Clip on Arts Advocates

You mentioned economic impact. The reason you're there is to raise awareness and money. Ultimately, this is what this is about. What kind of economic impact does the arts have in Missouri as a whole and just in Southwest Missouri? Do you have any numbers on that? I have actually specific numbers for Joplin, which are very fascinating. That's what I will take with me. Since we are the arts agency, community arts agency for Joplin, we participated in a study almost five years ago called the Arts and Economic Prosperity Five, which is a study that the Americans of the Arts do every five years to kind of gauge the economic impact of nonprofit arts and culture organizations throughout the United States. All different cities and states participate. And we found out that in Joplin alone, it's the arts and culture industry is a $5.4 million industry where the organizations contribute $1.8 million and then they bring back $3.6 million with their audiences. The industry also has created or sustained

a 191 full-time equivalent jobs for people. And something I always like to point out is the volunteerism. There's 835 hours per year, which is just an amazing amount of time that people have contributed, which is time is money. We take all of that kind of information and more. There's so many more numbers that we've gotten from the study. And we always educate the legislators about that. And we leave it with them just so that maybe they have some time later to read the entire study, which is quite lengthy.