Zogby's Global Village

By John Zogby

I am lucky to have been to a lot of nice places. I just love Philadelphia. It is classy, smart, ethnic, real, and has wonderful restaurants. It also has the Museum of Art made even more famous by Rocky. I had the pleasure of viewing the fabulous Cezanne Collection when I was there in April.

This is a good lead-in because my appearance in Philly was before the Wallace Foundation, a significant funder of the arts. We did a special survey for Wallace and the attendees, and they were pleased to get some very good news in the middle of the Great Recession. In short, the arts are important to the American people.

First some results. When we asked “which of these community institutions do you feel are essential to the character of your community”, we got the following:

• Public parks: 85%
• Libraries: 79%
• Local Museums: 61%
• Theatre Groups: 46%
• Sport Teams: 33%
• Dance Groups: 25%
• Other: 22%
• Not Sure/None: 8%

Democrats and women felt that orchestras, dance groups, and theatre groups were more essential than did Republicans and men. African Americans and Hispanics were more favorable to dance groups than whites. Those with passports were much more favorably inclined toward all of the arts groups than were non-passport holders.

Overall, 69% told us that the “presence of local arts and cultural groups (are important) to (their) overall quality of life” – including 82% of Democrats vs. 57% of Republicans and 64% of Independents, 71% of 18-29 year olds, 77% of women (vs. 61% of men), 79% of African Americans and 74% of Hispanics (vs. 68% of whites).

Overall, 50% said that their “level of giving to local cultural organizations” increased or stayed the same over last year (which of course could have included very little), while 50% said that it had either decreased or they do not donate.

Not surprisingly, Democrats were more likely to favor either an “increase in federal funding” (24%) or “same level of federal funding” (49%) than Republicans (5% increase, 27% keep the same).

So the arts are vital to our communities – not as high on the list as parks but higher than sports teams. And they are important to a good cross-section of people in our communities. But the money isn’t there to support the arts now as it was during the boom days. Fortunately, surveys point to answers as well as identify problems. Fortunately, our First Globals™ put the arts higher on the list of necessities than other age groups. So too does the ever-growing “Creative Class”, who will decide the economic future of our communities. Both groups have shown a great willingness to support the arts in both attendance and financial support. They are as yet not nearly tapped out.

Only a small percentage (8%) said it not important to “increase appreciation and awareness of art among young people”. On the other hand, 42% identify “art education programs in schools” and 20% say “partnerships between youth and the local arts community” are the most effective way to do this.

So get them young. A scout membership, a soccer or Little League registration, a Boys and Girls Clubs pass, and so on ought to be enough to generate a year-long pass to young people – as well as a free soda or hamburger coupon with attendance. How are the Websites and Twitter coming along? A virtual partial tour of a museum and encouraging young people to tweet on their experience also helps.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 4:35 pm and is filed under The Global Odyssey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.