General

In March 2017, the Trump Administration formally proposed the abolition of the two federal agencies that support arts and culture in the U.S., the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Elimination of federal support is not about the money, which only comes to 45 cents per capita for the NEA or .003 percent of the federal budget. The decimation of federal support is the coup de grâce of a long campaign carefully crafted to mislead the public into believing that the arts are irrelevant to most Americans.

Arts and cultural organizations invest heavily in direct, mission-related activities and in the people who deliver them.

The American public is more broadly engaged in the arts than previously understood—believing that the arts not only play a vital role in personal well‐being and healthier communities, but that the arts are also core to a well‐rounded education.

The publication of Creativity Connects: Trends and Conditions Affecting U.S. Artists marks the culmination of a year and a half of planning, research, interviews, roundtables, analysis, and writing from NEA staff and our research partner, the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI). The purpose of this report is to update the findings of the Urban Institute’s 2003 study Investing in Creativity, which identified support systems necessary for artists, including material supports, validation, markets, networks, training, and information. While the framework outlined in that report remains useful, it is clear that many aspects of the environment and market for artists’ work have changed profoundly in the past decade, including developments in technologies, public perceptions of creative workers, marketplace opportunities, demographics, and aesthetic practices. The Creativity Connects report uses a wide lens to consider who is an artist, how artists are working, what factors influence their work, and what we can do to better support them.