The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Cost American Arts Organizations a Collective $4.5 Billion So Far, a New Study Claims

Arts and culture organizations
across the country are estimated to have lost a combined $4.5
billion because of the health crisis so far, according to an
ambitious new
survey conducted by the
Americans for the Arts. And that’s just the start.

Among the more than 11,000
organizations surveyed for the study, the average loss
was $38,000 in just over three weeks. More than two-thirds estimate that the crisis
will have a “severe” or “extremely severe” impact on their
business.

Meanwhile, 94 percent of
respondents have canceled events. Roughly half say that expenses
have gone up or are expected to. And 23 percent have already
reduced staff, while another 43 percent say they will likely have
to do so eventually. 

“Clearly, this is a devastating
time for the arts, with nonprofit arts organizations alone already
accumulating $4.5 billion in losses and much more uncertainty
ahead,” says Randy Cohen, vice president of research at Americans
for the Arts. “We will definitely lose organizations by the time we
get to the other side of this COVID-19 crisis.”

The surveyed organizations range
from “small volunteer-led groups to institutions with budgets in
the tens of millions,” says Cohen. Three-fourths are non-profits,
while the rest are commercial outfits or even “individual artists,”
who were invited to register the impact on their studios. All 50
states are represented.

It’s worth mentioning that the
$4.5 billion estimate is highly speculative, arrived at by looking
at the average loss reported by survey respondents, assuming those
losses to be a representative sample of all arts organizations in
the United States, and then extrapolating a national total.
(Americans for the Arts estimates that there are 120,000
organizations in the US, a number which comes from previous “survey
findings and data from the IRS Business Master
File.”)

At the same time, many
organizations that replied to the survey said it was too early in
the crisis to begin to estimate financial losses, so even the
initial estimate is likely to change as more data comes
in. 

Still, no matter how you slice
it, the news is bleak. “And yet,” Cohen added, “there’s still room
for optimism.” 

When social distancing measures
are lifted, arts and cultural organizations will be vital to
righting the ship.

“Getting people out of their
houses and spending money again will be key to jump-starting the
economy,” he goes on. “This is what the arts do—they get us out of
the house and create social and economic opportunities—attending a
festival, going to a museum exhibit, attending the theater. And the
data show that, when we do, we are driving commerce across a range
of sectors—pumping business to local merchants.”

Arts also bring people together,
not just geographically but culturally. 

“Regardless who we voted for,
everyone loves their local festivals, working together on a
community mural, and seeing Hamilton for the third time,” Cohen adds. “These are
things we do together. And the research backs up this
point.”

He points to Americans for the
Arts’s 2018 public opinion poll “Americans Speak Out
About The Arts,” in
which 72 percent of Americans said they believe “the arts unify our
communities regardless of age, race, and ethnicity” and 81 percent
of the population considered the arts to be a “positive experience
in a troubled world.”

The post The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Cost American Arts
Organizations a Collective $4.5 Billion So Far, a New Study
Claims appeared first on artnet News.