The economy is slowing, gas and food prices are rising and the subprime-mortgage mess has yet to sort itself out.

Meanwhile, government support of the arts is diminishing at state and national levels. But locally, giving by individuals and corporations is holding steady or has even increased as some donors and supporters say giving to the arts helps ensure a high quality of life in central Virginia.

"I feel it's a very important part of the community," said Rudy Bunzl, who supports the Richmond Symphony, Richmond Ballet, Virginia Opera and other groups. "I think Richmond is a better city because we have a symphony and other things."

Nationally, Congress increased the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by 16 percent, to $145 million, in the current fiscal year. Even so, the NEA has seen a 21 percent reduction in funding since 1992.

Among its many grants to Virginia institutions and individuals, the NEA last year gave $30,000 to Richmond Ballet to support its Minds in Motion program, and $35,000 to support a Richmond Festival production by at-risk youths of an adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet."

The proposed state budget for the next fiscal year gives no money to arts organizations unless they are owned by the state. This contrasts to the more than $14 million the assembly gave arts and cultural organizations in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

The Museum of the Confederacy, for instance, received $400,000 from the General Assembly in the current fiscal year. It would receive none next year. To make up the difference, said executive director S. Waite Rawls III, "we're going to have to just work real hard.

"Not only is it a setback for our current operations, but it will make our future planning more difficult."

So far in fiscal 2007-2008, giving to the Museum of the Confederacy is up by $17,000, or about 3 percent, over the same period last year.

According to tax records, private and corporate gifts and grants to the Richmond Ballet rose 42 percent from fiscal year 2005-2006 to fiscal year 2006-2007. The current fiscal year does not end until June, but ballet spokesman Aaron Sutton said, "If anything, [giving] is the same."

The Richmond Symphony has seen a 34 percent increase over the same time, partly because of a campaign to keep it going while the Carpenter Center is being renovated.

This increase in giving does not surprise executive director David J.L. Fisk, who noted that the symphony's financial position has improved for each of the last four years. Halfway through the current fiscal year, the symphony has raised more money than it had at the same point last year. Expectations increased, however, so the symphony is actually running a couple of percentage points behind the increased budget.

"I'm not overly concerned. We're by and large on track for where we would like to be," Fisk said.

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The Black History Museum & Cultural Center has to absorb a nearly $30,000 drop in funding from the state, and it comes at a bad time for the institution, which is in a rebuilding phase.

"For us, every nickel matters. To lose that funding is difficult. . . . Obviously, we will try to make up for it elsewhere," said interim executive director Nicole Hood

"It certainly impacts our ability to do the kind of programs and exhibits that we want to do."

The Virginia Historical Society will have to make do without General Assembly funds, too, which last year totaled $300,000. But the organization was ready for the hit.

"We are very appreciative of the state funding we get and it plays an important part of our budget, but we have consciously made an attempt not to rely on it too much," said president Charles F. Bryan Jr.

In the first two months of 2008 alone, unrestricted giving to the Historical Society is up by nearly $100,000 over the same two months last year, $156,000 compared to less than $58,000.

Bryan said that at its peak in the mid-1990s, state funding made up 8 percent of the Virginia Historical Society's budget. The next year, the funding was slashed to nothing. Since then, he said, the museum has endeavored to weather such storms by building up its endowment. The endowment now stands at more than $58 million.

Richmond Ballet also is losing the $350,000 given to it this year by the General Assembly. Most of that, said managing director Keith Martin, went to capital projects -- major maintenance, renovations or expansion of buildings. As a result, the ballet will have no capital projects in the coming fiscal year.

Another $100,000 went to subsidize ballet performances in small communities that otherwise cannot afford them. As part of its mandate as the State Ballet of Virginia, the troupe this year made subsidized performances in such towns as Galax, Wise and Grundy. Next year, the company will be able to tour only in larger communities that can afford them, such as Charlottesville, Fredericksburg and Northern Virginia.

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Although giving from the General Assembly is down, according to ballet spokesman Aaron Sutton, donations from individuals, corporations and grants have remained at the same level or higher this fiscal year compared to last year. And according to tax records, gifts and grants to the ballet rose 42 percent from fiscal year 2005-2006 to fiscal year 2006-2007.

"It's not all gloom and doom," Martin said. "I celebrate that [the General Assembly] did not decrease funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts."

The Virginia Commission for the Arts is a state agency that primarily dispenses money for operational support of nonprofit arts organizations, said executive director Peggy Baggett. The commission's budget for each of the next two years is the same as this year -- $6.2 million.

This money is distributed to organizations in every city and county in the state, from the large -- Richmond Symphony, Virginia Opera -- to the small -- 1706 Gallery, Richmond Jazz Society.

Baggett added that the state supports the arts in other ways as well: through its six state-owned museums (including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum of Virginia), through state-owned college arts programs and through salaries for art and music teachers from kindergarten through high school.

Arts and cultural organizations have turned to individual and corporate patrons to make up the difference in government giving. By and large, they have not been disappointed.

The Valentine Richmond History Center's most recently available tax records show that giving rose 18 percent from fiscal year 2004-2005 to fiscal year 2005-2006, from $2.7 million to $3.2 million.

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Locally, even where amounts in individual and corporate giving are way down, arts organization officials are not alarmed.

Donations to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are down by 59 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the state-owned museum's annual reports. Museum spokeswoman Suzanne Hall said this decrease in corporate and individual giving resulted largely because a major fundraising campaign ended in 2006.

In addition, the museum has been under construction to build a new wing. With a large portion of the galleries closed to accommodate the construction -- and the entire museum being closed for a few days -- admissions have been down. Donors have not been thinking as much about the institution as they do when they have more access to it, Hall said.

The capital campaign that ended in 2006 was held to raise funds for this addition. The campaign began in 1998. With money beginning to flow into the capital campaign that year, donations to the museum -- other than for the campaign -- fell by 40 percent. The year before, donations had risen by 39 percent.

The museum has recently adopted an accounting method that no longer takes into account money that has been pledged but not received, so the level of support in 1998 cannot be fairly compared to the level of support today. But even with this change, the amount of money actually given in 2007 -- after the campaign ended -- comfortably exceeds the amount both given and pledged in 1998.

One source of donations cannot be predicted from one year to the next. A portion of contributions to many arts organizations comes in the form of bequests, which is the money designated in wills when the benefactor dies.

However, as local donor and music lover Chris Bredrup pointed out, each bequest represents one less person who will be contributing in the future, and that could lead to a problem. Supporters of the arts tend to be older, he said, and younger people have not been exposed to fine arts the way previous generations were.

"We're losing a lot of donors, so we have to keep building from the bottom up to make up for the loss of the donors," Bredrup said.

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It is important to support the arts, said president and CEO of the Greater Richmond Chamber Jim Dunn, because "the arts in this community have a tremendous impact on the quality of life. That is one of the things this region is known for."

Recent corporate relocations to Richmond have been met with trepidation by some relocated employees, Dunn said, until they see the area's cultural bounty.

"When they kick the tires and take a look, they are more than pleasantly surprised at what they find," he said.

Marcia Thalhimer, president of the board of directors for the Richmond Symphony, said people give money to the arts because "there is a real personal connection. It speaks to our life, what is important to us.

"If the arts are important to you in your home life as well as your outside life, it is a no-brainer that you do what you can," Thalhimer said.

For Dorothy Pauley, a member of the board of directors of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and a supporter of the Richmond Symphony, "it starts out as loving music and loving art.

"There comes a time when you feel you ought to start supporting it so it can continue to exist," Pauley said.

Pauley and her husband, Stanley F. Pauley, began giving sizable amounts of money in the 1990s, when her husband's company, Carpenter Co., began doing well. They have now formed two foundations, which by law have to contribute at least 5 percent of their total funds each year.

Because of that requirement, the amount of money they give through these foundations will not diminish, at least not significantly, even in tough economic times.

Trends in arts-group donations are difficult to pin down, because there are no trends, said Nancy Tait, spokeswoman for the Science Museum of Virginia. One year, the giving is up, the next it's down. When an organization is in the midst of a capital campaign, as the Science Museum was through 2006, the giving goes way up.

In the current fiscal year, giving at the Science Museum is up about 3 percent.

And as the economic picture changes, Bunzl, who donates to several arts groups, said that if there is indeed a downturn in the economy, he plans to continue his donations at the same level.

"If we do fall on hard times, [the arts] are going to need it more."