Amid accelerating consumer demand for experiences, ABA’s research explores the behavioral and technological forces reshaping the experience economy and offers a practical framework to help arts organizations create compelling, future-ready experiences.

In response to the decline in public funding for arts and culture worldwide and the accompanying increase in private fundraising efforts, ABA conducted a Major Research study to understand new approaches and best practices towards strengthening major giving efforts and deepening major donor relationships. 

Our study reveals insights and strategies around team optimization, board engagement, data-driven prospecting, impact-led conversations, and donor cultivation events to help development leaders attract new donors and enhance relationships with existing ones.  

Whether it’s planned giving, international tours or impact reporting, this research will help your organization build out a major giving strategy that brings in committed donors for the long-term.

This season ABA is launching The Compelling Employer, a groundbreaking research initiative examining the employment preferences of arts and culture employees across genres and geographies. This work will build on ABA’s 2022 work on The Compelling Offer. The pandemic may be behind us, but staff acquisition and retention remain core industry-wide concerns. ABA is revisiting this initiative to understand how staff preferences have changed and what organizations can do to attract and retain high performers.

Our Compelling Employer survey uses conjoint analysis (also known as trade-off analysis) to give arts and culture leaders a much clearer picture of what employees want in a job, and what they are willing to trade off to get it. This newly updated survey will seek to understand what staff value in their managers, pay structures, culture and office environments. In addition, we will profile best practices in improving manager quality, shifting to pay for performance, and cultivating culture change from both inside and outside the arts and culture industry.

We surveyed more than 5,000 donors to arts organizations and interviewed over fifty development leaders from arts organizations around the world.

In our analysis, we found that donors clustered into three segments: Benefits Donors, Arts Lovers, and Community Donors.

We learned how organizations can engage the different categories of donors most effectively while contributing to community engagement.

Learning from the accelerated digital shift of the COVID-19 closures, our initiative examined how arts organizations can use digital content not only to build audiences and keep patrons loyal, but also to generate necessary funding for future activities.

While direct revenue may be less likely for new digital offerings, there are important benefits beyond earned income such as donation success, audience learning, and future value.