the City, writes to arts organizations to suggest that organizations and artists write to members of the City's advisory Arts Commision, who voted unanimously on March 23 to reject City management's revisions to arts funding criteria and application forms. She includes the names of Commission members, with e-mails and other contact information.

In today's Austin Statesman Jeanne Claire van Ryzin summarizes the current status (Austin's arts funding changes on hold; Official: City will create task force to resolve tourism issue). KUT-FM mentioned the issue in a brief item in its Austin newscast.

Ms. Ruiz's note begins,

Dear Colleagues,

If you have a moment in the next few days and have not already done so, would you consider sending an email/note of appreciation to the members of the Arts Commission? The action taken by the commissioners on March 22nd to move into the “City of Austin Cultural Arts Funding Programs – Core Programs 2010/11” using the December guidelines was an important vote in support of the arts community. Their leadership and memo to City Council contributed to the decision not to move forward with the proposed revisions discussed in recent weeks, so close to the submission date. Many thanks to those that could arrange schedules to attend this meeting on short notice. Commissioner Pennington (Chair) reminded us that the platform for exchange and communication exists at each meeting of the Arts Commission, and invited our continued attendance/participation.

For continuation, Arts Commission contacts and links to earlier reporting on this issue, go to AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Arts Funding: Michael Melinger's "After Action" Comments to City and to Arts Leaders

In his reply to the letter of March 26 from the City's Kevin Johns on the issue of potential changes to criteria for arts funding, Michael Melinger of the Austin Jazz Workshop examines the issues of supporting Austin arts generally, particularly arts education of all forms:

March 29th, 2010

Dear Friends,
We have come through an intense week regarding the future of arts funding in Austin. Many thanks to all who have contributed to the discussion.
I have read the recent letter from EGRSO Director Kevin Johns, and I appreciate the spirit of openness and the big-picture intentions that it expresses. But as always, the devil is in the details. I do have some concerns that I would like to share with you all, in the spirit of moving the arts into a more stable funding situation.

My first concern is for the future of arts education funding in the city. My reading of Kevin's letter is that arts education groups may be moved out of the HOT funds and into an unspecified-as-yet 'somewhere else'. If this 'somewhere else' ends up being the city's general fund, I fear we will be fighting this battle annually, with the threat of being cut always looming during lean budget years. Arts education funding would also be at the whim of future councils, mayors, and city managers who may not share our vision of its true value.

Don't get me wrong: any funding is better than no funding. But if were to lose our eligibility for HOT funds, we had better replace it with something equally as untouchable. Whether that be in the form of a usage fee, special tax, or something else would have to be up to the city council, but it would be a big mistake to rely on the city's general fund coffers for our continued survival.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

City Management's Reply to Cultural Arts Contractors, March 26

The following letter was sent March 26 by Kevin Johns, Director of the City's Office of Economic Growth and Redevelopment Service to organizations on record as cultural arts contractors.

Click to view larger version and continuation page at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Update on City Arts Funding Revisions

The advisory Arts Commission of the City of Austin met in special session on Monday night, March 22, to consider changes to arts funding prepared by City staff in response to an opinion deliver by the City's legal office. After hearing citizen comments, the Commission voted unanimously to urge City Council members to reject the new criteria, which could have the consequences, inter alia, of cutting off grants for education and arts outreach.

Commission leaders and Latifah Taormina, Executive Director of the Greater Austin Creative Alliance (GACA) briefed arts organizations on March 23.

The story has broken in the press. Dan Solomon of Austinist.com surveys the issue and legal texts, as well as interviewing major players. Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, writing on the Statesman's Arts360 "Seeing Things" blog, does a brief summary but provides pertinent numbers and percentages regarding Austin's revenues from the hotel and occupancy tax.

Latifah Taormina provides an update today, March 23, by e-mail and on the NowPlaying Austin blog, opening, "It's working. . . . " Her piece includes notes about the action plan items suggested by arts organizations.

The Internet-based private news service InFactDaily.com reports that City Council members were taken by surprise by the deluge of more than 500 e-mails on the proposed changes in criteria for arts funding and they are displeased with city management. The article quotes acting mayor Mike Martinez, Randi Shade and Bill Spellman. Full text of report is reprinted by permission at the Austin Jazz Workshop website.