NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The greater Wilmington area has been touted an arts community and destination for years. Recent figures released by a national study prove it’s beyond mere conjecture.
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A survey conducted by the nation’s largest nonprofits arts education and advocacy group, Americans for the Arts, released its 2022 economic impact report, The Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 (AEP6). Last conducted in 2015, New Hanover County was one of almost 400 communities assessed nationally.
Countywide, nonprofits garnered $75.6 million in economic activity in 2022, with $19.3 million in spending by the organizations and $56.3 million in event-related expenditures doled out by audiences. As well, the boost supported more than 1,200 jobs, $40.3 million in income to residents, $1.3 million in local tax revenue, $2 million in state taxes, and $8 million in federal taxes.
“And this is just a baseline,” Rhonda Bellamy, executive director of the Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County, told Port City Daily. “The arts’ impact is much larger than this.”
AEP6 surveyed 32 of 68 local nonprofit organizations, asking for their budgets, including expenditures and event attendance numbers and used an input-output analysis model, sanctioned by the National Association of Counties and the U.S. Mayor’s Association. It also culled 691 audience surveys, collected from people who were present at various performances and exhibits between May 2022 and June 2023.
Local nonprofit participants included the arts council, Bellamy Mansion, Dreams Center for Arts Education, Opera House Theater Company, Cape Fear Museum of History, Cameron Arts Museum, Wilson Center, Thalian Association of Wilmington, Cucalorus Foundation, Wilmington Children’s Museum, Wilmington Regional Film Commission, Wilmington Symphony Orchestra, among others.
AEP6 is a conservative approach to establishing economic reach the arts has in a community since not all nonprofit organizations it tapped participated. Thalian Hall, for instance, was left off, as the timing of the report’s research was when its former executive director Tony Rivenbark passed away, followed by the exit of Thalian’s development director Melissa Miedema.
“I didn’t know until we got the report that Thalian wasn’t on it,” Bellamy said, adding the nonprofits went through Americans for Arts directly to collect data.
Also, the report doesn’t take into account the for-profit sector, such as privately owned art galleries, and in Wilmington’s case, concert venues like Live Oak Bank Pavilion and Greenfield Lake Amphitheater.
Port City Daily asked the city how much revenue the two venues brought in since 2021 and its count for additional jobs created; this will be updated upon response.
Monday, Bellamy presented AEP6’s findings, along with Jeff Bell — executive director of the Arts Council of North Carolina — to locals from participating nonprofit organizations, the local arts council board, as well as officials. County commissioner Rob Zapple and City of Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo were on hand, gathered in the lobby of $45-million publicly funded theater, Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College (though the arts complex is now self-sustaining through private donations).
Bellamy clarified the report didn’t include ticket admission.
“I assume that the numbers you’re putting out there, you should add another 30% or 40%,” Zapple inquired.
Bellamy responded she was still working to figure it out but the data in the survey didn’t capture everything fully. It doesn’t account for non-participating organizations, for expample. However, on a phone call Tuesday, Bellamy said an arts nonprofits that weren’t involved can enter information on the council’s website I the AEP6 calculator to configure how it contributes to the local economy (click here).
“Every person that attended an event here, in New Hanover County, on average spent $44.94 a person,” Bellamy relayed Monday.
But that figure increased when it came to non-local attendees. AEP6 found one of every three people surveyed — required to provide a zip code of residence — came from out of town. Each spent roughly $60.55, as travelers often dined at a restaurant or shopped beforehand and secured lodging.
“Holy smokes,” Zapple said. “That’s called increasing the pie, not taking the single pie and dividing it up more.”
The non-local audiences also had to answer whether their travel to the area was based solely on attending an arts event. They answered yes 70.7% of the time.
“This is big business,” Bellamy said. “We want to quantify and make real to our elected officials and the general public about the value of the arts beyond just the quality of life that it affords us here in southeastern North Carolina; the fact is, it’s an economic engine.”
According to Bell, North Carolina overall rose above the national nonprofit arts sector average, which experienced a 7% decline in economic impact over the last eight years. The state had a 5% increase, with nonprofit arts organizations bringing in $2.23 billion in economic activity to North Carolina.
Bellamy added New Hanover County excelled above other North Carolina areas, many with larger populations, including Charlotte.
The coastal region exemplified how arts enrich lives and bring joy, according to Bell.
“They expose us to different traditions, and they make our communities more culturally rich and vibrant,” he added, “but they also have a significant impact on the economic health and vitality of our state.”
Bell said AEP6’s survey was more qualitative this year, in that it showed audience support of the arts. In New Hanover County, 84% of surveyors said going to performances and events generate pride in their community and 80% expressed feeling loss if a venue or activity no longer was available.
“We know that performing arts venues like the Wilson Center, galleries, and festivals were among the first to close down in 2020 and among the last to come back with in-person programming,” Bell said. “While we’ve all come to embrace Zoom and hybrid work environments, digitally streaming a dance performance or teaching kids the beauty of spoken word poetry via webcam was not always feasible for most artists and arts organizations, but it also lacked the amazing human connection that audiences and artists alike benefited from.”
Bell credited the boom to nonprofit arts’ spending, particularly in relation to efforts put forth by arts agencies, organizations, and state and local governments during Covid-19. As many nonprofits took a hit, funds provided elsewhere, such as through the American Rescue Plan Act, helped offset lost revenue.
The City of Wilmington allocated $700,000 in ARPA money to nonprofits in 2021, of which $200,000 was distributed to more than a dozen arts organizations via the local arts council. New Hanover County provided $700,000 in ARPA funds to be disseminated, though it was through the United Way to area nonprofits; only one arts organization, Blank Canvas Awareness Art, received funding for just more than $14,000.
The city and county also provide funding in their annual budgets for numerous cultural agencies. The City of Wilmington, for example, gave the community arts center almost $79,000 and Thalian Hall Center for Performing Arts, which also houses city hall, $163,039 this fiscal year.
The county allotted $28,000 to the Cucalorus Film Foundation, $20,0000 to the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra and $37,000 to Brooklyn Arts Music Academy, among others.
Both entities support the local arts council, which is operating on a $745,258 fiscal year 2023-2024 budget. The county contributed $100,000 to this year’s operations, while the city padded it with $25,000 and an additional $10,000 from its ARPA pot. Bellamy asked the city last year for more money — $125,000 — but was declined.
“When we were first established, the city gave us $40,000 in each of our first three years,” Bellamy said on a phone call Tuesday morning. “And this was money that came from the sale of St. Andrews to the for-profit Brooklyn Arts Center. The balance of the proceeds from that sale went into an endowment that was created for the arts council. So we also were able to get $12,000 from our endowment, which is about $250,000.”
The General Assembly appropriated $200,000 in its recently passed state budget to the Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County.
Bellamy added North Carolina has a vast network of arts agencies, around 80 councils, the state legislature supports. It also bumped up allocations for grassroots grant funds by an additional $2.5 million. This money goes to all 100 counties, even ones that don’t have arts councils; it may be funneled, instead, through school districts, Bellamy clarified.
The state is giving the local arts council $73,000 — money that recurs annually — to for grassroots arts funds.
“We just received word we would get another $63,000 in additional funding from the state,” Bellamy said.
So that’s more than $130,000 to go back into the local arts economy.
The arts council’s main objective is to shoulder support for the area’s nonprofit organizations and individual artists via grants, while also fostering growth community-wide through various outreach programs. The council oversees Fourth Friday Gallery Nights and a pedestrian art installation program in downtown Wilmington, produces the Wilmington Theater Awards, hosts annual fundraisers, such as The Arty Party.
“I’ve always said the creation of jobs and companies that move to this area go hand in hand with what we are able to do with arts and what people can enjoy here in Wilmington,” Saffo said. “I always hear: ‘What is there to do in Wilmington?’ Well, there’s a lot to do today and a lot more coming. And that’s a testament to everybody that’s in this room.”
It’s the second time the AEP6 study has been done in the Wilmington art council’s lifespan.
“Prior to that time, we went without an arts council for 10 years,” Bellamy told attendees Monday. “So there was no organization here to do this type of study.”
The explosive growth the area witnessed in the last decade means local arts organizations and council’s needs continue to expand. Bellamy said she has been hearing for years from local community groups about the need for a mid-size venue.
Wilson Center has a 1,500-seat capacity, Kenan Auditorium is 1,000, Thalian Hall has 600, and its adjoining smaller theater holds roughly 100.
“Some organizations, their capacity is maybe in the 300 range and we don’t have that,” Bellamy said. “And rehearsal space — they can’t rehearse if they have another production going on next door, so we’re bottlenecking in some places.”
Bellamy also said the arts council — which operates with one full-time staff member and part-timers who help with gallery exhibitions — could be outgrowing its location at 221 N Front St. soon enough. It operates out of a 700-square-foot office and gallery.
“To grow staff, we would need a bigger space,” she said Tuesday. “In a community this size, we need greater capacity to serve an arts community this size.”
Bell said data like AEP6 strongly exemplifies financial gains directly attributed by the arts, something that should be utilized to leverage greater support moving forward.
“We as art administrators, and those that attend our events and believe in this work, need to always be thinking about sustainability and stability, and I know that that’s not always easy, but it’s vital to ensure our organizations are nimble and strong now and in the future,” he said. “We must all keep advocating at every level of local and state government and to foundations and for-profit partners for greater investment in the arts and culture sector.”
Bellamy added she would personally like to see the $1.3 billion New Hanover Community Endowment embrace arts in its grant-giving; the endowment was born of the Novant-NHRMC hospital sale two years ago. Its focus is on health, education, safety, and economic opportunity.
“I would like the arts to not be singled out as a sector that is undeserving or we’re not doing the work or we have to build a school or a hospital in order to qualify for the money,” she said.
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