Research Results:
Nonprofit Capacity Assessment: Indiana's Arts and Culture Organizations, 2009
Phase II of the Indiana Nonprofit Capacity Assessment project is now being completed.
We are currently completing our final report based on a survey of grant applicants to the Indiana Arts Commission and its regional partners. This work is undertaken in partnership with the Commission, the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.
Between August and December of 2008 we surveyed 1,792 Indiana arts and culture organizations that had sought grant funding from the Indiana Arts Commission or its regional partners between 2003 and 2008. A total of 384 organizations responded to the survey in full or in part for a response rate of 28 percent (excluding duplicates, ineligible organizations, and those for which no valid contact information could be located).
We have completed a preliminary report that highlights responses to key questions in this survey. We are preparing a final report, which will include more detailed assessments of how capacity building and technical assistance needs vary among organizations that differ on a number of organizational characteristics.
The survey asked responding organizations to identify their three most significant capacity building or technical needs in each area and the best ways to address them. We also examined several broad categories of capacity building identified in the literature in order to establish which specific dimensions in each category present the most severe and/or widespread challenges. In addition, we asked respondents to indicate how helpful various types of funding, technical assistance, or peer learning would be in addressing the challenges. See the full survey instrument for a complete set of questions.
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Acknowledgments
If your nonprofit organization is one of the many Indiana arts and cultural organizations that responded to this survey, we are very grateful for your participation and we THANK YOU for taking the time to do so. Please rest assured that all information from the survey will be kept in the strictest confidentiality.
We have now selected, at random, twelve organizations that responded to the survey to have their organization profiled for one month on the Indiana Arts Commission's web page. We will also shortly send a summary of our preliminary findings to all respondents who requested it.
We are especially grateful
to Lewis Ricci, Executive Director of the Indiana Arts Commission, for inviting us to undertake the
survey and to Michelle Anderson, Jayant “Jay” Singh Chauhan, April Blevins, Sarah Heying, and Rex
Van Zant, for their valuable feedback and assistance with the survey. We also thank Stephanie Cave,
Laney Cheney, Helen Liu, Li-Chuan (Tammy) Liu, Rebecca Nannery, and Becky Nesbit for their
contributions to the project design and analysis. The support and efforts of all of these strengthened
this work enormously and we are grateful to them all. Of course, any remaining problems reflect our
shortcomings entirely.
In addition to funding from IAC, support for this effort has been provided through the ongoing project on the Indiana Nonprofit Sector: Scope and Community Dimensions. This project, directed by Kirsten Grønbjerg, Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy at the Center on Philanthropy, is currently funded by the Efroymson Fund at the Indianapolis Foundation (an affiliate of the Central Indiana Community Foundation), the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy’s Indiana Research Fund (supported by Lilly Endowment, Inc.), and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.
Top | About the Survey | Acknowledgments | Contact Info
If you have questions about the Nonprofit Capacity Assessment project, please contact the project director, Professor Kirsten Grønbjerg, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington IN 47405, Phone: 866-726-0030, Email: mailto:nonprof@indiana.edu.
Updated: May 15, 2009
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