Hey there,As we're getting to wrapping up FY14 and prep for FY15 at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, there were some things that I was curious about, not just as a grants manager, but as an arts administrator in general as well as a board member of a small arts organization.
In reviewing organizational profiles, several data points piqued my interest: founding year, board size, and when an organization's fiscal year ended
So check this out, from data about 115 organizational grantees:
- The average founding year is 1987
- The median founding year, however, is 1991
- The oldest organization was founded in 1918
- The youngest organization was founded in 2010
- The average number of board members an organization had was 16
- The median number of board members, however, was 12
- The smallest board had 3 members
- The largest board had 59 members
- The most popular dates for when fiscal years ended were:
- 12/31 for 37.4% of grantees
- 6/30 at a close second for 33% of grantees
- 8/31 at third for 13.9% of grantees
- 9/30 at fourth for 7.8% of grantees
There it is. Just thought it was interesting.
I was surprised to see that half of the FY14 grantees were organizations that were less than 23 years old. I guess I assumed that organizations were generally older than that. Board member wise, 12 made sense to me, as a median, because to me that seems to be an ideal number of board members.
And date wise, I wasn't surprised that many organizations aligned their fiscal year with the calendar year. I was surprised that the next most popular date was June 31. I am very curious why some organizations chose that. I was surprised that September 30 was fourth, because it is the DC Government's fiscal year end, and thought more organizations would have aligned their own fiscal year with it.
Anyway, there you go. What do you think? How does your own organization compare?
Let me know in the comments!!
JR aka Nexus
