Posted Dec 2, 2025
10-minute read
Both budget size and artistic discipline shape how organizations have experienced shifts in revenue, expenses, and attendance over the last six years. In this article, we analyze trends for over 6,500 arts organizations to understand how financial and operational patterns have played out across different groups and build on the national findings from our 2025 National Trends Report.
Key Takeaways:
Understanding patterns helps arts leaders better situate their organizations within the national picture and supports funders, service organizations, and sector leaders in targeting assistance as pandemic-era relief fades and financial pressures mount.
Large organizations faced sharp revenue losses during the early pandemic and again from 2023 to 2024, leading to a 4% overall decline since 2019—or 22% in real terms (adjusted for inflation). Mid-sized organizations saw growth of 28% over six years, though just 4% inflation adjusted. Small organizations grew the most, with revenue increasing 58% since 2019, or 28% inflation adjusted. However, this growth slowed considerably in 2024, when small organizations saw only a 1% increase in revenue, or a 2% decrease in real terms.
Looking within the group of large organizations, the most substantial revenue losses are concentrated within the biggest organizations, while organizations with budgets closer to $1 million experienced more modest losses similar to mid-sized organizations.
Percentage Change in Total Revenue by Size, 2019-2024
| Budget Size | 1-Yr % Change | 1-Yr % Adjusted* | 5-Yr % Change | 5-Yr % Adjusted* |
| Small Organizations | 1% | -2% | 58% | 28% |
| Mid-sized Organizations | 4% | 1% | 28% | 4% |
| Large Organizations | -15% | -17% | -4% | -22% |
Change in Average Total Revenue by Size, 2023-2024
| Budget Size | 1-Yr Change in Dollars |
| Small Organizations | $2,338 |
| Mid-sized Organizations | $30,193 |
| Large Organizations | -$1,644,936 |
Figure 1: Indexed Total Revenue by Budget Size, 2019-2024. All series are indexed to 2019 (2019 = 100) and change over time is relative to 2019 levels. This indexed view allows for comparison of growth rates across organizations of different sizes by showing change relative to each group's 2019 baseline.
Table 1: *Percent Change in Total Revenue by Size, 2019-2024. One-year change 2023-2024, inflation adjusted using a 2.9% Dec-Dec rate. Five-year change 2019-2024, inflation adjusted using a 23% Dec-Dec rate.
Table 2: Change in Average Total Revenue by Size, 2023-2024.
Organizations across all sizes are operating on thinner margins as pandemic relief funding fades. In 2024, small organizations saw their median surplus shrink to just 3%—the lowest in six years—while mid-sized and large organizations simply broke even. This erosion of surplus leads to organization’s drawing from savings to cover costs. Mid-sized and large organizations have already begun depleting working capital, though they still hold more than they did in 2019. Meanwhile, small organizations have seen more volatility in their financial cushion, but remain above pre-pandemic levels—for now.
Figure 2: Median Months of Working Capital by Budget Size, 2019-2024. Median working capital expressed as months of expenses by budget size. Months of expenses are calculated by dividing total annual expenses by 12. We use medians instead of averages because working capital is sensitive to extreme values and averages can misrepresent the sector’s typical financial health.
Fueled by consistent revenue growth from 2021 through 2023, small organizations invested in both staff and access. Personnel expenses nearly doubled over the six-year period, likely supporting both compensation increases and modest personnel growth. On average, these organizations added one part-time staff member and additional full-time capacity since 2019. They also dramatically expanded access, with increases in paid attendance and more than doubled free attendance over this period.
But 2024 brought a shift. As revenue growth stalled, increased spending began squeezing margins. Small organizations’ median surplus dropped to just 3%, and working capital fell to 7.3 months of expenses.
This could create a precarious position for organizations that expanded in recent years. While small organizations typically maintain greater financial flexibility due to lower fixed costs, those that added staff or programming will face pressure to sustain these commitments if funding levels plateau or fall.
Figure 3: Average Personnel vs. Non-personnel Expenses for Small Organizations, 2019-2024.
Figure 4: Average Revenue vs. Expenses for Small Organizations, 2019-2024.
Mid-sized organizations successfully grew earned revenue to offset declining contributions. In 2024, they saw a 4% overall revenue gain, though modest, the composition of this gain tells an interesting story. Specifically, earned revenue jumped 10%, largely driven by a 35% surge in ticket sales and an 8% increase in tuition and workshop income. Ticket sales now exceed 2019 levels by 8% in inflation-adjusted terms, suggesting these organizations have successfully rebuilt paying audiences even as they’ve scaled back free programming—free attendance has declined 21%, continuing a three-year trend.
These gains in paid attendance come as contributed funding wanes. Contributions declined 1% overall in 2024, with the sharpest drops in government (-24%) and corporate (-23%) support. Foundation funding provided a partial offset, growing 9% for mid-sized organizations.
Despite these modest overall revenue gains, margins remain tight. Personnel costs grew by 2% from 2023 to 2024, which means they remained 1% behind inflation in real terms. For organizations operating on break-even budgets, rising inflation or further decline in funding could disrupt their ability to retain staff or set aside savings.
Figure 5: Average Admission vs. Education Revenue for Mid-sized Organizations, 2019-2024. Ticket sales and admissions and tuition and workshops were for the two largest earned revenue categories for mid-sized organizations in 2019.
Figure 6: Average Personnel vs. Non-personnel Expenses for Mid-sized Organizations, 2019-2024.
After weathering the early pandemic years, 2024 brought a 22% in contributed revenue for large organizations—the steepest decline of any organization size. This left average giving only 3% above 2019 levels, or 16% behind when adjusted for inflation. Losses cut across nearly every contributed funding source, including individual support with a drop of 25%, corporate giving plummeting 36%, and foundation support falling 16% from 2023 to 2024. Only trustee giving showed relative resilience with a modest 4% decline, though even that has fallen 32% below 2019 levels in real terms.
Change in Contributed Revenue by Source for Large Organizations, 2019-2024
| Revenue Source | 1-Yr % Change | 1-Yr % Adjusted* | 5-Yr % Change | 5-Yr % Adjusted* |
| Trustee | -4% | -7% | -17% | -32% |
| Individual | -25% | -28% | 3% | -16% |
| Corporate | -36% | -38% | -40% | -51% |
| Foundation | -16% | -18% | -1% | -20% |
| Government | -13% | -15% | 1% | -18% |
Table 3: *Change in Contributed Revenue by Source for Large Organizations, 2019-2024. One-year change 2023-2024, inflation adjusted using a 2.9% Dec-Dec rate. Five-year change 2019-2024, inflation adjusted using a 23% Dec-Dec rate.
Earned revenue offered little relief, declining 6% overall despite a 10% jump in ticket sales. The problem appears to be sharp drops in other revenue streams, particularly a 31% collapse in education revenue. Paid attendance surged 32%, suggesting that audiences are returning to performances and programs, but many large organizations may be struggling to convert that interest into the diversified scale of revenue they need for healthy sustainability.
Faced with mounting losses, large organizations made drastic cuts to personnel, cutting spending by 14% and eliminating an average of three full-time and nearly two part-time positions in 2024 alone. Notably, they shielded artists from the worst of these cuts—artist compensation declined by just 1%.
Many large organizations may be in crisis mode as they simultaneously lose major donors, cutting deeply into the workforce, and watch education programs—often key community engagement tools—collapse.
Figure 7: Admission vs. Education Revenue for Large Organizations, 2019-2024. Ticket sales and admissions and tuition and workshops were for the two largest earned revenue categories for large organizations in 2019.
Faced with mounting losses, large organizations made drastic cuts to personnel, cutting spending by 14% and eliminating an average of three full-time and nearly two part-time positions in 2024 alone. Notably, they shielded artists from the worst of these cuts—artist compensation declined by just 1%.
Many large organizations may be in crisis mode as they simultaneously lose major donors, cutting deeply into the workforce, and watch education programs—often key community engagement tools—collapse.
Performing arts organizations—dance, music, orchestra, theatres, and performing arts centers—have faced the most turbulent financial journey of any artistic discipline. Sharp declines took hold as pandemic-era closures began, followed by a dramatic rebound in 2023, only to plunge again in 2024. Over the entire six-year period, performing arts revenue fell by 27% when adjusted for inflation and ultimately hit staffing particularly hard.
Personnel spending for performing arts organizations dropped 28% in 2024, and organizations lost an average of 3.2 full-time staff positions—notably worse than national average of two positions lost across all arts disciplines. Performing arts organizations, it appears, are bearing a disproportionate burden as audience and funder priorities shift.
Figure 8: Average revenue per organization by discipline, 2019-2024. Indexed trends in average total revenue for performing arts organizations, community organizations, and museums. All series are indexed to 2019 (2019 = 100) and change over time is relative to 2019 levels.
Museums, by contrast, maintained modest overall growth since 2019 despite losses in 2024. Earned revenue declined 13%, while contributed revenue fell just 3%. However, the museum sample in this dataset is relatively small—only 383 organizations—so these findings should be interpreted with caution.
Community organizations followed a trajectory similar to small organizations. Revenue dipped slightly in 2024 after several years of growth, but attendance told a different story. Both paid and free attendance continued rising, up 10% and 64% respectively, suggesting strong community engagement even as financial support softened.
Methodology and Data
This analysis draws on data from 6,513 arts and culture organizations across the United States, representing a wide range of disciplines, regions, and sizes.
Budget Size is determined using the lowest value for total expenses reported by each organization over the analysis period. The table below provides the budget size ranges and the number of distinct organizations in each size range.
| Budget Size | Number of Organizations |
| Small Organizations | 3,140 |
| Mid-sized Organizations | 1,749 |
| Large Organizations | 1,607 |
Discipline is determined using codes selected by the organization from the IRS NTEE list. These detailed codes are grouped into three high-level discipline categories: Performing Arts, Museums, and Community Organizations.
Organizations that did not select arts-related codes or fall outside these categories are excluded from discipline-level analysis.
Here is a breakdown of the dataset by discipline:
| Discipline | Number of Organizations |
| Community Organizations | 1,595 |
| Museums | 383 |
| Performing Arts Organizations | 2,538 |
| Other | 1,980 |
To ensure the sample is broadly representative for each fiscal year, we included all organizations that submitted a Cultural Data Profile (CDP) for any individual year, even if they did not participate every year. This approach reduces selection bias that would result from analyzing only organizations with consistent CDP participation and better reflects the broader range of organizational experiences.
Averages vs. Medians
Averages (means) are calculated by summing all values in a set and dividing by the number of organizations, while medians represent the midpoint value. In this analysis, we primarily present average values (means) because they account for all experiences across the sample and are additive, meaning averages of subcategories sum to the average of the whole. For example, the average of personnel and non-personnel expenses equals average total expenses.
Averages are affected by both high and low values. To address this, we exclude extremely large values—likely outliers or erroneously reported data—that exceed 25% of the sum of the remaining values for each variable prior to analysis.
In some cases, we report medians because certain computed metrics are highly sensitive to outliers (e.g., surplus/deficit) or because averages are still heavily influenced by the remaining large values, making it less representative of the typical organization’s experience (e.g., months of working capital).