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Research Reports

At ArtsWave, we believe that the arts contribute significantly to the quality of life in our community. In 2008, we released the Arts Ripple Effect, a research report that revealed key shared beliefs about the impact of the arts in our community. In 2010, we committed to an expanded mission and new grant-making policy that aligned with these shared beliefs. In 2011, we began working with Greater Cincinnati’s arts organizations and local and national resources to gather data that demonstrated the impact of the arts. Portrait 2012: Arts Engagement in Greater Cincinnati is the first fruits of these new efforts in arts research, commissioned in partnership with Agenda 360, the region’s strategic plan.

ArtsWave Snapshot 2012

Snapshot 2012: A Study of Arts Engagement in Greater Cincinnati

Our research efforts begin with arts engagement because we believe that the arts create a ripple effect of benefits for everyone living in our region and that the more people that participate, the greater the benefits to all. Snapshot 2012 provides baseline data on arts participation and explores interrelationships between arts participation and quality of life. The strong correlation between arts engagement, social integration and civic engagement reinforces the key ideas contained in The Arts Ripple Effect: the arts bring people together and make our community a better place to live.

Snapshot 2012 paints a picture of a community that is actively engaged in the arts. That engagement takes many forms from attending concerts by professional musicians to singing in a church choir, visiting museums to dancing at a club with friends.  Greater Cincinnati can be justly proud of its arts and cultural assets – a collective investment that has returned dividends to the entire region for over a century. Snapshot 2012 reveals opportunities to increase arts engagement among key groups in order to ensure that the benefits of the arts are broadly shared throughout the region. 

Click here to download the report: Snapshot 2012

The Arts Ripple Effect Cover

The Arts Ripple Effect: A Research-Based Strategy to Build Shared Responsibility for the Arts

In 2008, leaders of ArtsWave in Cincinnati embarked on a year-long research initiative designed to develop an inclusive community dialogue leading to broadly shared public responsibility for arts and culture in the region. We concluded that our work with the community through arts and culture must be based on a foundation that incorporates a deeper understanding of the best way to communicate with the public in order to achieve that shared sense of responsibility.

This report summarizes more than a year of work and important findings for widespread use by others. While leaders of business and other nonprofit sectors often conduct research using framing science methodology to develop communications strategies for change, this is a first-in-the-nation analysis for arts and culture.

Download the full report here: The Arts Ripple Effect Report