Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance launches Cultural Engagement Index (CEI)

The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance today released the results of a broad survey on consumer cultural participation, the Cultural Engagement Index (CEI). The index, much like the Consumer Price Index or Consumer Confidence Index, will provide the cultural community with the ability to track trends in consumer cultural participation over time. This first survey benchmarks current cultural engagement levels at 100. The CEI will then be re-administered at regular intervals to assess increases or decreases in cultural engagement in the region.

These findings were presented on March 20th at the World Cafe. The Dance Journal has captured a podcast of the entire meeting for those who were unable to attend.

PODCAST OF MEETING

Unlike previous studies of arts participation, the CEI surveys the general population of Greater Philadelphia, not just current arts attendees. It also factors in both frequency of culture participation and the importance of those cultural activities to the survey respondents.

The CEI asks questions about audience-based attendance in traditional cultural activities (including attendance at live performing arts, visiting museums, and attending community events); as well as questions on survey respondents’ personal practice activities (including creating music or dance, painting or drawing, writing in journals or blogs, and sharing photos, music or videos online).

“This index, for the first time, looks at the whole spectrum of cultural engagement, and the relationship between people’s personal practices and their attendance at traditional concerts, museums and other attractions,” said Peggy Amsterdam, President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.  “The findings offer interesting insight on innovative ways to reach new audiences and build attendance at cultural organizations.”

As the benchmark year, this year’s CEI is not able to demonstrate changes or trends over time. However, the survey results did provide  insight on the different patterns of cultural engagement between subsets of survey respondents, based on factors such as age, lifestyle groups, race and education.

These include:

• Across different age groups, Cultural Engagement is highest for younger age cohorts 18-34. Engagement then falls off for older cohorts because of a decline in personal practice activities.
• Across lifestyle groups, adults with children have more active creative lives than those without children.
• Cultural Engagement levels for African Americans and Hispanics are consistently higher than those for Whites.
• Cultural Engagement levels for those who cite cultural role models in and out of the family report twice the levels of engagement than those who cite no role models.
• Higher civic engagement is directly correlated with higher cultural engagement. Respondents who participated in all five civic activities listed (socialize with neighbors, attend religious services, do volunteer work, have a library card and have voted in the last year) scored three times higher than those who reported no civic engagement activities.
• Males and females have different engagement patterns: Men are more active making original videos or film, composing music, and remixing material found online. Women are more engaged in painting and other original art creation, writing about their lives in journals or blogs, and attending professional dance performances.

Most compelling, the research points to correlations between personal practice activities and audience-based activities.

• Respondents that took music lessons more frequently were also more likely to attend live music performances.
• Respondents who reported taking photographs with artistic intentions more frequently had higher levels of cultural engagement for visiting art museums.
• Those who expressed an interest in exploring family history had higher levels of engagement visiting history or science museums.

“Clearly, this research suggests possible avenues for increasing cultural participation for cultural organizations,“ said Tom Kaiden, Chief Operating Office of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.  “Consumers who report certain personal practice activities are more open to specific cultural activities, and cultural groups can target those connections to engage wider audiences.”

Methodology

The CEI is an ongoing inclusive measurement of cultural engagement in Greater Philadelphia. It’s objectives are to

• Stimulate innovation
• Track engagement over time
• Inform cultural policy
• Reinforce culture as a recognized and valued component of a region’s quality of life
• Expose opportunities for increasing cultural engagement

The survey will be conducted again in future years to track changes to the index over time.

The survey was conducted by Alan Brown of the firm WolfBrown (www.WolfBrown.com) in the summer of 2008. It included questions on demographics, cultural activities, arts learning indicators, cultural role models and civic engagement. A copy of the survey form is available at www.philaculture.org. The survey results are a representative sample of all adults 18+ in Greater Philadelphia. 2907 surveys were collected in all 202 zip codes within a 20 mile radius of downtown Philadelphia.

Additional information, including the full report and survey are available at https://www.philaculture.org/research/2377/cultural-engagement-index-cei

Engage 2020

The Cultural Engagement Index is part of a larger project of the Cultural Alliance, Engage 2020. Engage 2020 is focused on doubling cultural participation in Greater Philadelphia by 2020 and will focus on three key strategies:

• Conducting groundbreaking research on emerging trends in cultural participation, including the establishment of a Cultural Engagement Index (CEI) that will provide a region-wide measurement of cultural activity.
• Providing seed capital and marketing support to cultural organizations for innovative planning and product development.
• Expanding the popular PhillyFunGuide.com events calendar & FunSavers ticketing program to include user generated content, consumer feedback, and social networking tools.

The Cultural Engagement Index (CEI)  was commissioned by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance with support from The Wallace Foundation and The Philadelphia Foundation.

The CEI is a program of Engage 2020, which is sponsored by a lead grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, with additional support from The Wallace Foundation and The Philadelphia Foundation.