PHILADELPHIA, PA - This year, DataArts is providing the organizational data collection platform for Arts & Economic Prosperity® 5 (AEP5), the largest, most comprehensive study conducted in the U.S. to measure the economic impact of the nonprofit arts and cultural industry. Through this collaboration, we are assisting Americans for the Arts and its 330 local and statewide partners to evaluate the vital role of arts and cultural activity in strengthening local communities and the national economy.

Partnerships such as this are helping streamline data collection and reduce the number of duplicative field surveys cultural professionals are asked to complete, by standardizing and consolidating commonly asked questions in a central dataset. In addition to AEP5, the DataArts platform will integrate data collection for the League of American Orchestras’ Orchestra Statistical Report (OSR) and the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Benchmarking Survey. Organizations participating in any of these three surveys and the CDP will answer common questions only once, saving time and effort. Partner organizations and their members will also automatically gain access to valuable educational resources and analytic reports provided by DataArts.

These partnerships promise to introduce tens of thousands of new organizations nationwide to the DataArts universe over the next year. This is an important step toward creating a more inclusive and reflective picture of the activities and contributions of our nation’s cultural nonprofits, and to a more robust dataset for national research and advocacy purposes.