The creative economy is a powerful and positive global force. Together, artists, cultural nonprofits, and creative businesses produce and distribute cultural goods and services that impact the economy by generating jobs, revenue, and quality of life.

NEFA strengthens and supports the creative sector not only as a grantmaker, but also by providing tools and information which build the intellectual assets of the cultural community. NEFA’s research and knowledge-sharing inform cultural decision-making and program development, and ultimately, enhance public understanding of how the arts contribute to the vitality of communities.

Research & Online Resources

NEFA commissions data-driven research that defines the creative economy, measures the economic impact of its nonprofit component, and creates research models which can be used by anyone in the U.S. Documentation and evaluation of our own programs inform NEFA’s ability to play a leadership role in the cultural sector.

In addition to research reports, NEFA provides online resources such as CultureCount, a searchable directory of New England artists, cultural nonprofits, and creative businesses used by policymakers, economic development officials, cultural organizations, and the general public. Through CultureCount, users can access financial and demographic information about the creative economy and analyze the economic impact of the arts in a specific geographic area.

In addition to creative economy research, NEFA provides online resources such as CultureCount, a searchable directory of New England artists, cultural nonprofits, and creative businesses used by policymakers, economic development officials, cultural organizations, and the general public. Through CultureCount, users can access financial and demographic information about the creative economy and analyze the economic impact of the arts in a specific geographic area.  

NEFA's latest study of cultural nonprofit sector data, New England’s Creative Economy: The Nonprofit Sector (December 2009) is now available.

NEFA & the Creative Economy

Since 1978, NEFA's economic impact studies of New England's nonprofit cultural sector have provided arts organizations with case-making data as they advocate to their local governments. In the mid 1990's, inclusion of Internal Revenue Service data in these studies revealed the nonprofit cultural community in New England to be a more significant economic force than anyone had yet imagined. Leaders in the region’s business, government, cultural, and educational sectors took notice, and the Creative Economy Initiative was formed in 1998. This partnership brought together the commercial and nonprofit components of New England's cultural sector to define the creative economy and analyze their collective economic impact in 2000. NEFA updated this report in 2007 to include creative businesses as well as cultural non-profits and artists in The Creative Economy: A New Definition; this ongoing research has become the foundation for local and statewide efforts to build New England’s creative economy.