Art-Speak, the City of Portsmouth Cultural Commission, is surveying nearly 70 Portsmouth area organizations to look at the economic impact of the arts on the region.

This year’s effort is an update of the 2000 study, which showed that Portsmouth’s nonprofit arts were a $26.1 million industry. 

“While the study is technically a five-year update, our initial study was not nearly as expansive,” says Jane James, Art-Speak board president. “In addition to expanding the number of participants, we also expanded the geographic area to include our neighbors, Kittery and Rye.”

The electronic survey released by Americans for the Arts, which conducted the original “Arts and Economic Prosperity” survey in 2000, requests information about personnel, overhead and programmatic expenses, as well as payments to local and non-local artists and sources of revenue, including in-kind contributions.

These data will be analyzed using Americans for the Arts’ econometric model, one that is considered an industry standard.

The information collected will be assembled in a customized report that will describe the impact of the spending by arts organizations and audiences in terms of four key economic indicators: the number of full-time equivalent jobs supported, the amount of household income generated for residents; the amount of local government revenue (city and county) generated; and the amount of state government revenue generated by arts and cultural organizations.