We are pleased to announce the release of Untapped Opportunity: Older Americans & the Arts, a collaboration among LaPlaca Cohen, Slover Linett and E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.

This groundbreaking report sheds light on older generations’ distinct preferences and behaviors to provide relevant insights for cultural engagement. The corrosive ageism that permeates our culture leads us to see older people as “other,” but it turns out that older and younger adults want the same things from life: we all have a deep desire to have fun, to connect meaningfully with others, to create and to learn.

This report provides new data on people over 55 years of age. Importantly, it reveals older adults’ priorities in engaging with the arts: opportunities to belong, to learn something new and to feel a sense of accomplishment. The findings in this report align with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy’s $20 million commitment to support creative aging programs in more than 100 organizations over the past decade.

It’s time to change the narrative around aging. The report joins a growing but overdue body of research investigating how engagement with arts and culture activities evolve over our lifetimes. It challenges arts and cultural organizations to recognize something that has been hiding in plain sight—an enormous opportunity to develop and deliver quality programs of relevance to the fastest-growing segment of our society.

You can view this important and fascinating report here.