DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37041.v2
title: 2015 Local Arts Agency Census, United States
title: Version 2

description: The purpose of the 2015 Local Arts Agency (LAA) Census was to characterize the different ways that LAAs perform their vital roles in every community. LAAs share the goals of enabling diverse forms of arts and culture to thrive locally, ensuring broad accessibility to the public, and building healthier communities through the arts.
The census provides details about LAA staffing and oversight, services and programs, partnerships and collaborations in the community, grantmaking, diversity within staff/volunteers/board and diversity in programming, marketing and communications practices, arts education, services for the military, and operating revenues and expenditures, and more. For a more detailed listing of question groups, please refer to the Description of Variables below.
This study contains data from the two forms of the surveys (Full and Abbreviated--a subset of the Full survey). These surveys were distributed online to 4,377 individual Local Arts Agencies in the United States which were known to Americans for the Arts in 2015. A total of 1,127 LAAs responded to the census survey. 641 submitted the Full survey; 486 completed the Abbreviated survey. The overall response rate was 26%. 
The data is contained in two separate datasets comprising results from the two surveys. The Full Survey (dataset 1) contains data from the 641 respondents who completed the long survey. The Combined Surveys (dataset 2) contains responses from both the 486 respondents of the abbreviated survey as well the corresponding 641 responses from the full survey for a total of 1,127 respondents. The rate of response from large and mid-sized LAAs was very high, while small and volunteer-driven LAAs were underrepresented in the survey respondents.
description: In 2015, Americans for the Arts partnered with the National Endowment for the Arts to conduct The Local Arts Agency Census, the most comprehensive survey of the local arts agency (LAA) field ever conducted. Its purpose was to characterize the diverse roles that LAAs play in ensuring the arts have a vital presence in every community. The LAA Census sheds light on the intricacies of the field, detailing how each LAA conducts its own local services and programs to enable diverse forms of arts and culture to thrive, ensure their broad accessibility to the public and build healthier communities through the arts.
description: The survey process was designed by a task force of local arts agency, research, and policy leaders to ensure relevance and rigor. The census was composed of both a long-form survey and a short-form survey that were sent to the 4,377 LAAs in the United States known to Americans for the Arts.
A total of 1,127 LAAs responded: 641 submitted the long-form and 486 participated via the short-form with overall response rate was 26 percent. The rate of response from large- and mid-sized LAAs was very high, while small and volunteer-driven LAAs were under-represented in the survey respondents. 
The dataset from the full survey contained 1,482 variables, while the dataset from the abbreviated survey contained 79 variables. The data is contained in two separate datasets. The Full Survey (dataset 1) contains data from the 641 respondents who completed the long survey. The Combined Surveys (dataset 2) contains responses from both the 486 respondents of the abbreviated survey as well the subset of corresponding 641 responses from the full survey for a total of 1,127 respondents.
description: Variables were grouped into sections:

Background information about each agency including oversight/governance, and staff/volunteers
Services provided to specific constituencies 
Diversity of constituencies
Partnerships and collaborations
Community programming
Marketing, communications, and audience development
Cultural programming including cultural tourism activities, cultural exchanges and international cultural engagement
Arts education and public art activities
Cultural districts and management of cultural facilities
Community development, building public value, arts advocacy
Arts in the military
Operating support and revenue including budget history and operating expenditures, and use of dedicated taxes to support the arts
Grant-making and other direct financial support to individual artists, organizations, programs, and/or facilities
Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of impact
Financial Status
Looking to the future
description: None
description: Response Rates: 26%
description: Presence of Common Scales: None
description: The Census was composed of both a Full survey and an abbreviated version (a subset of Full) survey that were sent to the 4,377 LAAs in the United States that were known in 2015 to the organization, Americans for the Arts.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Full Survey
DS2: Combined Surveys
description: All local arts agencies across the United States known to Americans For The Arts. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: web-based survey