Benchmark Analysis: Community Engagement

March 1, 2022

Community engagement, equity, and inclusion featured highly among arts leaders’ top priorities according to our 2022 Hot Topics survey, as arts organizations place increasing importance on relevance in their communities. Our latest Arts Executive Poll asked arts leaders to benchmark themselves on how they execute programs that engage diverse constituents in their communities. Highlights from the survey include:

• Almost all arts organizations do some work in education and general outreach. However, across the next 1-3 years, arts leaders report increasing work in accessibility/inclusivity and connection/belonging.

• Current community and education programs are primarily reliant on grant money from foundation and individual donors. Arts leaders expect even more reliance on foundation grants in the near future.

• The majority of arts organizations do not heavily depend on unpaid support to run community work, and employ full-time, part-time, or contractual workers.