After adjusting for inflation, total earned revenue generated by arts and cultural organizations has declined 27% between 2019 and 2025 and has seen little change since 2023. Meanwhile, unrestricted contributed revenue has declined 16% across the same period, with considerable slowing in recent years. Even so, the mix of sources is settling toward its pre-pandemic composition, with contributed revenue making up 59% of the combined revenue in preliminary 2025 data, after a drastic spike to 76% in 2021 as pandemic relief funding flowed in.
Preliminary 2025 data show growth in foundation and individual giving, while corporate and government support continued to decline.
Foundation giving has climbed above pre-pandemic levels, up 7% since 2019 in inflation-adjusted terms. Individual giving has returned to pre-pandemic levels, with much of the recovery occurring recently. According to preliminary data, inflation-adjusted individual giving rose 18% from 2024 to 2025.
Trustee support remains 30% below 2019 despite holding steady this past year, and corporate support has declined every year since 2019, down 38% overall.
Government support rose dramatically due to pandemic-era relief programs but has since fallen below pre-pandemic levels, down 13% since 2019 after adjusting for inflation.
Reported increases in foundation support are consistent across budget sizes, with all three groups showing a one-year uptick in preliminary giving data from 2025. Even so, small organizations have yet to fully recover foundation support, falling 7% below 2019 levels. Meanwhile, large organizations have seen the largest gains in foundation support overall, with an 11% increase over the six-year period when accounting for inflation.
For many arts and cultural organizations, ticket sales and admissions have slowed over the last two years, not keeping pace with inflation and remaining well below pre-pandemic levels. The average organization is earning 29% less in ticket sales in 2025 than they were in 2019, and a staggering 48% less in membership and subscription income. Both income streams, however, appear to be settling into these new levels since 2023.
Attendance has fluctuated over the last few years, with an overall pattern of growth, but neither free nor paid attendance have returned to pre-pandemic levels, -6% and -20% since 2019 respectively. The gap between these two figures may echo the earned revenue picture, where audiences have also been slower to commit to memberships than to lower-stakes single tickets. In both cases, the pattern shows that the more financial commitment involved, the slower the recovery.