The Department of Arts and Culture is utilizing a range of data sources to understand the full impact of the January 2025 wind and wildfires emergency. Our analysis shows the direct impacts experienced by artists, creative workers, and arts organizations and institutions located in or near the fire perimeters and evacuation zones. It also shows ripple effects through the arts ecology through indirect impacts experienced by those geographically distant from the fires.

In its second evaluation of the Creative Wellbeing approach, Harder+Company Community Research found that young people who participated experienced positive social-emotional benefits while also exploring their interests, building technical art skills, and increasing their access to the arts. Adults who participated in the program are experiencing and embodying Creative Wellbeing values and healing themselves through this work. They further found that

This third study by SMU DataArts analyzing the demographic makeup of the arts and cultural workforce in LA County finds a significant shift toward greater racial and ethnic diversity since 2019, particularly at the leadership level.

The Civic Art Demographics Study, a collaboration between Arts and Culture’s Research and Evaluation and Civic Art divisions, is a comprehensive analysis of artworks and artists in the Collection. It is one part of a broader initiative to review Civic Art policies, procedures, commissions, and support for artists. Research consultant Special Service for Groups, Inc. (SSG) conducted the study on behalf of Arts and Culture and prepared the report.

This study explores the role that young adult advisory councils (YAACs) can play in helping arts and culture nonprofits address emerging issues, better understand the communities they serve, and achieve their missions. Through interviews with 25 YAAC managers and participants at arts nonprofits across the US, five key themes emerged:

Since 2015, the Department of Arts and Culture has collected consistent data about the demographic makeup of people who attend our professional development and technical assistance (PD/TA) programs. This report summarizes our analysis of six years of PD/TA programs offered by the department, from 2015-16 through 2020-21.

An evaluation of the first six residencies of the Creative Strategist program finds that a significant amount of art-as-process occurred across the residencies, with many of the creative strategists doing work engaging communities, especially those historically underserved by local government.

Make or Break: Race and Ethnicity in Entry-Level Compensation for Arts Administrators in Los Angeles County is a study of compensation for entry-level arts administrators in Los Angeles County and reveals troubling disparities between those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and their White counterparts.

This zine is designed to help artists, arts organizations, and arts funders use data as you plan for reopening. It includes findings from Audience Outlook Monitor surveys and interviews with arts audiences and visitors in LA County. It also offers suggestions for other data to consider as you plan to reopen.

The Department of Arts and Culture contracted with WolfBrown to provide our grantees with an opportunity to participate in the Audience Outlook Monitor (AOM), a national study to measure and track audience readiness and attitudes towards returning to live arts and cultural events. The AOM survey was deployed three times between August 2020 and January 2021.

Based on interviews with disabled and non-disabled artists and art professionals, this research study, Accessibility and the Arts: Reconsidering the Role of the Artist, investigates the role of artists and the museums that exhibit their work in making artwork accessible to people with disabilities.

What began as a health crisis has become an economic crisis and a moment of reckoning for racial justice. Since mid-March, systemic and structural inequities across LA County have become more visible than ever before.

A study using qualitative methods to understand arts audiences in LA County.

This is the second study conducted by SMU DataArts for Arts and Culture, analyzing the demographics of the arts and cultural workforce in LA County.

A report about the implementation of a new eligibility requirement for the Organizational Grant Program that requires all grantees to submit a statement, policy, or plan outlining their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and access as part of their applications.

Building Creative Career Pathways for Youth analyzes opportunities for youth in 70 creative occupations in the creative industries as well as programs designed to help youth access those jobs. This field scan found that Arts Education programs are nearly ubiquitous in the County, although not necessarily high quality nor equitably accessible to all residents.

Report and Documentary Highlight Benefits of Artworks for Civic Engagement Four Projects in South LA Represent Shift Towards “Art As Infrastructure”

Read our report on the 2016-17 Research and Evaluation Plan: what we did and why, and some key lessons we learned along the way.

Artist Sandy Rodriguez was placed as an artist in residence at the Recuperative Care Center at the Martin Luther King Medical Campus in Willowbrook, CA, in 2016/17. This residency was part of a $1.6 million investment in Civic Art funded through the LA County Percent for Art policy. A final evaluation report on the residency is available now.

The LA County Arts Education Profile survey was administered to all 2,277 public schools in LA County to learn about the quantity, quality and equity of arts education. We found that nearly every school offers at least some arts instruction, and most schools offer at least two disciplines. At the same time, we found troubling inequities that reflect disparities in the wider society. 

On Saturday, April 22, 2017, nearly 150 participants, speakers, volunteers, and observers assembled in downtown LA to spend the day exploring how data can be used to improve access to the arts for all ten million residents of Los Angeles County. This report tells the story of what we did, and provides a toolkit for others who want to do their own datathon.

This report outlines the Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative, an 18-month public process that led to the development of 13 recommendations to the LA County Board of Supervisors to ensure that everyone in LA County has equitable access to arts and culture, and to improve inclusion in the wider arts ecology for all residents in every community. 

This study analyzes the demographics of the arts and cultural workforce in Los Angeles County—specifically, staff members, board, volunteers, and independent contractors associated with 386 cultural nonprofits, most of which receive funding from Arts and Culture, and/or seven other municipal funders in the County. The findings presented in this report are based on 3,307 unique responses to the DataArts Workforce Demographics survey, conducted from May 2016 - July 2016. Among the key findings:

This series of reports analyzes data reported by arts nonprofits in LA County to DataArts (formerly the Cultural Data Project). They explore how much is being paid on salaries and benefits, how many hours of time is volunteered, and they provide recommendations to how arts nonprofits can improve in these areas.

Recent research has found that across the US, arts audiences are declining, while arts participation is on the rise. How can both be true at the same time? This review of the literature on Public Engagement in the Arts explores this question.

This literature review provides background information on how others have addressed how to improve diversity, cultural equity, and inclusion in the arts and culture sector, with a particular focus on boards of directors, the arts and culture workforce, audiences and programming, and culturally specific arts organizations. 

In 2012, 35,076 volunteers worked nearly six million hours at 386 nonprofit arts organizations in LA County. This report explores the role of volunteers in arts nonprofits. 

In 2015, Arts and Culture analyzed data from 2014 reports written and submitted by grantees of the Organizational Grant Program, to identify trends in the field and to improve the program.

In 2013, 198,110 people in LA County were employed in 79 creative occupations. Half of those jobs did not require a bachelor’s degree. What kinds of careers are available, how well do they pay, and what training is required? 

In 2013, the Arts Ed Collective + Arts and Culture administered a survey to arts organizations and teaching artists across the County, to find out who provided arts education services to LA County's 2,198 public schools.

This study found that arts nonprofits in LA County may be more likely than employers in other sectors to provide health benefits to their employees.

Analyzing data from the Cultural Data Project, Arts and Culture found that nonprofit arts organizations in Los Angeles County paid some $266.6 million in salaries to the equivalent of 4,650 full time employees in 2011.

Arts education across all 81 school districts in LA County has held steady since 2005/06, despite the recession and even as the total number of students enrolled in public schools has declined. That’s what Arts and Culture learned when analyzing data on arts courses, enrollment, and teachers that was reported by school districts to the California Department of Education (CDE).