In the summer of 2017, the history, arts and cultural organizations of Morrison County joined forces to have an economic impact study done by Creative Minnesota so that we could determine, using hard data, what effect we were having on Morrison County’s economy.
On February 7, 2018, at a crowded public event in the Council Chambers of Little Falls City Hall, Sheila Smith, chair of Creative Minnesota and executive director of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, released the compiled data.
The result is that the arts/history/cultural sector impacts the county’s economy to the tune of $4.7 million annually, with $3.2 million arising from the activities of nonprofit cultural organizations and $1.5 million from artists and other creative workers in Morrison County.
Aside from the overall numbers, one of the surprises (and there were several) about the cultural sector’s impact on Morrison County was in the number of history organizations represented, which is high for a county of this size.
To view the rest of the data the study uncovered, visit https://www.creativemn.org/regional-profiles/region-5/morrison-county/.
To see Lakeland PBS’s coverage of the data release event, visit https://lptv.org/art-sector-economic-impact-study-reveals-large-numbers-in-morrison-county/.
Thank you to Creative Minnesota for putting together the study and to Sheila Smith for providing such an engaging presentation of Morrison County’s data.
Thank you to the following organizations for providing funding for the study: Friends of the Little Falls Public Library, Great River Arts, Linden Hill, Charles A. Lindbergh House & Museum, and the Morrison County Historical Society. Thanks, as well, to all the Morrison County cultural organizations for sharing their data for the study.