New England's Creative Economy: The Nonprofit Sector (December 2009) (cont'd)

In charts 3–5 below, NEFA expands upon its New England nonprofit totals by state, (chart #1), and breaks down the number of arts and culture nonprofits in New England by discipline.  The discipline categories are derived from the National Standard for Arts Information Exchange; please contact the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies for more information.

Table of Contents

1. Number of Cultural Nonprofits by State
2. Cultural Revenue/Expense by State
3. Number of Cultural Nonprofits by Discipline & Type
4. Cultural Revenue by Discipline
5. Cultural Expense by Discipline
    

 3. Number of Cultural Nonprofits by Discipline & Type

The total number of cultural nonprofits in New England is 19,183. More than half of these are historical societies, libraries, or performing organizations that are part of the Registered Non-filer group.

Learn more about these four different nonprofit types (Registered Filers, Registered Non-Filers, Embedded, and Unincorporated).  

4. Cultural Revenue by Discipline

The total revenue for all cultural nonprofits in New England is approximately $4.5 billion. The Registered Filers of all of these disciplines account for 91% of this revenue.

5. Cultural Expense by Discipline

The total expense for all cultural nonprofits in New England is approximately $3.6 billion. Museums lead all disciplines in both expenses and revenue, though they aren’t the highest in number (see Chart 3). Salaries make up around 20% of all expenses on the whole.

Nonprofit Organization Types: 

• Registered Filers have a budget above the $25,000, file a Form 990 and represent the most formally organized cultural non-profits.
• Registered Non-Filers have a budget below $25,000 and appear within the official list of federally registered non-profits (Internal Revenue Service Business Master File), but would not be expected to file a Form 990.
• Embedded Organizations are housed within a larger parent organization and are not registered as a separate entity. 
• Unincorporated Organizations are organizations that either do not meet the legal requirements or fall below the revenue threshold for filing as a federally registered nonprofit.

Data Sources:

Fiscal Year 2007 – Information extracted and prepared from IRS Form 990 filings by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, The National Center for Education Statistics Library Survey, and the nonprofit cultural organizations listed in CultureCount: New England’s Cultural Database.

DEFINITIONS:

Using the NCCS IRS Form 990 data extract, total expenditure is the sum of program, fund-raising, management and general expenses, as well as payments to affiliates, plus the following expenses which are deducted from revenues on the Form: expenses incurred while earning rental income, selling assets, staging special events, and selling goods (i.e., cost of goods sold); total revenue is gross receipts from all sources of income with no expense deductions made.