Our History & Mission
Advisory Board for the Arts (ABA) is the largest global membership-based learning organization in the cultural sector today.
The founders of ABA have decades of experience finding breakthrough solutions for the challenges facing healthcare, major corporations, and education.
We are also deeply passionate about the arts, having spent an equally long time as board members, board chairs, donors, and audience members of all arts forms, around the world. Today, we combine these experiences to bring the field of the arts something never before available to the industry.
- 1Advisory Board CompanyHospitals and health systems · owned by United Healthcare
- 2Corporate Executive BoardLarge international corporations · owned by Gartner
- 3Education Advisory BoardUniversities and schools · owned by Vista Equity Partners
- 4Advisory Board for the ArtsArts and cultural organizations
ABA will be the fourth company built over the last 40 years using a proven, membership-based, shared-learning model that combines best practices research, rigorous data analysis, and traditional consulting techniques. We are adapting the model of three highly successful companies to the arts world.
Founded as a single company in the 1980s, Advisory Board Company and its two spin offs have been revolutionizing the performance of the respective industries they serve: hospitals and health systems, large international corporations, and universities and schools.
We exist to help your arts organization be among the most innovative and high-performing in the world.
- The tools ofa consultancy
- The mindset ofa co-op
- A business modelbased on membership
Your innovation and performance
Together, we tackle industry-wide challenges, discover innovation from unexpected places, and avoid costly mistakes.
Your most important challenges
Arts leaders are confronted daily with new challenges; our member organizations tap the collective data and expertise of hundreds of arts organizations.
Our insights are derived from the community, from deep data analysis and from out-of-industry experience. We then package these insights for easy application to your environment. We work alongside you to help drive change.
Advisory Board for the Arts leverages its network of arts organizations to identify and advise our members on best practices.
Your daily operations
We offer the tools of a consultancy, the mindset of a co-op and a membership based business model.
We use some of the same approaches as consultants, but without the project-based, single-client business model. We are there daily, on an ongoing basis, to help you implement our best ideas and integrate them in your daily operations.