This one pager features data from Americans for the Arts 2017 Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 report providing key figures of the overall economic impact the arts industry provides.

Americans are highly engaged in the arts and believe more strongly than ever that the arts promote personal well-being, help us understand other cultures in our community, are essential to a well-rounded K-12 education, and that government has an important role in funding the arts.

Business Contributions to the Arts: 2018 Edition is the second edition of the annual report published by The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts. Conducted in the summer of 2018, this year’s survey garnered 132 responses from small, midsize, and large US businesses, 123 of which made a philanthropic contribution of some description in 2017 and are therefore included in this report. The survey asked for information based on corporate practices at the time of the survey completion.

The arts are fundamental to our humanity. They ennoble and inspire us—fostering creativity, goodness, and beauty. The arts bring us joy, help us express our values, and build bridges between cultures. The arts are also a fundamental component of a healthy community—strengthening them socially, educationally, and economically—benefits that persist even in difficult social and economic times.

This new report from CEOs for Cities, Driven Apart, shows that the solution to our traffic problems has more to do with how we build our cities than how we build our roads. The Urban Mobility Report produced by the Texas Transportation Institute presents a distorted picture of the causes and the extent of urban transportation problems, concealing the role that sprawl plays in lengthening travel times, and effectively penalizing compact cities. We need new and better measures of transportation system performance that emphasize accessibility, rather than just speed.