Philanthropy in art: locality, donor retention, and prestige

A significant portion of funding for art comes from foundations, representing a key revenue stream for most art organizations. Little is known, however, about the quantitative patterns that govern art funding, limiting the fundraising efficiency of organizations in need of resources, as well as optimal funding allocation of donors. To address these shortcomings, here we relied on the IRS e-file dataset to identify $36B in grants from 46,643 foundations to 48,766 art recipients between 2010 and 2019, allowing us to quantify donor-recipient relationships in art. We find that philanthropic giving is broadly distributed, following a stable power-law distribution, indicating that some funders give considerably and predictably more than others. Giving is highly localized, with 60% of grants and funds going to recipients in the donor’s state. Furthermore, donors often support multiple local organizations that offer distinct artforms, rather than advancing a particular subarea within art. Donor retention is strong, with nearly 70% of relationships continuing the next year. Finally, we explored the role of institutional prestige in foundation giving, finding that funding does correlate with prestige, with notable exceptions. Our results present the largest and most comprehensive data-driven exploration of giving by foundations to art to date, unveiling multiple insights that could benefit both donors and recipients.