GIA’s Support for Individual Artists Research Initiative
Grantmakers in the Arts is pleased to announce the public release of A Proposed National Standard Taxonomy for Reporting Data on Support for Individual Artists. Two years ago, GIA launched an initiative to develop a taxonomy of artists support that can serve as a national standard for collecting, comparing, and analyzing data on support programs for individual artists. This work was undertaken by the team of Alan Brown and John Carnwath from WolfBrown, and Claudia Bach from AdvisArts Consulting, working with GIA staff.
For several years, GIA members who support individual artists have noted the lack of sector-wide data on artist support, the lack of a common taxonomy to explain the different forms of artist support, and the lack of benchmark data to track artist support over time. Recognizing that this is a complex picture and that support comes in many forms and from diverse sources, GIA has developed a taxonomy that permits comprehensive, systematic tracking of support to individual artists.
In the fall of 2014, GIA will begin beta testing a database, using this taxonomy, that will begin collecting data on support for individual artists.