Arts and culture organizations that received more funding from local governments during the COVID-19 pandemic tended to fare better in subsequent years, a new study suggests.
A new report from SMU (Southern Methodist University) DataArts zooms in on data from 10 cities between 2019 and 2024, linking local public investments to stronger performances in the arts sector. From Sacramento and Seattle to New York City and Philadelphia, the study highlights diverging trends across cities — some rebounded from the pandemic and even exceeded their 2019 numbers, while others plummeted.
Through data compiled from the first cohort of local arts agencies that are part of the City Arts Data Exchange, a partnership between SMU DataArts and Bloomberg Associates, researchers determined that federal funding was a key indicator of how each city performed.
The pandemic devastated many arts and culture organizations. Live performance spaces shuttered for good, people visited galleries through screens and virtual simulations, and unemployment in the art industry soared. How local governments chose to support their arts sector during that time made a difference in both the immediate recuperation of those organizations and their long-term success.
While the 10 cities in the study started off with similar financial indicators, such as revenue, average expenses, and operating surplus, the pandemic created an enormous chasm. Audience metrics split, operating expenses widened, and six of the cities in the study experienced an over 20% decline in their revenue trajectories.
The study assessed not just financial data, but considered attendance numbers as an indicator of community relevance and performance. Even though 40% of organizations in the cohort grew their audience since 2019, 55% haven’t recovered their pre-pandemic attendance numbers.
Cities like Cleveland received strong support from public agencies, which researchers believe could have contributed to the city’s 48% revenue increase between 2019 and 2024. Although the local government decreased its share of covered expenses, Cleveland’s per capita investment in arts and culture grants remained at the top of the cohort. Among them, the public funding group Cuyahoga Arts and Culture distributed dozens of relief grants to youth orchestras, dance houses, heritage museums, writing centers, and children’s museums.
Atlanta experienced a 55% expense increase and a revenue growth of 50%. With an even steadier upward trajectory than Cleveland, it showed a sustainable path forward for arts sectors in other cities. The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs in Atlanta continued its regular funding programs and created relief funds during the pandemic.
Philadelphia, on the other hand, experienced the most drastic decline in per capita local arts funding. While grants from private funders, such as the William Penn Foundation, helped mitigate some of the public cuts, the city saw a 33% decrease in arts sector expenses, a 28% decline in revenue, and the most cuts to both full-time (-47%) and part-time (-71%) staff in arts and culture organizations among the cities in the study.
While the study does not prove an inherently causal relationship between local arts funding and the success of those organizations, Jen Benoit-Bryan, who serves as executive director of SMU DataArts and a researcher on the study told Hyperallergic that sustained or growing local investment should remain a major consideration for different funding groups.
David Andersson, an advisor for Bloomberg’s arts and culture team, echoed Benoit-Bryan, adding that while there are numerous reasons why some arts sectors perform better than others, “consistent local government support is clearly one of them.”
As the data exchange amasses more cities in coming years, researchers expect to build on this study’s findings.
Benoit-Bryan described the report as a “starting point rather than a conclusion,” adding that “[a]s that network expands, we’ll be able to examine these patterns across many more communities, test whether the relationships observed in this first cohort hold more broadly and build a stronger understanding of how local policy choices, funding structures, and sector conditions interact over time.”
The researchers said that cities with harder-hit arts sectors can still adjust their funding strategies using the findings from this cohort.
“Since the pressure felt by the arts and culture sector varies by location, budget, and/or discipline, making funding decisions that are informed by data and strategic priorities is crucially important for civic leaders,” researcher Michael DeWhatley told Hyperallergic. “This project, and the greater work of the City Arts Data Exchange, is meant to shed some light on the different ways that policy choices and funding structures intersect with real-world sector conditions. “
