Arts Groups Make a Case for Their Effect on the Economy : Study: A San Diego coalition concludes that each $1 contributed to the arts returns $10 to the community.

Arts organizations are pumping more than a quarter of a billion dollars into the San Diego County economy, providing more of a benefit to others than to themselves, according to a study by the San Diego Cultural Arts Coalition.

The coalition is a new group composed of more than 70 local arts organizations. Adrian Stewart, managing director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre and founder of the coalition, says that the group hopes that the figures on the economic impact and the dedication of individuals to the arts will be an aid in rallying corporate and city support for the arts.

According to the survey, arts patronage in San Diego County is 4 million, there is a volunteer corps of 9,000, and individual donations total $11.4 million. The donations were the biggest source of the groups’ income.

The survey found that arts organizations returned $10 to the local community for each $1 contributed. The organizations enriched the local economy in 1988 and ’89 by an estimated $270.4 million in direct, indirect and related spending, but most arts organizations themselves are barely surviving, the study says.

Even when $31.7 million in the form of earned income (admissions, fees, teaching and merchandise) is figured in, the survey says, only a collective $4.2 million stands between the 70 organizations surveyed and red ink.

Among theaters, the figure is something like $400,000, according to Alan Ziter, executive director of the San Diego Theatre League.

The $750,000 deficit of the La Jolla Playhouse this year may be only one in a series of financial crises to come for theaters. According to Ziter, even the largest theaters are only $100,000 away from being in the red, and the margin for the smallest theaters is closer to $10,000.

“All it takes is one show where the income doesn’t come to what is expected for an organization to go out of business,” Ziter said about the thinness of the financial cushion for most local organizations.

“What we have to move away from is a series of crisis fund raising,” Stewart said. “This sets our agenda for the ‘90s. There are a lot of people who care. There are certain organizations that need to play a role to keep institutions that people care about going.

“It’s a fragile situation, and I believe that the real onus is back on the arts organizations to advocate to a whole new level of corporation (support)--the small-size corporations, mid-size corporations,” he said. “A partnership has to happen, and it’s about more than money. It’s about giving San Diego a reputation as a cultural destination.”

Ziter was reluctant to separate figures for different art forms, saying that the purpose of the coalition is to find new sources of support for the arts as a whole. The survey does show, however, that dance is the least supported of the arts in San Diego, receiving a scant 1% of all contributed funds and 2% of earned funds.

Dance organizations are more dependent on earned income than any other kind of arts organization; 76% of their money comes from ticket sales. Theaters are nearly as dependent; 73% of their money is earned income. Music organizations and museums have the most stable funding bases, with 60% of their money from ticket sales.

Despite the widespread belief that the San Diego arts scene is healthy, there have been financial crises in one organization after another: the San Diego Opera, the San Diego Symphony, the San Diego Repertory Theatre and now the La Jolla Playhouse.

The $270.4-million figure in the arts coalition report may seem high to those who remember a survey done just last year by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. Max Schetter, director of the chamber’s economic research bureau, used guidelines from the California Confederation of the Arts to estimate that the arts contributed, directly and indirectly, $96 million to the local economy in 1988.

One factor leading to the discrepancy has to do with the way the economic impact was figured. The Chamber of Commerce used a conservative formula--two times the number of admissions--to determine related spending by audiences on meals, drinks, gifts and parking.

The arts coalition multiplied the admissions by 2.78, a number taken from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration model used in Boston in 1986.

Also, the chamber did not take into account indirect audience spending--a trickle-down effect as arts employees (3,400) used their earnings to buy meals or clothes. Using a multiplier of 2.89, again from the Harvard study, the arts coalition arrived at a total of $157 million.

Schetter said he does not doubt the arts coalition findings.

“I think it’s defensible,” he said. “I would say ours was very conservative, and theirs may very well be closer to the total impact. Cultural attractions have been growing, and they will continue to play an even more important role as time goes on.”