Community engagement, equity, and inclusion featured highly among arts leaders’ top priorities according to our 2022 Hot Topics survey, as arts organizations place increasing importance on relevance in their communities. Our latest Arts Executive Poll asked arts leaders to benchmark themselves on how they execute programs that engage diverse constituents in their communities.
Hot Topics of 2022
With arts organizations navigating the new year and its unique challenges amidst the ongoing pandemic, our latest Arts Executive Poll asked arts leaders about top-of-mind priorities, from setting vaccine requirements in response to COVID-19 variants to benchmarking subscription and ticket sales this season.
Fundraising During Reopening
Environmental Sustainability in the Arts
Benchmarks on Near-Term Impact of COVID-19
Future Priorities in Arts Organizations
As arts organizations safely reopen their doors this fall, arts leaders must leverage this unique moment of return. To help think forward to competing stakeholder demands in a post-pandemic environment, our recent Arts Executive Poll surveyed leaders at arts organizations to understand how they are strategizing for the long-term future.
Benchmarks on Ticket Sale Tactics
As arts organizations open their doors and reopen to the public in this new season, ticket sales are top of mind for audience return. To understand how teams are innovating on this front, our recent Arts Executive Poll surveyed leaders at arts organizations about how they are implementing affordable ticket initiatives to remain accessible to a broad audience and offering complimentary tickets to help fill out houses and venues.
Team Morale
With the start of September, arts organizations are re-centering themselves and launching new seasons once again. To provide a check-in during these beginning stages, our recent Arts Executive Poll surveyed leaders of arts organizations about the prevailing mood among staff as well as ways that leaders are keeping teams motivated amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic.
Team Return, Hiring, and Post-Pandemic Changes
Finishing 2021 and Reopening
Many arts organizations are looking to get back to some semblance of "normal" in the second half of 2021 and are making preparations to welcome audiences and visitors back at or near pre-pandemic capacity. Our recent Arts Executive poll surveyed leaders about their goals, predictions, and worries for the rest of the year.
Reopening For Staff and Audiences
Arts Donors and Fundraising Teams
Redefining the Donor Value Proposition: Accelerating the Donor Shift to a More Philanthropic Mindset
We surveyed more than 5,000 donors to arts organizations and interviewed over fifty development leaders from arts organizations around the world.
In our analysis, we found that donors clustered into three segments: Benefits Donors, Arts Lovers, and Community Donors.
We learned how organizations can engage the different categories of donors most effectively while contributing to community engagement.
Returning To “Normal”
As vaccine roll-outs continue across the world, arts organizations are starting to move more actively into "return-mode." But with the promise of large in-person gatherings comes the challenges of planning for both safety and org success. Our recent Arts Executive Poll surveyed leaders on a variety of topics related to bringing staff, artists, and audiences/visitors back.
The Future of Digital
Many arts organizations have made great strides in digital content and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. But with the return to in-person experiences (hopefully) drawing nearer, many arts organizations are starting to think about how to evolve their digital strategies for the future. Our recent Arts Executive poll surveyed leaders on their future plans for digital.
Diversity and Inclusion Priorities
Demystifying Digital Content Monetization: Lessons Learned from Arts Organizations During the Closure
Learning from the accelerated digital shift of the COVID-19 closures, our initiative examined how arts organizations can use digital content not only to build audiences and keep patrons loyal, but also to generate necessary funding for future activities.
While direct revenue may be less likely for new digital offerings, there are important benefits beyond earned income such as donation success, audience learning, and future value.
Coming Back Stronger: Using the Shutdown to Rebuild Audience Loyalty
As we emerge from the pandemic, a primary concern for arts organizations of all genres is how to bring audiences back in a robust way - as soon and as safely as possible.
ABA’s Coming Back Stronger signature research initiative looked at audience motivations to attend arts performances and what we can do to secure their loyalty during the shutdown.
Key Success Factors for Recovery
The Key Success Factors for Recovery initiative focused on how arts organizations can overcome challenges of the COVID-19 crisis and shutdown. To present the findings, ABA held a series of virtual meetings with member organizations.
Content addressed how to improve the resilience of recovery plans, assessing audience preferences for digital experiences, building digital strategies with enduring value, and creating meaningful experiences in digital.