Ben Davidson

Senior Director of Research Services

Team: Research

Ben Davidson oversees research studies focusing on issues surrounding economic impact, the creative industries, cultural policy, funding trends, and surveys to evaluate the health and condition of our many stakeholder groups including local arts agencies. Ben began his second tenure with Americans for the Arts in 2000 as the director of research. He had previously served as research services coordinator prior to joining KPMG Consulting, where he worked as a management consultant for two years. Before coming to Washington, DC, Ben was a project manager with the specialty research and evaluation firm that conducted Americans for the Arts' benchmark national economic impact study in 1994. Ben has subsequently updated our national economic impact data four times by completing Arts & Economic Prosperity II (published in 2002), Arts & Economic Prosperity III (published in 2006), Arts & Economic Prosperity IV (published in 2012), and Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 (published in 2017). The most recent effort included the collection and analysis of surveys from more than 14,000 nonprofit arts and culture organization surveys and more than 212,000 arts patrons in 341 U.S. communities. Like each of its predecessors, Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 became the largest study ever conducted to measure the economic impact of the nation’s nonprofit arts industry. A graduate of James Madison University, Ben received his B.S. in Mass Communication.

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