Did You Know?

NASAA Has a Treasure Trove of Grants Statistics

Every year, NASAA collects from state arts agencies (SAAs) Final Descriptive Reports containing the grants data of the previous year. These statistics detail the grant-making activities of state arts agencies and regional arts organizations and are reported within the taxonomy of the National Standard for Arts Information Exchange.

This information can be used when members need to better understand their grant-making activity in a larger context. For example, national grant-making trends over time have changed, as can be seen in the graph below. State arts agency grant dollars have decreased by 7% over the last 10 years – similar to the revenue decline that SAAs have experienced during this time.

SAA Grant Making line graph for Fiscal Year 1999-2008 with the year 2002 as the highest with $350 million grant dollars

Examining specific grant activity is another example of how this information can be used. General operating support (GOS) is one of the most common types of support that state arts agencies provide. While grant dollars have fluctuated and decreased overall during the last 10 years, general operating support has experienced a steady and overall increased share of grant making.

Line Graph of SAA Grant Making Fiscal Year 1999-2008 with General operating support (GOS) awards and dollars percentages

NASAA’s grant-making statistics cover the whole country in aggregate as well as by state and discipline. For more information, please contact the NASAA research staff.