“Cuyahoga County’s cultural sector generally looks healthy after the latest checkup from the nonprofit Community Partnership for Arts and Culture,” writes Steven Litt in Thursday’s (4/13) Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). “The organization’s latest ‘Culture Pulse’ report, released today, shows that on average, revenues solidly exceeded expenses for 62 cultural nonprofits whose data CPAC crunched for the years 2011-2015…. Earned income from ticket sales and other sources declined 3.1 percent during the five years. But total physical attendance increased 8.3 percent from 3.5 million to 3.8 million…. The 62 cultural organizations in the survey added 230 full-time and full-time-equivalent employees between 2011 and 2015, the report said…. But [there were] declines in support from the National Endowment for the Arts due to cuts at the federal level, and from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the agency that collects and distributes money from the county’s cigarette tax for the arts…. Another point of concern: … Collectively, donations by trustees of the mid-sized groups averaged only 4.5 percent of contributed support to those organizations from 2011 to 2015 [representing] a decline of 7.6 percent over the five-year period…. The 62 organizations analyzed by CPAC ranged from Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland baroque orchestra, to … The Cleveland Orchestra.”
Posted April 18, 2017
