Voices of the Community

Intersection for the Arts

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Episode notes

"the people who are working in the cultural sector and everything, it's exposed even further our vulnerabilities, the fact that we're always working in the margins" - Randy Rollison

In this episode our featured voices are Randy Rollison the Executive Director and Allison Snopek the Deputy Director of Intersection for the Arts. This week’s show with Randy and Allison is part of our end of year theme to highlight the importance of nonprofits in our community. Our conversation focuses on the arts and culture organizations they work with and to get their insights into how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting these organizations that bring joy and inspiration to our communal lives.

We wanted to provide some economic context to our conversation with Alison and Randy, so we asked - “How big is the arts and culture economy in San Francisco?” The latest in-depth study we could find was a 2015 Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 national economic impact study that was conducted by Americans for the Arts in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission. According to the study the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates 1.45 billion in annual economic activity and supports 39,699 full-time equivalent jobs. 

On a national level according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the creative economy employs 5.1 million Americans and contributes $877 billion annually to GDP.