One of the most important requirements for state arts agencies and regional arts organizations receiving National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) support is that each agency must engage constituent groups in cultural planning, and then develop a statewide or regionwide plan that responds to the priorities voiced by its constituents. This measure ensures that the NEA’s federal investment in state arts agencies and regional arts organizations, through Partnership Agreement grants, supports locally determined needs and priorities.

States and regions submit Final Descriptive Reports (FDRs) to the NEA and NASAA to describe activities associated with Partnership Agreement grants. These data are important to understanding the state arts agency field and provide accountability for the use of federal funds.

These featured resources can assist state arts agencies with data coding and reporting instructions relevant to Final Descriptive Reports.

FEATURED RESOURCES

• Guidance for NEA Cost Share/Match
• FY2024 FDR Instructions to States and Regions
• FY2023 FDR Instructions to States and Regions
• FY2022 FDR Instructions to States and Regions
• Federal Governmentwide Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) Transition Notice
• UPDATED FY2021 FDR Instructions to States and Regions
• SAA/RAO FY2023 Quick and Easy Guide to FDR Fields
• SAA/RAO FY2023 FDR Coding Cheat Sheet
• SAA and RAO CARES Act Reporting and Record-Keeping Tips
• FY2020 FDR Instructions to States and Regions
• Update on Uniform Guidance for NEA Partnership Agreements
• Activity Location Reporting: Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions
• SAA/RAO FY2016 Quick and Easy Guide to FDR Fields
• SAA/RAO FY2016 FDR Coding Cheat Sheet

NASAA members can request custom benchmarking reports that compare their agency’s funding and grant making over time and/or against their peers. These reports provide an overview of the state arts agency and are useful for council meetings, strategic planning sessions and legislative testimony. Reports are created on demand and are customized to meet the unique needs of each state arts agency.

FEATURED RESOURCES

• National Reports and Visualizations of State and Regional Grant Making
• SAA Grant-Making Explorer: Institution & Discipline
• Example: How Delaware uses the data
• Example: How North Carolina uses the data
• Example: How Rhode Island uses the data
• Example: How Washington uses the data

The National Standard for Arts Information Exchange (a.k.a. “the Standard”) is a taxonomy of data fields for use in the arts as a means to collect and analyze compatible information about constituents, projects, activities and resources. The Standard recommends database fields that are valuable to collect and offers specific terms, definitions and guidelines for formatting the data. Used by the country’s 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies, six regional arts organizations and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Standard enables aggregation and analysis of important arts information that would otherwise be reported inconsistently across agencies, thus making possible nationally comparable data on publicly supported arts activities.

FEATURED RESOURCES

• About the National Standard
• National Standard Reference Guide and Revisions History