When we invest in the arts, everyone benefits
By Meghan Martin
I have spent my career making the case for the arts. That case is usually framed in the language of community and culture: the way a live performance can move you, the way a mural can transform a neighborhood, the way a local arts festival can make you feel, even briefly, like you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
All of that is true. But it is not the only truth worth telling.
As voters in Ingham County weigh in on the proposed increase in the county hotel tax that will help fund arts, entertainment and tourism this August, I want to make a different kind of case — an economic one. The evidence is clear and compelling: investing in the arts is not a luxury. It is one of the smartest economic development strategies a community can make.
Consider what arts and cultural organizations actually do. They draw people to a region. They fill hotel rooms and restaurant seats. They give visitors and residents a reason to linger, to come back, and to tell their friends. In Ingham County, that dynamic is real and measurable. When the Lansing area hosts a major arts event, a music festival, a cultural exhibition or a theatrical run that draws audiences from across the region and the state, those visitors don’t just attend the event. They stay overnight. They explore our neighborhoods. They spend money at our local businesses in ways that ripple outward through the entire economy.
A small increase in the county’s hotel tax — paid by visitors, not residents — would meaningfully expand the resources available to support exactly these kinds of events and the organizations that produce them. For arts organizations in our region, which operate on lean budgets and compete for a limited pool of grant funding, this kind of dedicated, locally-controlled support can be the difference between sustaining a program and cutting it, between growing an audience and losing one.
Proceeds from the hotel tax provide grant support to some of our most popular community attractions and events, including the Wharton Center at MSU, Impression 5 Science Center, East Lansing Art Festival, and Silver Bells in the City. The Arts Council also uses hotel tax funds to help sustain the Capital City Film Festival, Williamston Theater, All of the Above Hip Hop Academy and the Lansing Symphony, among many others.
There is a temptation to think of arts funding as a soft priority, something we support only after everything else is taken care of. The data tells a different story. Americans for the Arts, which tracks the economic impact of the nonprofit arts sector nationally, consistently finds that arts and cultural organizations generate substantial economic activity beyond their own budgets, through audience spending, employment of local artists and arts workers, and indirect boosts to tourism and hospitality industries. Locally, the math is no different. Every dollar that supports a stronger arts and cultural ecosystem in Ingham County has a multiplier effect that benefits businesses and workers well beyond the arts sector itself.
But I want to be honest about something. The economic argument, as compelling as it is, is not why most of us do this work. We do it because the arts matter to how a community understands itself. They are how we process difficult histories and celebrate shared ones. They are how young people discover their voices and how older residents stay connected to the life of a city. They are how a place becomes, in the fullest sense, a place worth living in and worth visiting.
Ingham County has genuine creative assets. We have organizations and artists producing work that deserves a larger stage and a more stable foundation. We have cultural institutions that serve communities across the county, from Lansing to Mason to Williamston and beyond. And we have the opportunity, through a modest and visitor-funded mechanism, to make a real investment in that ecosystem.
I am asking Ingham County voters to see what I see every day: arts organizations working hard to do more with less, artists who have chosen to build their careers here because they believe in this community, and audiences who show up because they know that what happens on our stages and in our galleries and at our outdoor festivals is worth their time.
A yes vote on the hotel tax increase is a vote for all of that, and for the kind of thriving, culturally alive regional economy that makes Ingham County a place people want to visit, and a place all of us are proud to call home.
Martin is the executive director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing.
