Arts and Culture Assessment

AMS Planning & Research was commissioned by the Foundation in 2006 to conduct a comprehensive arts and culture assessment of the region.  The assessment was designed to provide local arts and cultural organizations with high quality information to bolster their planning efforts and to help inform grant making priorities for the Foundation.

Assessment goals included:

• Understanding residents' (full-time and season) interests in the arts and culture
• Inventorying current arts and culture offerings and future plans
• Evaluating facilities that house arts and cultural programming
• Exploring projected changes in the community over the next decade
• Identifying gaps between residents' interests, program offerings, and the capacity of existing organizations and facilities to meet current and future needs

AMS surveyed 23 non-profit organizations, 400 residents, 23 community leaders and 23 independent artists to gain an understanding of the arts and cultural community as a whole.  AMS staff inventoried arts facilities and analyzed attendance data to identify opportunities to expand audiences.  And finally, the Sarasota arts and culture community was compared with five similar communities including Charleston, South Carolina to Scottsdale, Arizona.