By James Tibbets, Pendletonian Times
PENDLETON, Oregon – Pendleton Mayor John Turner and Pendleton Urban Renewal Associate Director Charles Denight were in the audience which was close to capacity at the Pendleton Center for the Arts, located on North Main Street. According to presenter Randy Cohen, who is the vice president of research at Americans for the Arts, the presentation of the day is the “Reader’s Digest” version of the Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 Study in the City of Pendleton which is available on the Oregon Arts Commission’s webpage. The report is 58 pages long.
The presentation began with a few words from City of Pendleton Planning Technician Stephanie Huffman. Huffman assisted in the study and her methods included attending community events to promote surveys that were designed for the study. Huffman said that for a community that is the size of Pendleton, “we have a lot of events.” Huffman also advocated for the creation of an Arts and Culture District, which according to Americans for the Arts is an area that is unique to the character, community, and resources available locally, have a significant economic impact on cities, attracting businesses, tourists, and local residents to a central part of the city, can help revitalize neighborhoods and increase the quality of life for its residents, serve as a vehicle to assist in the support and marketing of local nonprofit cultural organizations, serve as a focal point to brand a city’s unique cultural identity and embrace its historic significance, sometimes have formal boundaries lines with specific zoning ordinances and economic tax incentives and might have more informal, unofficial boundaries that become a focal marketing point to cluster arts organizations.
Cohen took the stage and stated that “arts organizations are businesses,” a sentiment echoed by the AEP6 Study. According to Cohen, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-22 was “devastating” to the arts. He said that 99% of all arts organizations in the United States had to “close or suspend operations” during the pandemic. One upward trend, he noted, was that people engaged with personal creation of art. He says that he took up knitting during the pandemic. He also said that participation in the arts lowered depression, according to a study that he worked on during the pandemic.
Cohen said that the AEP6 Study was the “most comprehensive study” of the economic and social impact of nonprofit arts and Culture organizations and their audiences ever. There were 373 study regions across the United States and Puerto Rico. Commercial art ventures were not studied.
Pendleton, was one of nineteen communities in Oregon that participated in the study. 29 nonprofit arts organizations in Pendleton were surveyed. Out of 29, 15 organizations responded to the survey.
During the study period, $7.7 million was spent by local nonprofit arts organizations and $7 million was spent by their audiences. This economic activity supported 161 Pendleton jobs. Attendees of local arts functions spent an average of $33.50 per person, per event. This does not count the cost of admission to the event.
3,024 volunteers contributed 92,873 volunteer hours to local arts organizations at a value of $3 million during the study period. Each volunteer hour was valued at $32.37.
The arts and creative economy is valued at $9.5 billion in Oregon and is 3.2% of the gross state product according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis. This economic activity provides 61,593 Oregonian jobs.