In 2009, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra faced a $1.5 million deficit with no operating reserves, no line of credit, and a negative cash flow and balance sheet. Through a partnership with the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA) forged in 2010, the CSO has built a $1 million balance sheet and has finished in the black each year since 2010.
It’s oh-so-easy to allow financial constraints to drive institutional decision-making. This session will focus on creating alignment between the orchestra’s mission and the financial realities within which it functions.
Performing arts organizations have known that long-term audience members are incredibly loyal and generous and have mainly assumed that the challenge was in attracting newcomers to the experience. It turns out that orchestras are attracting large numbers of newcomers, but are not effectively converting them to long-term customers and supporters.
This valuable resource will help you make a compelling case within your organization for the need to establish an operating reserve.
This valuable resource will help you make a compelling case within your organization for the need to establish an operating reserve.
Inclusiveness is a goal for every American orchestra. Some progress is being made, but true diversity onstage and off remains elusive.
Two new national studies, the National Endowment for the Arts 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts and the League’s Audience Demographic Research Review, now offer statistically reliable national demographic information about audience participation.
The National Endowment for the Arts has recently released a “Research Note” highlighting some geographic differences in arts participation based on the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). While the full SPPA offers statistics for the U.S. as a whole and a few large regions, this report goes into more depth, including arts participation rates for 32 states.
In early 2009, the League asked McKinsey & Company to collect and analyze existing orchestra audience participation data in order to understand the impact of demographic trends on orchestras now and in the future. The League’s new Audience Demographic Research Review contains their report.