Here & Now

Welcome to Noon Wednesday. I'm Marisa Wojcik, multimedia journalist with Here and Now on PBS Wisconsin. Today is August 12. A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum says the pandemic has created an existential threat to arts and culture in Wisconsin. From GDP to employment, this sector is being hardest hit, and for Wisconsin in particular, this could ultimately mean a collapse of this industry. So joining us today to talk more about these findings is the report's lead researcher, Joe Peterangelo. We are also joined by Deanna Tillisch, president and CEO of the United Performing Arts Fund in Milwaukee, and they also contributed to this report, and thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. - Thanks for having us. Joe, I want to start with you. The report says arts and culture activities contributed to Wisconsin's economy more than other industries like accommodation and food services, hospitals, and even transportation. What all makes up the arts and culture economy, and did that surprise you? That did surprise me. The arts and culture sector is, includes the most, the more obvious things like direct fine arts and performing arts, but also things like design and arts education. Yeah, the, the size of the industry overall, when we look at federal data, we saw that arts and culture put about $10.1 billion into the state's economy in 2017, which like you said, was larger than other sectors that you might have, you might think contribute much more to the state's economy. Accommodation and food services, so hotels, restaurants, bars was about 2.4% of the state's economy compared to 3.1% from arts and culture as an example. So yeah, it, it definitely surprised me, just the size of the sector. And so that's anywhere from larger organizations down to, you know, a band or, you know, something even smaller? Right, so, so we also saw that over 96,000 people in this state are employed in arts and culture either part time or full time, so a lot of people employed in the sector and like you said, this, this ranges from people who work for professional organizations, like the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra to someone who just works part time creating art from a home studio or, you know, performing in a band, in an independent band or something like that, so it's, it's a really broad range. We also have a lot of organizations and individuals who, a lot of their artistic work is educational. So it's really youth-focused work as well. And I want to get to that in a little bit. You mentioned employment and Deanna, the report also shows that the arts and culture sector will be the hardest hit when it comes to employment. Is that what you're seeing from the organizations that are a part of the United Performing Arts Fund? Oh, absolutely, Marisa. We have, we fund a total of 14 organizations through our member groups, and then we also fund 14, between 14 and 15, depending upon the year, smaller organizations, and we saw over 500 layoffs or furloughs or job reductions, and that continues on. Now that the PPP has expired for most of our groups, they are now in a position that they're having to lay people off and eliminate positions, and then you look at the artist. You know, artists who are not employed or not employees of these groups, they're not working right now, and, and so what we're doing at UPAF, we are trying to hire them to do performances on our behalf, online, digitally recorded, et cetera, just so they can get some income. It's a very, very difficult time for the artists. It's a difficult time for everyone, but in particular, when you don't have any performances right now that are live, they're having to be very creative and innovative in figuring out how to do things digitally. And Deanna, I heard that we lost your video and maybe it accidentally got turned off. So just letting you know that really quick, but I'm going to ask Joe, so based on the figures that you provided, it looks like Wisconsin was already in a downward trajectory over the last 20 years when it comes to GDP, unemployment and state investment. Are these what are making Wisconsin vulnerable to what you call this existential threat? Well, there was, like you said, there was already a bit of a decline in the arts and culture sector in Wisconsin before the pandemic. There had been a decline in employment specifically. Actually the contributions to GDP has been continuing to grow over time, but the reason why the sector is, so this is what, like we said, facing an existential threat is what Deanna said, it's, it's when you have no way for an organization or an individual to have any income, particularly when it's in the performing arts, when the whole basis of, of the work is to have performances and to bring groups of people together in indoor environments, which are, have been either not allowed or unsafe or people weren't, don't feel comfortable with it, even if it is allowed, and so that's where you see, you know, some of these people or some of these organizations facing that sort of threat is, it's just no ability to, to carry on their operations at all. Deanna, UPAF is comprised of groups like the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, for example, but as Joe mentioned earlier, there are also arts educational groups and you've called arts education an equalizer. What does that mean and, and how so? Well, when you look at at individuals or kids in the classroom or after school programming or doing scholarships, such as at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, we need to ensure that every child has the opportunity to experience the arts, and unfortunately back in 2011, MPS cut their arts budget by two thirds, and they haven't been able to get that budget back up to where it was. So you have a lot of kids who have limited to no access to arts education, and so UPAF, we actually raise almost $700,000 a year to allow children to be able to get the programming that's delivered by all of our member groups. We reach 102,000 children. 80% of those kids are at or below the poverty level. I think it's, we're doing a disservice when we don't allow children to be able to have that rich concentration of the arts, and we know from research that kids who have that experience with arts education, they have higher GPAs, higher standardized test scores. They also are more engaged in, in their EQ, or their ability to work in teams, and they have lower dropout rates. So kids who are most prone to falling into negative behaviors benefit the most from arts education, and right now, because of the pandemic, more than 155,000 children that are typically served by our member groups are not receiving in-person programming, and so UPAF is actually providing funding to allow them to be able to do digital workshops and prerecorded materials, and while that's not the ideal, it is certainly better than nothing. And Deanna, we've seen art be a cornerstone of the Black Lives Matter movement. Will arts and culture continue, whether it happens under a brick and mortar or happens on the street? It will absolutely continue. You know, arts and culture, they, they build our humanity. They make us human and we all need a creative outlet, be it doing it on our own or being able to experience others displaying their talent. So, you know, the arts have survived many many a pandemic and actually Shakespeare wrote some of his best work during a pandemic. So we will thrive, it, we have survived centuries and centuries of, of a lot of, of activities, and so it will thrive. However, we need to make sure that we, we sustain these assets. We, you know, we raised almost $12 million this last year, and we're hoping to get to $11 million this year despite the pandemic. Our groups rely upon the funding. We're their only consistent source of revenue right now, and so it's the generosity of people that, you know, we have to ensure their sustainability. We rank last in the country in public funding, and so the private part of it is, the private funding is, is essential. We are announcing actually today that we've added Black Arts MKE as a member group, and the reason for that is, is we need to ensure that African American art continues to thrive. It is essential to our community. Joe, Deanna had mentioned a little bit earlier that some money from the Payment Protection Program came their way. There's also been some dollars from the federal CARES Act, but how long can organizations stay afloat given that money is, is becoming tighter and tighter? Right, yeah. Many of the organizations, in fact, I believe every organization that UPAF supports did receive a Paycheck Protection Program loan, of vary, varying levels, and that, that's probably true throughout the state, but when we looked at the, the cash reserves that the UPAF organizations have and how long those could last them, if, if you know other funding sources don't come in, it really varied greatly. Some of them, it looked like they only had enough cash on hand to survive for a month or two, and others could survive the full next year or longer. So it really varies partly depending on the size of the organization and, and things like that, but certainly some of them are at greater risk of not being able to make it very much longer. And Deanna, you were speaking a little bit earlier about how organizations can be creative and still share art and experiences. Is that going to be the new normal for the foreseeable future? Absolutely. Right now, our groups are not putting a stake in the ground when they're going to be to perform live again, and so they have to find another mode or another channel to be able to display their art form, and, and you can't do it for free. We'll become the newspaper, the print newspaper industry, if we continue to offer things up for free, and so what we're seeing now, and we're, again, we're working with our groups to look at a ticketing platform that will allow for streaming performances, that will allow for different types of experiences behind the scenes, still being able to, to show the insight of the arts, as well as the artistic talent and, that we have here locally in our community. It'll just be through a different lens, and if, if an organization is dormant for a year, they will not come back and our groups recognize that. It's just going to be a different experience, but you know, after five months, I think people are used to different, different experiences, and I truly do believe that after we get through this, that the offerings will continue to be digital for people who have disabilities, for people who cannot leave their homes for whatever reason. If they don't have access to be able to go downtown to experience the arts, this will be another channel that we're finding, hey, you know what, it can work. So yes, the product delivery system will change as a result of COVID-19. And Joe, so during a global pandemic and a health crisis, it can feel like arts and culture just isn't a priority, but is there a cascading effect of other areas that are inherently impacted because this rather large sector is on a really steep decline? Well, like you said, I mean, it's, it's tough to compete when you've got a lot of basic needs to be meeting at the same time. However, just the severity of impact to arts and culture, I think really makes it stand out, and the, and the uniqueness of the sector in terms of, its not only economic contributions, but the contributions to education and quality of life, that, that Deanna has really highlighted, really speak to the, the importance of it. You know, a lot of people who work in the arts, we found, and, you know, there have been surveys done of local artists in Milwaukee that have found that a large percentage of them do other types of work as well. So are, their art may be only a portion of their income. Many of them work in restaurants and bars and other types of industries, and so certainly, and, and those also are among the hardest hit. So yes, definitely, there are impacts where some of these individuals may have to consider other fields entirely if, if you know, arts and culture and other forms of support aren't aren't able to sustain through the, through the pandemic. I think we're at risk at losing our local talent and if you don't have the artists, then you don't have the art, be it visual, be performing arts, you know, any type of art form. It all starts with the individual, and that is certainly a concern of ours. An organization that was just founded about a year ago, Imagine MKE that's led by David Lee actually, and UPAF is involved in that organization, they did have an artist relief fund and the number of applications they had, you can just imagine. I mean, it covered all different types of art forms. That's the issue right now is, how do we make sure that we keep the artists here in our community and allow them to, to, to show their art form because they have been hit. If they had been a waiter, 'cause there are a lot of them that are waiters, they're, you know, they're not working the same number of hours that they were previously, and so that, you know, an artist, when you look at the research that's been done by SMU, they do an annual study around the country in terms of, of different cities and how they support their arts, and we actually, as a state rank very, very low in terms of how we support local artists. We're great at supporting organizations, but when it comes to the local individual, we do not fare well. We index about 23% when you look at the aggregate country. Joe, do you see a potential investment becoming possible if, if people realize how severe the problem is? I mean, I think it's going to be a challenge to make that happen, but one thing I wanted to point out that Deanna referenced earlier is the very low level of state funding support for arts and culture in Wisconsin. We looked at that and we found that in 2020, the state put $770,000 into the Wisconsin Arts Board, which provides grants to arts organizations and artists around the state. When we compare that to other Midwestern states, we found Wisconsin was the lowest, and then we actually found national rankings that put Wisconsin at the very bottom, ranked 50th of states, as far as state funding going into the arts. If you compare us to Minnesota, which actually is at the, at the top of the list, Minnesota is number one in the country, they provided $41 million to their similar organization to provide grants, to, to arts and culture in 2020, and so that makes a huge difference. Like Deanna said, the private sector provides a lot of support and has done so in the Milwaukee area, for example, in Wisconsin, but in terms of the state funding support, Wisconsin is really at the bottom. So, so there could be something done on a longterm basis to make Wisconsin more in line with other states, maybe not at the top with Minnesota, but somewhere, you know, not at the bottom, and then also one thing to note is that some states have been, because of, because of the pandemic and the, the major impacts that's had on arts and culture, several states around the country have actually created emergency funds that involve some public funding as well. So Illinois and Iowa are two examples. So that's another thing that could be considered in Wisconsin is, is something more temporary on an emergency basis to, to help some of these organizations to stay afloat. So let me give you a perspective of what, what Joe just said. So you have $770,000 of state funding for the entire state. UPAF distributes every month to, to 14 groups, six, almost $600,000. That gives you some perspective of how small that number is that we're getting from, you know, the public funding, and it is a partnership. It's a public-private partnership, and, we can't rely exclusively on public funding. We think, we don't take any public funding because there is so little, but you also, you know, people will, will, they, they show the value of the arts by opening up their wallet, either as a patron or as, as a donor. The challenge with the pandemic is that there are so many people who are being impacted by the pandemic, but they don't have enough in their wallet to be able to open up, to give that gift, and so the ramifications of the pandemic, you know, things were tough before the pandemic happened. It's been accelerated significantly, and the other challenge is, is the, is the corporate industry in southeastern Wisconsin in particular has the, the, the landscape has changed significantly over the last 10 years, and we're not attracting the same, you know, the businesses to come and replace those that have been sold have spun off, and so that's created a lot of challenges for arts organizations for the nonprofit sector overall that the dollars available from the corporate sector have either not grown or they have decreased when you look at on an annualized basis. So there's a lot of risk already, and you overlay that with, with COVID-19 and it, it's an uncertain time for the sector. All right, we'll leave it there. Joe Peterangelo and Deanna Tillisch. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. - Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. For more from Here and Now and PBS Wisconsin, you can visit PBSWisconsin.org, and thank you so much for joining us on Noon Wednesday.