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The purpose of the 2015 Local Arts Agency (LAA) Census was to characterize the different ways that LAAs perform their vital roles in every community. LAAs share the goals of enabling diverse forms of arts and culture to thrive locally, ensuring broad accessibility to the public, and building healthier communities through the arts.

The census provides details about LAA staffing and oversight, services and programs, partnerships and collaborations in the community, grantmaking, diversity within staff/volunteers/board and diversity in programming, marketing and communications practices, arts education, services for the military, and operating revenues and expenditures, and more. For a more detailed listing of question groups, please refer to the Description of Variables below.

This study contains data from the two forms of the surveys (Full and Abbreviated--a subset of the Full survey). These surveys were distributed online to 4,377 individual Local Arts Agencies in the United States which were known to Americans for the Arts in 2015. A total of 1,127 LAAs responded to the census survey. 641 submitted the Full survey; 486 completed the Abbreviated survey. The overall response rate was 26%.

The data is contained in two separate datasets comprising results from the two surveys. The Full Survey (dataset 1) contains data from the 641 respondents who completed the long survey. The Combined Surveys (dataset 2) contains responses from both the 486 respondents of the abbreviated survey as well the corresponding 641 responses from the full survey for a total of 1,127 respondents. The rate of response from large and mid-sized LAAs was very high, while small and volunteer-driven LAAs were underrepresented in the survey respondents.

SMU DataArts hosts the Cultural Data Profile (CDP), an annual online survey collecting detailed financial, programmatic, and demographic information from cultural nonprofits, which they use to apply for funding to multiple grant programs. SMU DataArts also integrates surveys from national arts service organizations into a unified platform, streamlining data collection and providing more reliable, standardized data. Participating organizations, including those in broadcast, media, literary arts, education, museums, performing arts, and advocacy, report detailed information on revenues, expenses, marketing, balance sheets, investments, attendance, programming, staffing, and volunteers. This results in a comprehensive longitudinal dataset essential for research and advocacy, supporting the evidence-based demonstration of the arts' value and impact. SMU DataArts provides data in various formats, from raw datasets for research to custom analyses and reports.

Cultural Data Profile datasets can be requested for the past five completed fiscal years for $750, with discounts for academic use. The available datasets include: the National Dataset (all available data for broad analysis), the National Trend Dataset (for consistent trend comparisons across organizations), and the Most Recent Fiscal Year Dataset (a snapshot of the latest fiscal year). Customization and aggregate data services are available for additional fees. For more details, view the data dictionary here and the Cultural Data Profile questions here. Contact [email protected] for customization or further inquiries.

The Economic Census is the United States Government's official five-year measure of American business and the economy. It is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, and response is required by law. Every 5 years starting in 1977, forms are sent out to millions of businesses, including large, medium and small companies representing all U.S. locations and industries. Respondents were asked to provide a range of operational and performance data for their companies.

The Economic Census provides data for several arts-related NAICS industries, including the following:

Arts, entertainment, and recreation (NAICS Code 71)

• Performing arts companies
• Spectator sports
• Promoters of performing arts, sports, and similar events
• Independent artists, writers, and performers
• Museums, historical sites, and similar institutions
• Amusement parks and arcades

Professional, scientific, and technical services (NAICS Code 54)

• Architectural services
• Graphic Design Services
• Landscape architectural services
• Photographic services

Retail trade (NAICS Code 44-45)

• Sporting goods, hobby, and musical instrument stores
• Sewing, needlework, and piece goods stores
• Book stores
• Art dealers

Some industries are not covered by the economic census. View a full list here.

Data from the Economic Census is important for industries, communities, and businesses. Trade associations, chambers of commerce, and businesses rely on this information for economic development, business decisions, and strategic planning. Government agencies, analysts, and business organizations nationwide also rely on census information for planning and key economic reports.

The Exempt Organization Business Master File Extract (EO BMF) contains cumulative information on exempt organizations. The EO BMF data are the most recent information the Internal Revenue Service has for the exempt organizations. Data are extracted monthly from the IRS's Business Master File. The files are available and divided by region and by state. State and region are determined from the filing address and generally represent the location of an organization's headquarters, which may or may not represent the state(s) in which an organization has operations. Records are sorted by Employer Identification Number (EIN). There is one file for each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and one file for International (non-domestic) organizations. There are four region files:

Region 1: Northeast Area - Includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey

Region 2: Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes Area - Includes Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota.

Region 3: Gulf Coast and Pacific Coast Area - Includes Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii

Region 4: All Other Areas - Includes International and all others.

The EO BMF data contain information about exempt cultural organizations, such as museums, zoos, planetariums, libraries, art exhibits, and cultural performers.

The IRS exempt organization data have been accumulated since the inception of the tax-exempt statutes. A determination letter is issued to an organization upon the granting of an exemption and is considered valid throughout the life of the organization, as long as the organization complies with the provisions of its exemption.

If an organization's exemption is revoked, an announcement to inform potential donors of the revocation is published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. In addition, the organization's name is removed from publicly accessible venues, including this file. A list of recent revocations may be found online.

NOTE: Split-interest trusts are no longer included in this database.

The Local Arts Index was developed in response to an interest in "scaling-down" the National Arts Index (NAI) to the community level and to the growing demand for comparative information on arts at the community level. The LAI was developed in partnership with arts leadership organizations in over 100 communities and is comprised of a variety of indicators to understand who we are as a community and how that manifests itself through cultural activities and participation. Indicators are a systematic data collection initiative that is conducted regularly over time. The LAI compresses many arts indicators into one number that is calculated the same way and at regular time intervals, making it easy to compare performance between time periods.

The LAI collected county level data such as nonprofit arts revenue and expenditures, creative businesses and nonprofit arts organizations per 100,000 residents, arts share of businesses, employees, establishments, and payroll, estimated expenditures on arts equipment, number of visual and performing arts degrees, and adult population attending arts and culture activities. Demographic information includes median measures of age, household income, and year housing was built, as well as population density, and population share that was over 65, non-English speakers, and non-white.

National and Local Profiles of Cultural Support collected data on public and private support for professional nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in three ways: a national mail survey of a random sample of arts organizations on their sources of revenue, more detailed mail surveys of the identified universe of arts and cultural organizations in ten specific communities, and in-person and telephone interviews with local government officials regarding public agency support (both financial and in-kind) in these ten communities. The ten communities are as follows: Amery, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; Montgomery County, Maryland; Nashville, Tennessee; New Orleans, Louisiana; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Providence, Rhode Island; and San Jose, California. A collaborative effort of Americans for the Arts and the Arts Policy and Administration Program at The Ohio State University, the study was supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts and local arts agencies in ten communities across the country.

The National Survey collected data from professional nonprofit arts and cultural organizations on 22 revenue items for fiscal year 1998, across four categories--public contributed income, private contributed income, earned revenue, and interest and other investment income. Developed in close collaboration with the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), the survey was designed to facilitate comparisons with currently available data on the nonprofit arts, particularly data sets from arts service organizations and NCCS data sets based on IRS Form 990 data. The Local Government Support Survey involved semi-structured interviews with local officials in non-arts government agencies across 13 service areas in the ten communities profiled in this study. Among the agencies represented in these service areas were Administrative Services, Community Planning/Economic Development, Convention and Visitors Bureau, Parks and Recreation, Public Works, Police/Public Safety, and others. Two sets of interview forms were used, one to document the agency's mission and level of current and future arts involvement and a case form to document specific instances of arts support. Further, the Local Surveys, conducted in each of ten communities, collected data from professional nonprofit arts and cultural organizations on a battery of revenue items for fiscal year 1998, across four categories-public contributed income, private contributed income, earned revenue, and interest and other investment income. Developed in close collaboration with the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), the surveys were designed to facilitate comparisons with currently available data on the nonprofit arts, particularly data sets from arts service organizations and NCCS data sets based on IRS Form 990 data.

The number of respondents across data files ranges from 7 to 796.

The National Arts Index (NAI) was developed in the mid-2000s by Americans for the Arts as a way of tracking the health and vitality of arts and culture in the United States over time. Annual NAI reports were published in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016.

NAI's main features included:

• A policy index providing a summary annual score which aggregated 81 individual indicators of arts finance, capacity, participation, and competitiveness
• A compendium of data with detail on each indicator including its origin and an interpretation of its significance accompanied by a chart representing change in the indicator over time.

Americans for the Arts seeks to build recognition and support for the extraordinary and dynamic value of the arts and to lead, serve, and advance the diverse networks and organizations and individuals who cultivate the arts in America.

The National Cultural Districts Exchange provides a portal for accessing information on cultural districts in the United States. Cultural districts are defined as well-recognized, labeled areas of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities and programs serve as the main anchor of attraction. They help strengthen local economies, create an enhanced sense of place, and deepen local cultural capacity. The Nation Cultural Districts Exchange website provides tools and resources to help guide the development and advancement of Cultural Districts. The portal is provided by Americans for the Arts.

The portal offers tools and resources for the following areas:

• Cultural Districts Basics
• Developing a Cultural District
• Advancing a Cultural District
• Profiles of Cultural Districts
• Cultural Districts Research
• Cultural Districts Issue Briefs

Of particular interest to those involved in the arts are the phone survey results from 42 cultural districts in the United States which can be found on the Cultural Districts Research link and the Cultural Districts Interactive Map which provides data on over 300 cultural districts in the United States.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) provides statistics on the status of public libraries in the United States. It is a voluntary survey conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 survey is the 25th in the series.

The data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The reporting unit for the survey is the administrative entity, defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction.

For Fiscal Year 2013, IMLS collected the following information via a web-based survey for the PLS:

• Library Data - Data on each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures State characteristics data, including the reporting period starting and ending dates, the state total population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state. These data are contained in dataset 1 and include 9,309 records; 9,290 were public libraries and 19 were administrative entities that closed in or temporarily closed for FY 2012.
• State Data - Each state library agency reported these data on the "State Characteristics" record because they are not library-level data. These data are in dataset 2 and include 56 records, one for each state and outlying area.
• Outlet Data - Data on each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, metropolitan status, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks a library outlet is open. These data are in dataset 3 and include 17,554 total records, 17,463 are public library service outlets (central, branch, bookmobile, and books-by-mail-only outlets). The remaining 91 records are outlets that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2012.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) provides statistics on the status of public libraries in the United States. It is a voluntary survey conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 survey is the 26th in the series.

The data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The reporting unit for the survey is the administrative entity, defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the term public library means an administrative entity.

For Fiscal Year 2014, IMLS collected the following information via a web-based survey for the PLS:

• Library Data - Data on each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. State characteristics data, including the reporting period starting and ending dates, the state total population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state. These data are contained in dataset 1 and include 9,305 records; 9,295 were public libraries and 10 were administrative entities that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2014.
• State Data - Each state library agency reported these data on the "State Characteristics" record because they are not library-level data. These data are in dataset 2 and include 56 records, one for each state and outlying area.
• Outlet Data - Data on each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, metropolitan status, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks a library outlet is open. These data are in dataset 3 and include 17,566 total records, 17,492 are public library service outlets (central, branch, bookmobile, and books-by-mail-only outlets). The remaining 74 records are outlets that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2014.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) provides statistics on the status of public libraries in the United States. It is a voluntary survey conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 survey is the 27th in the series.

The data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa and Guam. The reporting unit for the survey is the administrative entity, defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the term public library means an administrative entity.

For Fiscal Year 2015, IMLS collected the following information via a web-based survey for the PLS:

• Library Data - Data on each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. State characteristics data, including the reporting period starting and ending dates, the state total population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state. These data are contained in dataset 1 and include 9,251 records; 9,231 were public libraries and 20 were administrative entities that closed or temporarily closed for FY 2015.
• State Data - Each state library agency reported these data on the "State Characteristics" record because they are not library-level data. These data are in dataset 2 and include 53 records, one for each state and outlying area.
• Outlet Data - Data on each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, metropolitan status, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks a library outlet is open. These data are in dataset 3 and include 17,408 total records. The file includes identifying information and a few basic data items for public library service outlets (central, branch, bookmobile, and books-by-mail-only outlets). The file includes 17,328 outlets in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 8 outlets in the outlying areas, and 72 records for outlets that were reported as closed or were temporarily closed for FY 2015.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) is a voluntary census of public libraries conducted annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, 2017, and 2018 surveys are the 28th, 29th, and 30th in the series, respectively. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) served as the data collection agent for all three surveys.

The PLS data files include all public libraries identified by state library administrative agencies in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the outlying territories of American Samoa and Guam. The Northern Mariana Islands participated in FY 2017 and FY 2018, and the U.S. Virgin Islands participated in FY 2018. The reporting unit in each state or territory for the survey is the administrative entity (AE), defined as the agency that is legally established under local or state law to provide public library service to the population of a local jurisdiction. In this survey, the terms public library and public library system mean an AE. The AE may have a single outlet or multiple outlets. The term "outlet" refers to a library point of service, which may be a physical building, bookmobile, or a books-by-mail provider. Each PLS collected the following information:

• Data from each public library, such as its name and address, population of legal service area, service outlets, collections, full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff, and operating revenue and expenditures (see Appendix F). These data were reported in the AE record.
• State characteristics data, including the state total population estimate, the total unduplicated population of legal service areas for the state, and the state's reporting period start and end dates (see the survey questionnaire in Appendix F, items 100-103). Each state library administrative agency reported these data in the state characteristics record because they are not library-level data.
• Data from each public library service outlet, such as its name and address, type, county location, square footage, public service hours per year, and number of weeks it is open (see Appendix F). These data were reported in the outlet record.

This data collection is useful to researchers, journalists, the public, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. These data are used by federal, state and local officials, professional associations, and local practitioners for planning, evaluation, and policy making.