At the TSO, we’re currently focused on our spring Annual Campaign to balance the budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.  We’re having good success, and most people are being very generous and supportive.  (If you'd like to be one of them, click here.) There are always those who decline their support, of course.  Not every cause appeals to every donor, and that’s fine.

But in many cases, I am struck by how little people understand about the impact of the Arts in the community.  It is critically important for those of us who care about the Arts and advocate for its support to understand that impact ourselves, and take the time to communicate it to prospects, even (and perhaps especially) the most skeptical.

Did you know that by supporting the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra you are not only investing in community quality of life and helping to bring music and the arts to area youth, but also effectively contributing to the local economy and a safe and vibrant downtown?

Let me share with you some fascinating numbers about Tacoma’s Arts sector as a whole, recently revealed by the new Arts & Economic Prosperity Survey completed by Americans for the Arts:

- Annual expenditures of Tacoma’s arts organizations and their audiences exceeds $36,700,000
- Tacoma’s arts support nearly 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the community
- Tacoma’s arts generate $1.5 million to local and $1.8 million to state government
- Tacoma’s arts have a total annual attendance of nearly 872,000

With the departure of The Russell Company, the Arts are the third largest industry in downtown Tacoma.  Since I work downtown and put in a lot of evening and weekend hours, I see its impact all the time.  On those now rare nights when the Broadway Center is dark, the Theater District and Pacific Avenue are deserted.  When its three theaters are all presenting simultaneously, the area is bustling with life.  Clearly, in the words of Mayor Marilyn Strickland, “The arts are embedded in what we do as a city.”

I’m a relative newcomer to Tacoma, but people are constantly telling me what the downtown used to be like.  By all accounts, the change that has taken place is dramatic.  What amazes me, however, is how little credit the Arts receive in this transformation.   On the south end of downtown, the Museum of Glass, Tacoma Art Museum, and the Washington State History Museum – together with UWT – have been the catalyst for one of the most remarkable turnarounds of a downtown anywhere I’ve been.  The revitalization of the Theatre District area to the north, although more gradual, is no less impressive.  But without the Broadway Center and its menu of resident arts organizations – of which the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra is the largest – the area would still be catering to a very different clientele!

If you’ll forgive the pun, the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra is a sound investment – as are all Tacoma's Arts.  No, we're not going to be everybody’s cause to support.  But those of us who work to sustain the Orchestra should do so with boldness and pride – and make sure that everyone who has a stake in this community fully appreciates the role the TSO plays.