Data Narratives for the Arts (DNA) Platform

SECTOR SNAPSHOT DASHBOARD

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Questions about the DNA Platform? Email dna@massculture.ca

TOTAL ORGS.

Overview

AVERAGE YEARS IN OPERATION
MEDIAN REVENUE RANGE

Types of arts organizations
Revenue ranges of arts organizations
Disciplines of arts organizations
Locations of arts organizations

Financial Summary


REVENUE

AVERAGE ORGANIZATIONAL REVENUE
TOTAL PUBLIC FUNDING IN DOLLARS
Top revenue streams by organizational revenue ranges
Median annual revenue trends by revenue stream

EXPENSES

AVERAGE ORGANIZATIONAL EXPENSES
% OF EXPENDITURE SPENT ON ACTIVITIES
Top expense categories by organizational revenue ranges
Median expenditure trends by revenue range

Labour and Compensation Summary


MEDIAN TOP PAYING SALARY RANGE
AVERAGE TOTAL FULL-TIME COMPENSATION
TOTAL STAFF GROWTH
Workforce composition
Staff growth over time
Distribution of top paying salary by revenue ranges

About our data

The Data Narratives for the Arts (D.N.A) Platform leverages data from the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return filing which is mandatory for Canadian registered charities. This form serves as a comprehensive source of information about revenue, expenses, staffing, and other operational details, enabling us to gain insights into the non-profit arts sector.

Key data extracted from the T3010 form includes:

  1. Revenue Data: Captured in Section D (Financial Information) under "Revenue" (lines 4500–4700). This includes tax-receipted gifts, government funding, and other sources of income.
  2. Expenses Data: Found in Section D (Financial Information) under "Expenditures" (lines 4800–5100). This covers spending categories such as compensation, fundraising, and charitable activities.
  3. Compensation Data: Detailed in Schedule 3 (Compensation), where the number of full-time and part-time positions, along with total expenditures on employee compensation, are reported.
  4. Staffing Data: Summarized in Schedule 3 (Compensation), providing information on the number of employees and compensation brackets for the highest-paid positions.

DNA Platform Glossary

The Data Narratives for the Arts (DNA) Platform Glossary serves as a comprehensive guide to the terms and definitions used throughout our platform. It has been carefully crafted to provide clarity and ensure a shared understanding of the language and concepts that underpin our analysis of the arts sector.

Disciplines

To capture the diversity and depth of the arts sector, we have designed a structured framework to categorize and define the various disciplines that contribute to its vibrancy. This framework organizes organizations into distinct categories and subcategories, each reflecting specific areas of focus and specialization. The table below presents these categories and subcategories, along with their definitions, highlighting how each plays a vital role in shaping and sustaining the non-profit arts sector.

Data Error Flagging & Cleaning Choices

As highlighted by the 2009 Imagine Canada data quality report, the T3010 data set has many issues. The issues from that report have not gone away in the interim.

  • We do not wish to remove outliers/likely erroneous values, as we want to be able to show them in the individual records.
  • We also do not wish to include outliers/likely erroneous values in summarized values, as they are likely to throw the data off.

Instead, we flag outliers/likely erroneous values and exclude them from summary measures, retaining the values for individual record display, and the flagging can be noted then.

For the 2013-2022 arts organization dataset, 4,986 values were flagged in these reporting areas, a bit over 5% of the values reported for these columns for these year. These are the key values that error-finding was focused on, as they had the biggest impact on the data stories.

Another data issue is that of boxes that should add up to other boxes failing to do so. For the dashboard, we defined "Other Revenue Types" as "Total Revenue" - "Total Government Revenue" - "Fundraising Revenue" - "Total Tax Receipted Value" - "Gifts Without Receipt" - "Goods and Services Sales Revenue". In theory, adding up the "other revenue" box (and a few other revenue types not listed here), should add up to this "other revenue type" box. But it most certainly does not.

Doing it this way assumes that "total revenue" and some of these clear accounting categories are more reliable and any "Other Revenue Type" that is negative after this operations is declared to be zero.

T3010 lines flagged as errors

Use the table below to inspect the lines reported by each T3010 return that have been flagged by our error detection.

While there are certainly other areas of the T3010 that have data errors, these were the pieces that most obviously impacted the DNA so far. As we continue to develop measures for later phases, we'll continue to flag outliers/likely errors. The method of flagging is very straightforward, and new items can be very easily added to it.