Nonprofit arts and culture activity in the seven-country metro area reached a record $1.9 billion in 2017, supporting increased employment, capital spending and tourism, according to a new study from the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts.

That’s an 8-percent increase since 2015, the last year the study was conducted, CBCA officials said.

“It is a very specific slice of the state’s overall activity,” said Christin Crampton Day, executive director of the CBCA. “Can you imagine what those numbers would be if you were to look at it statewide, or include for-profit industries?”

The CBCA study, released every two years since 1992, is based on data from the roughly 300 nonprofit arts organizations that comprise the Denver-metro area’s nationally unique Scientific & Cultural Facilities District. With a 1-cent-per-$10 tax, the voter-approved SCFD has for three decades supported arts and culture nonprofits in the metro area with funding and other resources.

“What makes this study different is that it helps educate the public, government officials and the business community that this is money well-spent,” Crampton Day said. “It benefits not just business but our way of life in Colorado, because cultural vitality is something that’s so important to our DNA. People want to live and work in regions with vital arts and culture sectors.”

Beyondillustrating the economic impact of arts, culture and science, the study also shows how much the metro area has grown in the last two years.

Total economic activity, defined by the CBCA as direct and indirect spending from operations, audiences and capital projects, may have reached nearly $2 billion in 2017. But total economic impact (or new money to the region) reached $573 million — a 12-percent increase over 2015, according to the report, including a record-breaking $400 million in economic impact from cultural tourists.

From 2015-17, researchers also saw a 40-percent increase in capital spending, an 8.5-percent increase in both cultural attendance and outreach to school children, and a 35-percent increase in adult and youth class enrollment.

“Those are big jumps, and certainly that can go up and down depending on the life cycle of different projects,” Crampton-Day said. “But we also anticipate it being high in the next study, since there are a lot of capital projects happening now.”

It’s not just a matter of Denver’s population boom driving the increases. Since 1992, cultural attendance has increased at nearly twice the pace of the metro area’s population growth, the report found.

Crampton Day said the data from the study is gleaned from detailed grant reports written by nonprofit organizations to obtain their funding.

Other findings of the study included:

Arts and culture supported 11,820 jobs in 2017, a 10-percent increase over 2015

Giving to the arts increased by 3.5 percent to $182.6 million

Attendance at arts and culture offerings clocked in at 15 million people in 2017, up 8.5 percent over 2015

On average, a cultural participant spends $22.50 on non-ticket items per arts experience (Consumer Price Index adjusted).

Areas of concern in the study include a downturn in corporate and foundation giving, which Crampton Day could not explain — owing to a volatile, up-and-down trend over the years that seems disconnected from national economic conditions.

“Corporate sponsorships were down pretty substantially, at 23 percent, and foundations were down 13 percent,” she said. “That was surprising to us. But diving into that, we also saw a healthy increase from individual donors (up 13 percent), in-kind goods and services (up 6 percent) and increases from endowments.”

The full report was released at CBCA’s breakfast meeting on Nov. 1 at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. It can be accessed, including a bilingual version, at cbca.org/economic-activitystudy.