Mass Culture Data Summer School – Making Sense of Economic Impact in the Arts

FREE Online Workshop: July 22, 2026; 1-2:30pm EST

Mass Culture’s Data Summer School is a practical workshop series that demystifies data and empowers arts organizations to clean up their spreadsheets, define meaningful metrics, and confidently use data to tell their story.

Session Outline: Making Sense of Economic Impact in the Arts

This interactive workshop is a history and practical guide to economic modelling.

The session will begin with a historical overview from Elena Bird (Ontario Arts Council), tracing how economic impact studies became a widely used tool for understanding and communicating the value of arts and culture.

We’ll then move into an interactive demonstration of Mass Culture’s newest dashboard within the DNA Platform, where participants will learn how to estimate and explore the economic impact of an individual arts organization, a municipality, or a group of arts organizations.

We’ll show you how the dashboard unpacks the methodology behind the model, sharing the calculations that determine results so participants can better understand both the opportunities and limitations of economic impact analysis.