Arts Transform Communities
A Wheel Makes Arts Impact Clear
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September 5, 2019 | Read Time: 4 minutes
The Arts + Social Impact Explorer is an interactive tool created by the nonprofit organization Americans for the Arts that shows how the arts reach across 26 different sectors spanning the economy, infrastructure, education, social justice, culture and heritage, diplomacy, health and wellness, and the environment. Created with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this intuitive online tool drives conversation and curiosity about how the arts solve problems, spark innovation, and create connectivity in civic life. Beyond the colorful spinning interface, the Explorer also includes customized Fact Sheets that are downloadable and printable for sharing with board members, public and private sector policymakers, and more. The mobile-friendly Explorer allows for easy conversations with decision makers, expanding dialogue about the arts and their value to communities.
The arts make more things possible across the country, every day. They impact our communities, our schools, our businesses, and our lives. And now, it’s easier than ever to see and understand these changes with this new online tool that brings together more than 1,000 research findings and example projects of all the surprising and exciting ways that arts and culture drives health, vibrancy, and equity across the United States.
The Explorer is fun, easy to use, and contains deep layers of deep knowledge and examples. All impact points and research within the Explorer come with citations and links so that users can also visit the websites of example projects, access the research referenced, and engage with other partners doing this work around the country.
After the 2018 election, the team at the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD, was contending with a large group of new legislators, all of whom were soon going to help make decisions about budget and policies of the agency. Even not knowing the new legislators well, the staff was able to identify the 2-3 issue areas that mattered to each most. For some, it was health, for others, community cohesion—but in all cases, staff were able to take these non-arts issues as a starting point from which to build a relationship with the legislators.
A constant community concern in Montgomery County, and many other communities, is the quality and impact of education for children. In multiple cases, alongside other Fact Sheets downloaded from the Explorer, the staff of the Arts & Humanities Council included the Fact Sheet specifically on Education & Youth Development. On this subject, the Explorer gathers research from multiple studies and places them next to examples of great arts and education projects from across the country. For example:
- After school arts programs save cities money. For every $1 spent on after-school programs, $9 is saved by reducing welfare and crime costs, improving academic performance, and increasing kids’ earning potential. In San Antonio, TX, SAY Si uses the arts to drive social, academic, and cognitive success among students, improve self-esteem, and prepare for the workforce.
- Low-income students who are highly engaged in the arts are five times less likely to drop out of high school and more than twice as likely to graduate college as their peers. In Santa Ana, CA, The Wooden Floor uses dance to transform the lives of young people in low-income communities and has a 100% graduation rate among its students.
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A constant community concern is the quality and impact of education for children.
Similar deep research and examples exist for the role of the arts in almost every aspect of community life. Since its launch in late 2018, the Explorer tool has been used by nearly 20,000 people. Those people spend an average of 6 minutes on the site (an eon in web time) and have used the resources to do everything from advocate to their boss to give a well-informed interview to local media.
By improving how much the public and decisionmakers understand about the role and value of the arts in communities, the Arts + Social Impact Explorer is creating a better and stronger opportunity for those communities to transform through the arts. Take the Explorer for a spin today!
Citations for all the impact points and example projects in this article can be found within the Arts + Social Impact Explorer.