• Arts and culture is a prominent feature of life in Southeastern Pennsylvania
  
  
  • There are more than 150 cultural events per day in Southeastern Pennsylvania, almost 56,000 in one year. Each year, the public is able to enjoy more than 2,600 productions, 3,700 exhibitions, 6,600 films , and 1,100 lectures. The most numerous of these events are public classes, at more than 22,000.
    
    
  • Three cultural organizations in Philadelphia are older than the country itself.
    
    
  • Cultural spaces (performance and exhibition venues as well as business offices) are equivalent in square footage to the combined floor space of the seven largest skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia.

• Residents and visitors are thoroughly engaged in arts and culture in Southeastern Pennsylvania
  
  
  • Arts and cultural organizations report 12 million visits per year, the equivalent of 3 visits annually for every man, woman, and child in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
    
    
  • One in 5 people in Southeastern Pennsylvania have memberships or subscriptions to arts and cultural organizations, for a total of 732,000.
    
    
  • Annually, more than 17,000 volunteer positions are filled at cultural organizations, a strong showing of community support.
    
    
  • Individuals make nearly 270,000 contributions above and beyond admission and ticket fees to cultural organizations. The average contribution (for individuals who do not sit on the boards of those organizations) is $300

• Arts and cultural experiences are highly accessible
  
  
  • Half of all visits to cultural organizations are free of charge.
    
    
  • The average ticket price for paid attendance is $20, a figure that is significantly more affordable than tickets to most professional sporting or commercial entertainment events.
    
    
  • Two out of every 5 visits to cultural organizations are from school children

• Arts and cultural organizations are significant economic assets to the Philadelphia region.
  
  
  • Annual expenditures by the 218 participating cultural organizations in this report total about $562 million; unrestricted revenues total about $573 million.
    
    
  • Portfolio organizations provide over 14,000 full—and part-time jobs, including over 5,000 jobs for artists. This is roughly equivalent to the number of employees of hotels and motels in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and larger than the number of employees in pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, offices of certified public accountants, advertising and related services and architectural services.

• It takes a mixture of earned and contributed revenues to make cultural programs available to the public.
  
  
  • The ratio of earned to contributed income is fairly uniform across all disciplines, coming close to 50:50, with the exception of service organizations, which rely more on contributed income.
    
    
  • Individuals are the single largest source of contributed income. Individual donations totaling $110 million represent 16% of total revenue secured by the area's cultural organizations.
    
    
  • Corporate contributions account for 2% of total revenue. Foundation support accounts for 14% of total revenue.
    
    
  • Total government support accounts for almost 9% of total cultural organization revenues. Of that, local government support accounts for only 3%.

• Arts and cultural organizations run on lean budgets.
  
  
  • Overall, only 8% of total expenses are dedicated to fundraising activities.
    
    
  • Of total expenses of $562 million for all organizations, $36 million or 6% is spent on marketing related expenses. This is an average of $3 spent for marketing for each of the 12 million people who attended all free or ticketed events (excluding park attendance).
    
    
  • Overall, labor costs are the highest expense for this sector, at 42%, but this relatively low compared to other service sectors, including lawyers (62%), accountants (62%), architects (61%), advertising agencies (52%), and full-service restaurants (49%).
    
    
  • Arts and cultural organizations pursue their missions with razor-thin budget margins. Just under half (47%) of organizations in this report operate with some deficit. One in four participating organizations operates with a significant deficit of more than 10% of their annual budget.
    
    
  • Two-thirds of cultural organizations in this report have under $1 million in annual revenues.
    
    
  • Ten percent of cultural organizations in this report account for 70% of the spending.

The Portfolio was made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts and William Penn Foundation