Rich with Players but Strapped for Resources
Submitted by Steve on February 12, 2015
From Eileen Cunniffe, writing for Nonprofit Quarterly:
On Sunday, the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a headline describing the state of the arts sector in the Philadelphia region: “Abundant culture, dearth of funding.” On Monday morning, leaders from the arts community and its funders gathered to hear key findings from the report that prompted the headline, an in-depth study of the region’s cultural sector by Boston-based consulting and research firm TDC.
“Capitalization, Scale, and Investment: Does Growth Equal Gain?” was commissioned by the William Penn Foundation—long a leading supporter of the region’s arts organizations—and its findings were first presented last October at the 2014 Grantmakers in the Arts conference. This research was undertaken as a follow-up to “Getting Beyond Breakeven,” a previous study jointly funded by the William Penn Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts and published in 2009. The report and its appendices and slides are available on the TDC website. Much of the data supporting both studies is drawn from the Cultural Data Project; the new report focuses on data from 2007-2011.