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One frame I've found very helpful for thinking about EA is that, deep down, we're not just answering one question ("what's the best thing to do?") but answering two questions. The first is "what should we value?" and the second is "how can we get more of what we value?" (This is my personal view, and I certainly don't speak for anyone else in the community.)
Hence, there's nothing "off" about someone pursuing arts funding for their community theater, even if no lives are saved in the process; if someone really values the production of theater in their community, I'm not going to tell them they've chosen wrong. (Though I might suggest they try to write down all the different things they value, so that they can understand the full "portfolio" of what they care about.) But if there are two community theaters in town, and one of them takes twice as much money to put on a show for half as many people, the other theater seems like a better place to fund.
The same goes for the arts in general: If one's real goal is to fund "more art" or "better art", there are thousands of charities they could consider, and they can use EA methods to whittle down that list until they find options that will very effectively use their money to put more/better art into the world. Just as different health interventions are more or less efficient, we would expect different arts charities to be more or less efficient.
If someone values both "saving lives" and "promoting the arts", and wants to support both areas, one common suggestion within EA is to save some donation money for "warm fuzzies", which are causes that make you feel good to support. This could be art; for me, personally, it's donating to people who create online fiction I enjoy (through Patreon) and to websites that help to spread and preserve knowledge (Sci-Hub, the Internet Archive). This accounts for something like 10% of my charitable spending in a given year. Many other EAs do something similar.
Hi! I wrote a piece about this: http://www.givinggladly.com/2015/05/bread-and-roses.html
edited to add some other resources:
Thank you so much, Julia! I will definitely share your article with my students, and let you know what they think (if you are interested). I love how your piece points out that perhaps we are also making some assumptions about what people in poverty "need" and "want." Personally, I'm very intrigued by Effective Altruism, and a part of me does believe that money (or providing the opportunity to be self-sufficient/make money) might be most the powerful force in helping someone in a state of poverty.......but I have also wondered about the effects (and "effectiveness") of the arts, in terms of happiness/joy/soul-feeding. It seems like the way art can change a human being is somewhat unquantifiable--which speaks to its power.