Americans for the Arts recently published the report Arts and Economic Prosperity 5 (AEP5), and in South Carolina, the results are worth bragging about. AEP5 measured the economic impact of nonprofit arts and culture organizations in 341 study regions nationwide. In South Carolina, Americans for the Arts partnered with four local partners to collect data from Charleston, Spartanburg, Columbia, and York County.

The nonprofit arts and culture sector in these regions spent more than $310 million, creating nearly 12,000 full-time jobs and generating about $30 million in local and state government revenue. In addition, Charleston, the state’s largest city, outperformed similarly sized metropolitan areas in other areas of the U.S. Arts and culture nonprofits in the Greater Charleston region spent nearly $187 million in 2015.

“We need to get past that language, ‘Well, the arts are good,’” said Scott Watson, director of Charleston’s Office of Cultural Affairs. “They are a critical piece of local vitality and economic sustainability.”