The researchers found that most of the donors gave grants in their own state. “I was surprised by the local funding of art,” says Albert-László Barabási, Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science, Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for Advanced Network Research.
Most contemporary art institutions in the United States depend on private funding. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York reported receiving more than $250 million in philanthropic support in 2018, while the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston reported more than $60 million.
The majority of arts institutions operate on limited budgets. Government grants help a modest 15% in the annual budgets of art museums.
of the Northeast Center for Advanced Network Research used the scientific tools of its network to develop detailed quantitative picture of philanthropic art funding find the patterns that govern private giving and help arts organizations raise money more effectively.
The researchers found that the number of grants awarded to an arts organization was strongly correlated with the prestige of that institution, and that nearly half of the donors awarded more than 50% of the grants in their own state.
While arts foundations enjoy a high rate of donor retention (nearly 70% after one year), the high localization of philanthropic funding can cause organizations to compete for donors both within the same art genre and with other genres.
“I was amazed by the local funding of art,” he says Albert-László Barabási, Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science, University Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Network Research. “We've seen this before in the science funding space, but art felt more universal, implying that if you're interested in a certain kind of art institution you should easily cross state lines.”
In order to quantify donor-recipient relationships in art, Barabási and his co-author, Louis Shekhtmana former postdoctoral researcher in network science at Northeastern, analyzed tax forms 990 and 990PF filed electronically by 685,000 nonprofits and publicly shared by the IRS.
“The art world inherently works as a network involving different kinds of players, including artists, institutions, curators and critics,” says Barabási. “Network science offers a way to quantitatively map and understand these networks so that the fruits of this research are available to all players.”
The study narrowed its focus to 49,000 arts nonprofits that secured $36 billion in grants from 47,000 foundations between 2010 and 2019.
The research established a strong correlation between the institutional prestige of arts organizations and funding, with the top 10 most prestigious institutions averaging more than 1,000 grants each in that decade and more than $100 million. Lower-profile foundations received dozens to a few hundred contributions, or $100,000 to $10 million in total.
In 2018 alone, the Met, one of the world's largest museums, received contributions from the largest number of US donors — 1,374 — more than any other art institution. Many donors to other major foundations based in New York City, Shekhtman says, also donated to the Met. For example, the Leon Levy Foundation reported giving $229,000 to the Museum of Modern Art in 2019 and $162,000 to the Met.
I was quite surprised by the local funding of the arts. We've seen this before in the science funding space, but art felt more universal, implying that if you're interested in a particular kind of art institution you should easily cross state lines.
Albert-László Barabási, Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science, University Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Network Research in the Northeast
The geographic proximity of recipients and donors of philanthropic funding played an important role in the distribution of grants, according to the study's results. A significant portion of philanthropic giving to arts institutions—61% of the dollars and 56% of the number of grants—is made at the local level, Shekhtman says, even for large national institutions.
For example, nearly 50% of arts organizations receiving support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation are located in Illinois and New York, respectively, while more than 50% of arts organizations funded by the Getty Trust are located in California. Many private foundations, Shekhtman says, have a purely local focus.
“The local project highlights the role of local connections and the experiential aspect of art, when visiting the museum leads someone to become a donor,” says Shekhtman.
This localization of funding, scientists say, raises concerns about the fair and equitable distribution of resources among different geographies and communities. Since most wealthy institutions backed by large national and international business enterprises are based in already wealthy areas of the US, they say, redistributing that wealth to local institutions can exacerbate existing inequities.
Art is not the primary focus for most charities, Shekhtman says.
Donors whose philanthropic focus is in other areas, the research suggests, are often open to giving a portion of their funds to the arts. When different organizations try to raise money from the same donor, Shekhtman says, the donor may give a larger portion of their assets to art overall. For the same reason, arts organizations should also try to reach out to major donors in their area who have never donated to the arts.
The study also found a high rate of donor retention in the art world, with nearly 70% of relationships continuing into the second year and 90% after seven years of consistent giving.
“There's been a lot of thinking in sociology and other fields about what makes someone donate and how it's important,” says Shekhtman. “A lot of what we found was very consistent with that, but we've quantified it [these patterns] in a much more specific and strict way”.
