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CPANDA Arts & Cultural Organizations: Overview of Available Data

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Introduction

One of the primary sources of data about arts and cultural organizations in the United States is the Economic Census, conducted every five years by the U.S. Bureau of the Census (in years ending in 2 and 7). Another important source is the Unified Database of Arts Organizations (UDAO), created by the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA). CultureCount is a similar source at the New England regional level.

NASAA also maintains the National Standard for Arts Information Exchange, a database containing information about arts organizations that apply for state arts agency grants. Another useful source of grants-related information is the Foundation Center, which documents the grant-making activities of U.S. foundations as they relate to arts and culture (and other areas).

A number of national, regional, statewide, and local surveys have also collected data on arts and cultural organizations. In addition, many arts service organizations (such as the American Symphony Orchestra League, Dance USA, OPERA America, Theater Communications Group, etc.) periodically collect financial, employment, programming, and other data on their member organizations. Data on commercial arts and cultural organizations are collected by a wide variety of organizations, many of which charge fees for access to the data

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Economic Census (Census of Service Industries)

Conducted every five years by the U.S. Bureau of the Census (in years ending in 2 and 7), the Economic Census is actually a collection of censuses, among them the Census of Retail Trade, the Census of Wholesale Trade, the Census of Transportation, the Census of Manufacturers, and others. Information about arts and cultural organizations comes from the Census of Service Industries.

Industries surveyed by the Economic Census are classified according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The NAICS is divided into 20 industrial "sectors," one of which is "Arts, Entertainment and Recreation" (assigned the two-digit code number "71"). Additionally, information about "Retail Art Dealers" may be found in NAICS sector 45 ("Retail Trade"). For more information on NAICS sectors, see NAICS Sectors and Their Coverage in the 1997 Economic Census, Table 3 [ http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/g97naics.htm#START].

The universe of organizations included in the Economic Census is based upon organizational data collected annually by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). Since not all arts and cultural organizations are required by law to file annual reports with either the IRS or the Social Security Administration, the Economic Census does not count many of these organizations (typically smaller tax-exempt organizations with total gross revenues under $25,000 and tax-exempt organizations without paid employees). It also does not count (as arts organizations) establishments that may be embedded within larger organizations, such as university art museums, which would be counted as part of a different industry category (in this case, higher education institutions).

[For a detailed description of how data are collected for the Economic Census, see the 1997 Economic Census Geographic Area Series United States Report for Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation, Appendix C, (page 27 of linked document) http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97s71-us.pdf ].

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Unified Database of Arts Organizations and Regional Cultural Databases

Another important resource for information on arts and cultural organizations is the Unified Database of Arts Organizations (UDAO) [ http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/UDAO/], developed by the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) at the Urban Institute [ http://NCCS.urban.org], in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. The UDAO combines IRS data on arts organizations (e.g., from Form 990s) with records from state arts agency grant files, state arts agency mailing list files, information from national arts service organizations, and other sources, to create the most comprehensive national database of arts and cultural organizations currently available.

At the New England regional level, CultureCount) [ http://www.culturecount.org/], created by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), is described by the foundation as a "creative economy database. Visitors can search a comprehensive directory of New England's cultural nonprofits, creative businesses, and individual artists. Other financial, grants, and geographic tools are build onto the directory."

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National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) [ http://www.nasaa-arts.org/] maintains the National Standard for Arts Information Exchange, which collects data on arts organizations that apply for state arts agency grants. Since not all arts organizations apply for state arts agency grants, the National Standard database is not necessarily a comprehensive listing of arts organizations. But because many nonprofit arts organizations that are too small to file IRS 990 forms do apply for such grants, the National Standard database picks up some organizations not captured by the Economic Census. NASAA also tracks annual legislative appropriations for both state arts agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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The Foundation Center

The Foundation Center issues periodic reports on foundation giving for the arts based on an analysis of all grants of $10,000 or more given by a group of "larger foundations" during a particular year. While researchers are cautioned by the Foundation Center that this group of larger foundations does not constitute "a stratified random sample" of the nation's grant-giving foundations, the results can be regarded as reasonably suggestive of the grant-making patterns of larger foundations. Their page Focus on Funding the Arts, [ http://foundationcenter.org/focus/arts] provides useful information. From this page, users may choose to go to the PubHub for arts and culture or, users can be directed to the Grants Stats page. Information on sampling is also provided.

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Some Significant Studies of Arts & Cultural Organizations

CPANDA has identified a number of other data sets on arts and cultural organizations created over the past 30 years, some of which are available through the Archive. For those data sets available through CPANDA, we have provided a direct link to the study's summary page in CPANDA. For data sets (or reports) available elsewhere on-line, links have been provided to the relevant web sites. Check with your library to locate copies of other studies listed below.

National Studies: Significant national-level studies on arts and cultural organizations conducted since 1970 include:

Regional, State, and Local Studies: Significant regional, state, or local-level studies on arts and cultural organizations conducted since 1970 include:

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Data from Arts Service Organizations

Many arts service organizations (such as the American Symphony Orchestra League, Dance/USA, OPERA America, Theater Communications Group, and others) regularly collect financial, programming, and other data from their member organizations to allow members to compare themselves to other organizations that may be similar in budget or mission. Because the membership rosters of arts service organizations tend to consist primarily of the larger organizations in their fields, data collected from members do not necessarily provide a complete picture of their respective fields. Data collected by arts service organizations are also typically considered proprietary, and are usually only made available to member organizations, not to researchers or the general public. It is also important to keep in mind that data collected by such organizations is often gathered for purposes unrelated to research, which may make it unsuitable for analyses outside of its original scope. For a list of some of the major arts service organizations, see Arts and Cultural Policy Resources: Nonprofit Organizations.

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Commercial Data

Data on commercial-sector arts and cultural organizations (e.g., the motion picture industry, Broadway theater, the recorded music industry, television, etc.) are collected by a wide variety of organizations, many of which charge fees for access to the data. For a list of some of the major organizations that collect such data, see Arts and Cultural Policy Resources: Commercial-Sector Organizations.

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For More Information

There are several good sources for additional information about research on arts and cultural organizations:

The Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University undertook an extensive review of major programs of data collection on arts and cultural organizations during the mid-1990?s, titled Data on Arts Organizations: A Review and Needs Assessment, with Design Implications. This review still serves as a key source document on the availability and limitations of existing sources of such data, including data from arts service organizations, the National Endowment for the Arts, NASAA, the IRS, the Census of Service Industries, and the Foundation Center. It was also instrumental in furthering the development of the Unified Database of Arts Organizations, described above. [Kaple, Deborah, Lori Morris, Ziggy Rivkin-Fish, and Paul DiMaggio. 1996. Data on Arts Organizations: A Review and Needs Assessment, with Design Implications. Working Paper No. 1. Princeton, NJ: Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. ( http://www.princeton.edu/culturalpolicy/workpap1.html)]

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has conducted analyses of arts and cultural organization data from the Economic Census since the 1982 Census. These analyses can be found at http://www.nea.gov/research/ResearchNotes.html#Organizations. The NEA has also conducted a number of studies on specific types of arts organizations over the years, the results of which are available in a series of reports at http://www.nea.gov/research/ResearchReports.html#Organizations.

RAND has also produced a publication titled The Performing Arts in a New Era, which includes chapters on the characteristics and financial situations of performing arts organizations. It is available at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1367/ [McCarthy, Kevin F., Arthur Brooks, Julia Lowell, and Laura Zakaras. 2001. The Performing Arts in a New Era. Santa Monica, CA: RAND].

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