Benchmark Analysis: Expenses and Revenue
As many arts and cultural organizations start to review their budgets for the next fiscal year with their boards, it is crucial to take stock of how the overall state of expenses and revenues for this fiscal year compare to that of the last pre-pandemic season (i.e., 2019). Our latest Arts Leader Survey asked arts leaders to benchmark themselves about organizations’ projections for the upcoming year as well as any anticipated changes to their business models.
Highlights from the survey include:
Generally, organizations feel that the strength of the arts sector in today's climate is weaker than what it used to be in pre-pandemic times.
To help boost this strength, the majority of arts and culture organizations' top business model modification in the next fiscal year 2024 is to attract new types of audiences/visitors as well as create new kinds of products to build audiences.
While 39% expect their budget to be balanced in the upcoming fiscal year, 51% expect a deficit.
Subscriptions and memberships lead as the revenue stream to decrease the most in value in fiscal year 2024; the majority of orgs also expect high growth of functional expenses from compensation costs.
