A new study, Portraits of Donors, conducted by The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University was recently released by Bank of America, looked at the philanthropic patterns of high net worth households. This report is based on data already gathered and issued in an initial report that examined giving by the wealthiest 3.1 percent of households. This new study explicitly looks at giving by the wealthiest Americans those that have a net worth of more than $1 million and annual income of more than $200,000. Eighty percent of the sample had a net worth of more than $2 million, and the group of responders was clustered into 12 archetypes:
- The Very Wealthy
- The Bequeather
- The Devout Donor and the Secular Donor
- The Entrepreneur
- The Dynast
- The Metropolitan
- The High Frequency Volunteer
- The Strategic Donor and the Transactional Donor
- The Altruistic Donor and the Financially Pragmatic Donor
While space won’t allow describing the characteristics of each of these donor groups, or their behavior, there are a number of very interesting results relevant to giving to the arts that I would like to highlight. Let’s focus first on the sweet spot those categories that seem most likely to support the arts (in bold above): Entrepreneurs, Dynasts, Metropolitans, and High Frequency Volunteer. To combine them all, the most likely arts donor would be a person of high net worth with substantial wealth coming from a business they own, who also gives a philanthropy allowance to their children, lives in a major metropolitan area, and volunteers more than 200 hours a year.
(more…)
Tagged with: AdvocacyBusinessFundraisingResearch
January 2nd, 2008 at 03:14pm
Gary Steuer
Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce our Council election results. Below are your peers from across the country who will be serving on the following Councils starting next year. Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations and who voted online. We are looking forward to working with these leaders throughout their terms.
Arts Education Council
Emerging Leader Council
Public Art Network (PAN) Council
United Arts Fund (UAF) Council
(more…)
Tagged with: Arts-EducationBusinessLeadershipMembershipPublic-ArtVolunteerism
January 2nd, 2008 at 02:44pm
Rebecca Borden
Over lunch today, Elena Park, from the Metropolitan Opera, gave a richly textured case study of how an organization, steeped in tradition with a deeply loyal constituency, innovated over a 2 year period without sacrificing its values or standards. The Metropolitan Opera is not your average venue it is one of the largest opera companies in the world, yet it has been artistically and socially isolated. Since 2001, the Met experienced an audience decline from 90.8% box office sales to 76.8% box office sales in 2005. Through a major re-visioning of its visual image and its institutional culture, the Met turned things around and operated at 84% capacity last season and this year looks even better. How did they do it? What can be learned from their story? (more…)
Tagged with: BusinessFundraisingLeadership
November 4th, 2007 at 07:28pm
Rebecca Borden
In his keynote kickoff of the NAMP conference, J. Walker Smith (a.k.a. Research Rockstar to Julie Peeler) explained that time is the new currency in a time-starved world. He studies lifestyle trends and ultimately seeks to understand the ways in which people understand the ‘good life’ what people want to get out of their lives. To marketing directors and brand developers, this information is the Holy Grail. But it keeps shifting and, in fact, Walker proposes that the extent and range of this change in consumer behavior has not been seen since World War II.
I liked 90% of what he said but the missing 10% gives me pause and I want to stir the pot a piece. (more…)
Tagged with: BusinessLeadershipResearch
November 3rd, 2007 at 01:16pm
Rebecca Borden
Jay Wilkinson of Firespring has developed a list of criteria to assess whether your non-profit website is strong or not. By the way, most non-profits score between 60-65 on Firespring’s website scorecard. He cautions that many non-profits fall victim to the common mistakes of web design. In organizations with small staffs and small budgets, they typically develop websites in house or by volunteers; by necessity, they have to do it cheap. But when organizations enable their website to animate their mission, they approach this tool as an investment in their communications and in program dissemination. Jay stressed understanding the end user of your website, which he referred to as: information seekers, volunteers, employers, job seekers, donors/contributors, public agencies, peer non-profits, etc. (more…)
Tagged with: BusinessFundraisingVolunteerism
November 3rd, 2007 at 01:10pm
Rebecca Borden
Next Posts
Previous Posts
