Top 10 Data Points Arts & Culture Organizations Should Know

In the world of arts and culture nonprofit organizations, staying on top of your game requires more than just putting on incredible shows night after night. It requires a deep understanding of the metrics that drive your fundraising efforts and ticket sales to ensure the lights in your venue stay on. You need to be able to spot trends, identify where you can improve, and elevate your future experiences. In this article, we’ll tap into the key data points you need to measure and optimize your event’s success, plus we have a dedicated resource at the end (including an example for each metric) so you can dive even deeper and take your industry knowledge to another level!

The Metrics that Matter in Arts Nonprofit Statistics

Data is the lifeblood of any organization! These metrics provide insight into your financial health, donor engagement, and consumer behavior. By tracking and analyzing these fundraising data points, you can design strategies that not only boost revenue but also enhance your patrons’ experience.

Let’s take a look at the ten crucial metrics every arts and culture organization should be monitoring.

1. Percentage of Earned and Contributed Revenue

This vital metric gives you an overview of your organization’s fiscal health. While there is no universal “right” balance, understanding the ratio of earned income (like ticket sales) to contributed revenue (like donations) helps explain what financial shifts are occurring, allowing you and your team to strategically plan around them.

How to calculate: Divide the amount of contributed revenue by the total revenue to get the percentage of contributed revenue. For earned revenue, subtract this percentage from 100.

2. Percentage of Donors in Each Giving Level

Tracking the donor distribution across different levels helps you understand and nurture donor growth. A healthy organization typically has a larger number of mid- to high-level donors, rather than being heavily weighted towards those in lower giving tiers.

How to calculate: Divide the number of donors at each level by the total number of donors.

3. Percentage of Donors Who Lapse

Keeping an eye on donor retention is crucial since lapsed donors are less likely to return. If there are significant changes in this metric, this could signal that you need to focus on bolstering your retention efforts.

How to calculate: Divide the number of donors who didn’t renew their support by the total number of donors.

4. Percentage of Donors Moving Up or Down

Understanding whether your donors are tending to increase or decrease their contributions over time can indicate the financial health of your organization. This helps you determine how to tailor your fundraising strategies to either maintain or boost your donor satisfaction, hopefully encouraging them to increase their contribution amounts.

How to calculate: Compare the number of donors who increased their giving to the total number of donors, and do the same for those who decreased their donations.

5. Percentage of Subscribers Who Donate

Converting subscribers or members into donors can often be challenging at first, but highly rewarding once you see success from your efforts. This metric shows the progression from regular attendees to highly-invested advocates for your organization.

How to calculate: Divide the number of subscribers who also donate by the total number of subscribers.

6. Percentage of Ticket Buyers Who Subscribe

Buying a subscription or membership shows attendees’ loyalty to your organization and provides you with reliable revenue. This metric is crucial for setting budgets ahead of time, as subscription fees collected early in the season help cover production costs for upcoming performances.

How to calculate: Divide the number of seats sold as part of a subscription by the total number of seats sold.

7. Ticket Sales Return on Investment (ROI)

This number indicates your spending to sell tickets, helping you set accurate marketing budgets by predicting the cost needed for you to reach a certain capacity. While comparisons with other arts events can help spot trends in nonprofit organizations, these costs vary so much between types of events that it’s more effective to instead track numbers within your organization annually.

How to calculate: Subtract the amount spent promoting ticket sales from the total ticket sales revenue to get the revenue margin. Then, divide this margin by the promotional spend.

8. Fundraising Promotional ROI

This metric evaluates how effective your fundraising efforts have been, excluding the salaries of your fundraising team. With this calculation, you’ll better identify fundraising trends and understand the direct cost of raising donations through your various promotional campaigns.

How to calculate: Subtract fundraising promotional spend from the total donations to get the revenue margin, then divide this by the promotional spend.

9. Donor Events Promotional ROI

Different from general fundraising, this metric focuses on the financial return from your dedicated events for donors. Whether it’s a gala or a cocktail party, capturing this data from those events will let you know which resonated the most with your donors and help you optimize future events.

How to calculate: Subtract the amount spent on donor events from the total donations raised, then divide the result by the promotional spend.

10. Percentage of Patrons Under 55

Engaging younger audiences is a must for your organization to thrive in the long run. Tracking this metric will help drive your efforts to develop more targeted strategies to attract and retain this target demographic.

How to calculate: Divide the number of patrons under 55 by the total number of patrons.

Dive Deeper into Fundraising Data Points!

By consistently measuring and analyzing these data points, you can drive strategic decisions that enhance both your fundraising and ticket sales. For an in-depth look at each of these metrics and how to apply them to your organization’s strategy, download our “Top 10 Data Points Arts & Culture Organizations Should Know” white paper today! To take it a step further, Leap’s patron management team conducted a survey across 100 arts and culture organizations, asking them about how these metrics apply to their operations. Empower your team with the insights to help your arts and culture nonprofit organization thrive!