A Closer Look at Arts Engagement in California: Insights from the NEA’s Survey of Public Participation in the Arts

Every four years, the National Endowment for the Arts and the United States Census Bureau partner to survey tens of thousands of adults across the country in an attempt to understand how people participate in the arts. This report, published in 2015, is the first in a two-part study commissioned by the Irvine Foundation to understand what California’s residents do to participate in the arts and, importantly, how that varies across the state’s diverse population. 

The report finds that attendance at arts nonprofit-sponsored events have fallen, and even more so, that a lot of arts audiences don’t reflect California’s diversity—in terms of race and ethnicity, income, or education level. At the same time, it found that while Californians are attending traditional arts events less, they are participating in arts in many other new and exciting ways. Arts participation has traditionally been understood to mean arts attendance—and this is what the survey explores—but the data shows that we can benefit from a new understanding and definition for arts participation. 

Explore key findings in this infographic.

 

A Closer Look at Arts Engagement in California Insights from the NEA’s Survey of Public Participation in the Arts


Recommended resources

Jan 30, 2019
By The James Irvine Foundation
Jan 30, 2019

To stay relevant to changing communities, many arts organizations have been developing engagement programs — that is, programming designed to reach more and different people and involve them more actively in how art is made and experienced. While engagement efforts are often episodic or separate from an art organization’s core programming, in late 2013 a group of 10 arts nonprofits across California set out to make engagement central to their identities as part of the New California Arts Fund. To do this, they pursued transformations in their programmatic, organizational, and business models. This evaluation documents their achievements and challenges, and provides considerations for arts organizations and funders interested in reaching ethnically diverse and/or low-income communities.


Dec 19, 2019
By Creative People and Places
Dec 19, 2019

Collaborating with local people to shape relevant and inspiring arts programmes.

This resource gives examples of shared decision-making from across the CPP programme. It includes case studies, tools and tips to help you think strategically, recruit, deliver collaboratively and reflect together.

This resource is for you if… You are:

⊲ an arts practitioner
⊲ a creative producer
⊲ an organisation of any size …with a mission to engage local people in arts, culture and creativity.

You want:

⊲ to develop locally-resonant, creative programming by involving your local community in sharing decisions to shape it.

It was published in 2017.


Dec 12, 2019
By Creative Scotland
Dec 12, 2019

This toolkit aims to open up conversation within partnerships about what is important and what can be improved. It doesn’t try to define or limit an understanding of what good work is. Rather it aims to help those using the tools to openly discuss what they’re doing – asking themselves, and all those they work with, to think about whether they can do what they do in better ways. The goal is to encourage a culture of reflection and continuous improvement.

This resource was published in 2016.


Join us