Vol. 66: Summer Grants + New Creative Economy Impact Data

This Month’s Feature:  New Large-Scale Data initiative on the Creative Economy from Arts Alliance IL

THE NUMBERS ARE IN!

Congratulations to our friends at Arts Alliance Illinois on the launch of their new Initiative “The Creative Economy of Chicago and Illinois: Impact and Assets.”

Like many creative workers and leaders in the arts ecosystem, at Bustling Spaces we’ve long recognized that the creative economy has an outsized impact on the city’s economy, and we’ve believed that the data, when compiled, would bear that out.

Arts Alliance Illinois undertook the painstaking task of aggregating and analyzing that data, proving that the arts is not only a vital part of the state and city economy, but is one of the top economic drivers in Chicago and the third largest employing industry, generating nearly 50 billion dollars in total output and 5.7 billiion dollars in tax revenue. At the state level, it’s the 6th largest industry, generating $148.1 billion in total output and $20.6 billion in tax revenue. As the year continues, there will be additional regional analyses and new resources added to this initiative, diving deeper into what local impacts look like for your community.

This is the kind of data that can’t be ignored as we continue to advocate for policy changes that value and protect creative workers, organizations and communities throughout Chicago, especially those that have been systemically ignored, making the case for deeper investment in the Arts & Culture ecosystem.

It’s now clear, in black-and-white, that the Arts & Culture has played and continues to play an essential role in making Chicago the incomparably vibrant city that it is today - supporting the arts citywide has always been a wise investment and the right thing to do.

We recommend that anyone who plays a part in this ecosystem visit the new Arts Alliance Illinois Creative Economy page and read the full reports to get a fuller understanding of the implications and their uses, and hear more from Arts Alliance’s Executive Director Claire Rice about the importance of the data in WBEZ’ s recent feature on the initiative.

Lastly, we recommend taking a look back at two of Henry’s blog posts from the top of the year, The Arts Funding Crisis: Math, Metaphor and Money and  2026 Year in Preview: The time is now to invest in the Southside’s Creative Economy , which provide a full-throated qualitative framework for why neighborhood scale arts, culture and recreation programming is such an effective driver of equitable, hyperlocal economic development.