Minnesota Citizens for the Arts

A Summary of Facts & Figures About the Arts in Minnesota

Why does Minnesota have such a surprisingly strong arts community?

PEOPLE:
Minnesota has produced a suprisingly strange group of bright lights: Judy Garland, Josh Hartnett, Jessica Lange, the Andrews Sisters, Garrison Keillor, Craig Kilborn, Louie Anderson, Terry Gilliam, Loni Anderson, Tippi Hedren, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sinclair Lewis, Charles Schulz, Kevin Sorbo, Marion Ross, Joel and Ethan Coen, Steve Zahn, Tiny Tim, Bob Dylan, Prince, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Winona Ryder, Robert Bly, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Bobbie McFerrin, Al Franken, Charlie Korsmo, Lea Thompson, Tammy Faye Baker and August Wilson, among others. Minnesota is home to 30,000 artists. One theory is that because Minnesota has a highly educated populace, the citizens are more likely to be involved in the arts.

QUALITY OF LIFE:

In 2005, Minnesota’s own Theatre de la Jeune Lune won the Tony award for best regional theatre, the nation’s highest honor for nonprofit professional theaters. The Children’s Theatre company won the regional Tony in 2003, and the Guthrie Theater won in 1982.
For the sixth year in a row, Minnesota was named the “most livable state in the nation” by Morgan Quitno press, due in part to our citizens’ access to the arts.
Of the 354 metropolitan areas in the United Stated and Canada evaluated by Places Rated Almanac, the Twin Cities area ranked eighth highest in the arts in the year 2000.
The Twin Cities is second only to New York in per capita attendance at theatre and arts events, according to a University of Minnesota report in 2004.
Minnesota is repeatedly named the “Most Livable State in the Nation” partly on the strength of its support for the arts (Morgan Quitno Press).
Places Rated Almanac rated the Twin Cities “one of the nation’s best art communities” with a score of 98.02 out of 100, outranking San Francisco.
Five of the top 25 attractions in Minnesota, as listed by the Minnesota Office of Tourism, are arts organizations: Walker Art Center, Guthrie Theatre, Ordway Center for Performing Arts, Orchestra Hall, and the Children’s Theatre. The list also includes four other cultural attractions: The Minnesota Zoo, Science Museum of Minnesota, Minnesota History Center, and the Children’s Museum.

UNITY:
Arts advocates have worked together for 25 years to ensure adequate government funding for the arts through Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, our statewide arts advocacy organization. We have 31,000 arts advocates in our network who work together to advance the interests of the arts in Minnesota.

CIVIC ARTS FUNDING:
Minnesota is 7th in the nation in state government arts funding (currently approximately $17.2 million per year) and 5th in the nation in dollars received from the National Endowment for the Arts ($3,477,700 in 2004), although Minnesota is only 17th in the nation in population. This funding reaches every Minnesota county, sparking strong support of legislators statewide. In turn, this government support is a catalyst for strong private support.

FOUNDATION ARTS FUNDING:
Minnesota has more than 135 foundations giving money to the arts, and their long history of generosity has made the state a nationwide leader in arts funding.

CORPORATE ARTS FUNDING:
Minnesota’s corporate community has a long history of strong support of the arts. Through the Minnesota Keystone Program, local corporations have agreed to donate 2-5% of pretax profits to the community. (Currently they have 250 participants in the 5% Club).

STRONG INTEREST AND SUPPORT OF THE PUBLIC:
When a 2004 University of Minnesota study asked residents: “Do you believe that the arts and cultural activities help make Minnesota an attractive place to live and work?”, 94% of survey respondents said “yes”. 95.8% of Democrats, 94.1% of Independents and 91.6% of Republicans all answered “yes” to this question.

According to a poll by the Minnesota Center for Survey Research at the University of Minnesota (1998):

95% of Minnesotans believe that arts education is essential or important to the overall education of Minnesota’s children.
94% of Minnesotans believe that arts and cultural activities help to make Minnesota an attractive place to live and work.
92% of Minnesotans believe that the arts are crucial to their quality of life.
82% of Minnesotans believe that public funding for arts and cultural activities help to make them affordable and accessible to all Minnesotans.
67% of Minnesotans attended an arts activity (at a theater, auditorium, concert hall, museum, gallery) within the last year.
60% of Minnesotans are involved in the arts by engaging in some creative activity in their everyday lives, (like singing in a choir, doing woodworking or needlepoint, writing poetry, or painting), exceeding the national average for arts participation.

HIGH PUBLIC PARTICIPATION:
According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press (1/17/99) and Minnesota State Arts Board, almost 9 million people attended nonprofit arts events in Minnesota in 1998, outnumbering the people who attended sports events. Minnesota’s five biggest museums alone (the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota History Center, Children’s Museum and Science Museum) had a higher combined attendance than the three local professional sports teams combined (Vikings, Twins and Timberwolves). The combined attendance of the three professional sports teams in FY1998 (2.6 million) was only a third of the attendance at nonprofit arts events in the same year, 8.8 million. Even 59% of new immigrants to Minnesota say they have visited a museum.

STATEWIDE, NOT JUST BIG CITY ARTS:
Sixty percent of Minnesota’s nonprofit arts organizations are outside of the Twin Cities, although the largest organizations, of course, are in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Minnesota supports roughly 1,700 arts groups. They range in size from the Minnesota Orchestra, which performs for over 600,000 people each year, to all-volunteer community theater organizations such as Rochester’s Repertory Theatre, in large and small towns across the state.

Minnesota’s public arts funding system (consisting of the State Arts Board and eleven Regional Arts Councils), is a model for the country. We were the second state in the nation to develop a decentralized public system, one that ensures that arts support and services are available to citizens in all 87 Minnesota counties.

ECONOMIC IMPACT:
The nonprofit arts strengthen the economic development of downtowns, small towns, and neighborhoods across the state. The estimated economic impact of Minnesota’s nonprofit arts organizations is over one billion dollars per year (Minnesota State Arts Board, 2005).