Saving the Arts
Amid painful losses, Denver’s nonprofit arts-and-culture sector gets strategic
As one of the first U.S. cities to create a fund for artists devastated by the ongoing coronavirus shutdown, Denver has received national attention and praise.
But the city’s collective efforts, which have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most vulnerable organizations and artists, quickly proved to be a drop in proverbial bucket of sorrows now collecting at most nonprofit cultural institutions.
“Our goal is to raise $40,000 between now and July 31,” said Sarah Gumina, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain Arts Association, which is predicting a $75,000 deficit for its 2019-2020 season of vocal concerts. “We’re actively reaching out to our patrons, supporters and friends. With canceled concerts, we have no other income.”
They’re not alone. Recent figures from a survey by Americans for the Arts based on more than 8,000 respondents show national economic losses in the arts-and-culture sector of $3.6 billion, up from $3.2 billion three weeks ago.
In the metro area, 87 arts and culture nonprofits have three months or less until their cash operating reserves are
gone. Of those, 29 have only 30 days. They employ 5,749 vulnerable workers, according to data from the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Another 116 SCFD organizations employing 8,180 people have only four months or less until their money runs out.
In recent days, major players such as Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Denver Pop Culture Con and Denver Film Society have announced layoffs, event cancellations or both.
“So many organizations are doing, or looking at, furloughs and layoffs and moving to parttime services,” said Deborah Jordy, executive director of the SCFD. “It’s challenging because no one has a sense of when we’re going to flatten the curve. When we do that, we can get onto economic recovery.”
SCFD is the seven-county metro area’s nationally unique tax program that routes one penny of every $10 spent in the area toward arts-and-culture funding. Last year, SCFD distributed more than $60 million to the roughly 300 nonprofits it funds, from the massive Denver Museum of Nature & Science to allvolunteer art galleries and theaters.
Nearly 12,000 jobs are directly tied to the nonprofits SCFD serves, according to its most recent annual report.
Since many arts-and-culture workers also overlap with the estimated 250,000 retail and hospitality jobs that could be lost by this summer, the money needed to support Denver’s out-of-work arts scene runs in the millions, if not tens of millions, according to interviews with a half-dozen current and former state and local arts administrators.
Overwhelming as that may be, no one is waiting around for things to get better.
“Try something”
“The economic losses are probably in the billions,” said Tariana Navas-Nieves, director of cultural affairs for Denver Arts & Venues. “But when I talk with my team and other arts organizations, I’ve always said I’d much rather pilot and try something — even if it’s not perfect — than just be status quo.”
Denver’s initial, $4 million economic-relief package announced on March 19 for the overall economy included $130,000 to be doled out as grants of $1,000, for which individual artists could apply. The city of
Boston announced a similar program days earlier and is believed to have been the first to do so.
“It’s nice to know that after everything I’ve given to the Mile High, when the (expletive) hits the fan, they’re there to help me clean it up,” Denver comic Sam Tallent wrote in a Facebook post that displayed his $1,000 relief check.
Nationally, some of the historic, $2 trillion stimulus bill that passed at the federal level last month will trickle down to Denver, though it’s not clear how much. The $300 million that lawmakers approved for the arts and humanities breaks down into $75 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), $75 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), $50 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and smaller amounts for individual nonprofits.
On Tuesday, the NEH announced the first $22.2 million in grants for U.S. organizations, including $668,808 for Colorado institutions such as the Denver Art Museum, state Historical Society and a Boulder-based language project. NEA grants are expected to be announced soon.
Scratch the surface
Denver’s nonprofit arts-funding scene trails behind the dollars that larger cities have cobbled together publicly and privately in the first weeks of the coronavirus shutdown. That includes New York ($75 million), San Francisco ($2.5 million) and Seattle ($1.1 million).
Seattle also announced an eviction moratorium and provided $400,000 in rent relief for the estimated 90 arts and cultural nonprofits, artist studios and others that rent city-owned property.
There are currently no plans for a similar program in Denver.
“We have both the blessing and the curse of being one of the first cities to grapple with this crisis,” said Randy Engstrom, director of the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. “I don’t think any of us will pretend $1.1 million is enough to solve it, but having worked in government for eight years, I’ve never seen that much money come together that quickly.”
In Denver, total arts-relief funds have just recently passed the $1 million mark. With help from RedLine Gallery, which added $60,000 from the Andy Warhol Foundation to the city’s $130,000, as well as Bonfils-Stanton’s own $125,000 and RiNo Art District’s $200,000, funders were able to respond within the first weeks of the pandemic.
Grants of $4,000 to $8,500 are also available to Colorado arts nonprofits that have received funding from Colorado Creative Industries in the last five years. However, the application page at coloradocreativeindustries.org notes some restrictions: current grantees are ineligible; applicants must have a minimum cash-operating budget of
$25,000; and the total fund is less than $1 million (the deadline for applications is May 13).
“We recognize that the money we came out of the box with just scratches the surface of the need,” said Bonfils-Stanton Foundation president Gary Steuer. “I totally understand the focus on immediate medical and humanservices needs, but it’s pretty clear the arts are not going to be prioritized by (state) government, at least at this stage.”
As a result, Steuer and his colleagues are collaborating on an arts-relief fund that will be announced soon, he said. Just before the stock market crash last month, Bonfils-Stanton had assets totaling about $85 million.
“Having another (large arts fund) in place will make it easier to ask for funds from the Mellon or Bloomberg foundations and others outside Denver that have an interest in keeping our arts economy healthy,” Steuer said.
“Gary is leading by example,” said Dawn Fay, president of Wonderbound, the state’s second-largest professional ballet company behind Colorado Ballet. “It was also inspiring to see ideas from Bloomberg Philanthropies and their (Arts Innovation and Management) program coming from the national level. Several arts nonprofits in town are on their two-year program, and a lot of that goes back to the support of Gary and BonfilsStanton.”
This is crisis mode
As Colorado’s creative economy has grown in recent years, investment from outside organizations and for-profit businesses has skyrocketed, according to the people interviewed for this article. That raises the stakes should
“Now is the time for
arts nonprofits to get
better than ever at
articulating their
value. Not just as a
damaged sector that
needs support, but as a
source of beauty and
community when
people desperately
need that.” Gary Steuer, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation president
Colorado’s overall economy reach worst-case scenario predictions.
The arts, entertainment and recreation industry in Colorado accounts for $4.7 billion of the gross regional product, or total value of goods produced and services provided in 2019. That sector also earned $3.7 billion in 2019, according to a report provided by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts.
A downturn in that sector will have a huge impact on the Colorado economy, given that its concentration of jobs is
22% higher than the national average, and that it accounts for 2.84% of the state’s workforce. Complicating that is the fact that many gig-economy and hospitality workers no longer have regular income to cushion their even lesser-paying creative work, from live musical performances to acting, stand-up comedy and teaching.
“The biggest impact has been lost wages,” said Denver Arts & Venues’ Navas-Nieves, who has been collecting local and national data as a board member of Grantmakers in the Arts. “A lot of artists in the gig economy travel or tour, and the closure of schools can impact that as much as the venue closures. We’ve been hearing a lot of need for rent and mortgage payments, plus basic needs like groceries.
“Again, this is crisis mode, the first stage,” Navas-Nieves added. “We’re just starting to see the true impact of this, locally as well as nationally. It’s all intertwined.”
But there’s opportunity amid the crisis, even as it continues to unfold.
“Now is the time for arts nonprofits to get better than ever at articulating their value,” BonfilsStanton’s Steuer said. “Not just as a damaged sector that needs support, but as a source of beauty and community when people desperately need that.”