2020 Profile of Local Arts Agencies—National Summary

    • ABOUT LOCAL ARTS AGENCIES
      The nation’s approximately 4,500 local arts agencies (LAAs) promote, support, and develop the arts at the local level, ensuring a vital presence for the arts throughout America’s communities. LAAs are diverse in their makeup—and have many different names and embrace a spectrum of artistic disciplines. But each LAA, in its own way, works to sustain the health and vitality of the arts and artists locally, while also striving to make the arts accessible to all members of its community. Each LAA in America is unique to the community that it serves, and each evolves as its community evolves. LAAs have many different names such as Arts Council, Arts & Humanities Council, Cultural Council, Arts Commission, Cultural Commission, Heritage Commission, Cultural Affairs Department, Cultural Alliance, Arts Center, Business Council for the Arts, United Arts Fund, and any creative name that suggests their work such as ArtsWave (Cincinnati, Ohio), 4Culture (King County, Washington), and Allied Arts.

      While no two LAAs are exactly alike in name, programming, or mission—they share one or more of these seven programs and services in common:
       
      • Advocacy and Policy: Virtually 100% of LAAs advocate for arts funding and arts friendly policies as well as serve as thought leaders and policy creators on a wide range of topics and issues—arts education, creative economy, economic development, community development, workforce development, cultural tourism, disaster preparedness/response, research, health, inter-cultural understanding, and the community’s quality of life.
      • Facilities Development and Management: 62% of LAAs are responsible for the development and management of arts and cultural facilities and venues such as artist live/work space, rehearsal and performance spaces, gallery space, hands-on art centers, or creative entrepreneur incubators.
      • Funding and Financing: 76% of LAAs provide direct investment in the arts and culture community through grants and other financial support programs for artists and arts and cultural organizations or groups such as operating or project support grants, and technical assistance or capacity building grants, non-competitive project/program sponsorships, fellowships, grants for professional development training or special project stipends, public and private matches for projects, crowdfunding initiatives, leveraging funds via bonds, facilitating collaboratives or micro-lending.
      • Partnerships and Planning: 91% of LAAs partner with other local organizations and/or agencies to address community needs and make their communities more healthy, vibrant, and equitable. This may include working with public schools, the Convention and Visitor Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, health and human service providers, colleges and universities, and a wide range of city and state government agencies.
      • Programs and Events: 84% of LAAs present their own cultural programming to their community. These may include after-school arts education programs, public art, free concerts in the park, exhibitions, heritage and preservation efforts, festivals, and special events.
      • Services: 92% of LAAs provide a portfolio of services to other arts organizations including professional and creative workforce development workshops or classes incubation and fiscal sponsor services, marketing, administrative/back office services, box office, or discipline-specific workshops and trainings.
      • Visibility: 66% of LAAs leverage their broader network and resources to drive public goodwill and communicate the importance and value of arts and culture in communities. This may include community-wide marketing campaigns, cultural tourism, civic engagement initiatives, arts and cultural event calendars, festivals, multi-sector programs, research, convenings/focus groups, or media partnerships.

      BACKGROUND STATISTICS ABOUT LOCAL ARTS AGENCIES (from previous surveys):
      • 95% use the arts to address community development issues such as social, education, or economic challenges
      • 76% provide arts education programs and/or services to the community
      • 76% provide financial support directly to organizations and/or artists in any form such as grants, contracts start-up capital, loans/microloans, and/or commissions/fellowships/ scholarships—63% to organizations, and 65% to individual artists
        • 58% operate a competitive grantmaking program—55% award grants to organizations, and 39% award grants to individual artists
      • 62% manage one or more cultural facilities (e.g., performance or exhibition spaces, arts centers, galleries, incubators)
      • 54% manage a public art program; 33% of those manage a percent-for-art program
      • 49% work in partnerships with their local Chamber of Commerce
      • 49% have adopted a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement
      • 40% have a diversity policy for staff
      • 36% have a diversity policy for board/commission members
      • 34% have a diversity policy for grantmaking/funding programs
      • 49% work in communities that have integrated the arts into a community-wide planning effort such as a city’s master plan or a foundation’s regional needs assessment
      • 34% report that their community has completed (or updated) a community cultural plan within the past five years

      The findings in the tables and charts below are based on 580 responses to the 2020 Profile of Local Arts Agencies survey that were collected during October 2020 through February 2021.

    • 1. NUMBER OF COMPLETED SURVEYS

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    • 1. The Names of the Responding Local Arts Agencies (LAAs)

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    • 3. Distribution of the Responding LAAs by Census Region

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    • 4. Distribution of the Responding LAAs by Census Division

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    • Section 1 of 4: Background Information about LAAs

    • 5. Which of the following categories best characterizes the primary geographic area served by your LAA?

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    • 6. Which of the following categories best characterizes the legal status of your LAA?

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    • Section 1a of 4: Public/Government LAAs
      Government LAAs include city/county government agencies, departments, divisions, programs, or facilities.

    • 7. With which level of government is your LAA affiliated?

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    • 8. Tell us where your LAA is located within the local government structure. Is it an independent agency, or does it operate under the umbrella of a larger agency, department, division, program, or facility?

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    • 9. To whom does your LAA's chief staff executive directly report?

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    • 10. Does your LAA's chief staff executive participate as a member of a mayor's (or county executive's) "cabinet" of senior staff advisors?

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    • Section 1a of 4: Private LAAs
      Private LAAs are typically nonprofit organizations, programs, or facilities—they are not part of the government infrastructure.

    • 11. Has your LAA been formally "designated" by the local government as the official local arts agency for your community?

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    • 12. Is your LAA an independent organization, program, or facility, or does it operate under the umbrella of one of the following types of parent organizations?

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    • 13. Has your LAA received not-for-profit, tax exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)?

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    • Section 2 of 4: Financial and Budget Information

    • 14. Which of the following describes the financial situation in which your LAA finished its most recently completed fiscal year?

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    • 15. How much cash (including cash reserves) does your LAA have readily available right now?

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    • 16. Did your LAA apply for financial support from any of the CARES Act sources listed below? Check all that apply.

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    • 17. How much money did your LAA receive from the Payroll Protection Program (PPP)?

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    • 18. How many jobs was your LAA able to retain as a result of the funding it received from the Payroll Protection Program (PPP)?

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    • 19. In total, how much money did your LAA receive from all of the CARES Act sources to which it applied?

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    • 20. What is the likelihood that your LAA will permanently eliminate at least one paid position/employee as a result of COVID-19?

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    • Section 3 of 4: Addressing COVID-19 and Racial Equity/Injustice

    • 21. Which of the following best describes your LAA's current operating status as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic/shutdown?

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    • 22. What are the most prominent operational challenges and concerns for your LAA right now?

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    • 23. Has your LAA created or contributed to any of the following types of COVID-19 pandemic initiatives in your community? Check all that apply.

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    • 24. How would you characterize the financial outlook for your LAA and its constituents in two years compared to right now?

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    • 25. How would you characterize the financial outlook for your LAA and its constituents in two years compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic started?

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    • 26. During the next two years, do you anticipate that demand for services from your LAA will change?

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    • 27. Briefly elaborate on why you expect demand to increase for your LAA's programs and services. For example, are there any specific programs/services that you think will see an increase in demand, from whom, and why?

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    • 28. Briefly elaborate on why you expect demand to decrease for your LAA's programs and services. For example, are there any specific programs/services that you think will see an increase in demand, from whom, and why?

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    • 29. What is your level of agreement with the statement, 'My LAA has a diverse income/revenue stream that is sustainable?'

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    • 30. What do you anticipate will be the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on each of the following income/revenue streams for the arts and culture in your community during 2021?

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    • 31. In your opinion, has the perceived value of the arts in your community changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic based on recognition by local government leaders, business leaders, funders, and the general public?

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    • 32. What is your level of agreement with the statement, 'My LAA's staff/board/commission reflect the demographic diversity of our community?'

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    • 33. Looking ahead to 2021, what is your level of agreement with the statement, 'The participants in my LAA's programs and the recipients of my LAA's services will reflect the demographic diversity of our community?'

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    • 34. How would you describe your LAA's level of focus on racial equity (1) at the beginning of 2020, and (2) going forward from today?

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    • Section 4 of 4: Arts Incubators
      Arts incubators nurture small and emerging arts and cultural organizations and/or individual artists by delivering training and mentorship in business and entrepreneurial skills in order to support artistic and creative innovation. While each is uniquely tailored to meet the needs of its community, all arts incubators provide developmental assistance to arts and cultural organizations, artists, and/or creative enterprises in the early stages of development. They can be entire organizations or facilities, or they can be programs/platforms that operate under the umbrella of a larger organization (including virtual incubators). They can be nonprofit, for-profit, or government entities, or have a hybrid legal status. Sometimes arts incubators are programs operated by local arts agencies. Many arts incubators don't have "incubator" in their name, but they typically recognize their status as an incubator, are referred to by others as an incubator, and/or view themselves as eligible to seek funding meant for incubators.

    • 35. Does your LAA operate an arts incubator program and/or facility?

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    • 36. Is there at least one other organization in your community (not your LAA) that is an arts incubator or that operates an arts incubator program based on the definition provided above?

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This is a report for "2020 Profile of Local Arts Agencies" (Survey #5761048)