Conference 09: The ILCDP

December 6 Workshop or conference. Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

This year, in my on-going quest to Become a Better Grant Writer, I visited both the Donors' Forum Library and attended several workshops hosted at the Chicago Cultural Center, including one centering around the development and implementation of the Illinois Cultural Data Project.



The arts sector is notoriously flaky - for the most part it's - "Business model? What business model? We're ARTISTS, man!" Which makes it very difficult to "benchmark" or track stats that other sectors do pretty naturally. Several years ago, The Pew Charitable Trusts in PA started a data collection system for non-profit arts groups. These organizations could use this online module, free of charge and input financials, admission info, ticket and marketing info, all kinds of great stuff. With the click of a mouse, all kinds of useful financial reports could be generated and submitted to funders as a part of their grant process, in a standardized way. Other organizations can also access some of this information to benchmark certain aspects of business. Funders and advocates can also access some of this information, like how large is the arts sector in Illinois? How much revenue does it generate? How many people are employed as part of this sector? all of which makes it WAY easier to appeal to state and national governments for arts funding.**



A group of corporate and foundation funders in Illinois adapted this model and have started implementing it here, hence the ILCDP training session I had to attend. It is internet-based, and requires A LOT of data entry. Naturally, the way they would like to see the information entered is totally different from the way we have it in our audited statements etc, and so despite the fact that we had an intern input FY2007 and FY2008 in the summer, we only just finished submitting this stuff to the CDP.



But I think it will (eventually) be really helpful in our grant process, especially with generating the specialized reports. Quick and easy are always good!!



** In case anyone in Illinois was wondering, our state arts budget was cut hugely this year, with grants coming in about 50% less than they were last year.