April 18, 2006

Barry's Blog - Salary Survey Results

Table of Contents:
I. Salary Survey Results
II. 1906 facts

Hello everybody.

"And the beat goes on..............."

I. Sarary Survey Results:
"Give it to me one more time..........."

133 people completed last week's Salary Survey. This was an unscientific survey, meant only to "sample" the current salary / compensation of arts administrators. And while there were obvious design flaws, still the results are interesting.

First, the sample pool was surprisingly balanced and representative of the composition of the arts field, as to discipline, budget size and number of employees. The vast majority of respondents were employed by organizations that have been in existence at least ten years; slightly over half the sampled organiztions had a budget increase in the past year; and the respondents were fairly evenly divided as to job areas (with Executive Directors the largest category - probably due to the fact that many organizations in the smaller budget and number of employees categories have only an Executive Director).

Here are the results from those sections:

Type of organization:
Museum........................................... 6.0%
Gallery.............................................6.8%
Artist Service Provider.......................11.3%
Arts Organization Service Provider.......17.3%
Performing Arts Group - MUSIC.............21.1%
Performing Arts Group - THEATER..........12.8%
Performing Arts Group - DANCE.............10.5%
Film / Media Arts.................................0.8%
Folk Arts...........................................3.0%
Literary Arts......................................1.5%
Mixed Media.......................................2.3%
Presenter..........................................12%
Facilities...........................................3.8%
City / Municipal.................................10.5%
Advocacy Group................................1.5%
Arts Education..................................19.5%

Approximate annual budget of the organization:

$250,00 or less.............................22%
$250,000 to $500,000.....................15.2%
$500,000 to One million dollars........12.1%
One million to Three million dollars..19.7%
Three to five million dollars.............9.8%
Five to ten million dollars................6.8%
Over ten million dollars..................14.4%

In the past year, has the budget:

Increased..........................................52.6%
Decreased.........................................18%
Stayed the same as the previous year.....29.3%

Number of employees:

One................8.4%
1 to 3............14.5%
3 to 5............13.7%
5 to 10...........16.8%
10 to 20.........15.3%
20 or more......31.3%
Length of time organization has been in existence:

Two years or less ....0.8%
2 to 5 years ............6.1%
5 to 10 years...........6.1%
10 years or more .....87.1%
Job position:

Executive Director.......39.7%
Development officer....15.1%
Marketing officer..........8.7%
Program officer...........27.8%
Finance officer ............7.1%
Creative area.............12.7%

When asked what their current annual salary was, over fifty percent indicated their salary was $50,000 or less, with 34% in the $30 to $50,000 classificatiion. Almost three quarters of the organizations provided health coverage, while slightly over half did not have any kind of retirement package.
Current annual salary?

$30,000 or less............23.1%
$30,000 to $50,000.......34.6%
$50,000 to $60,000.......14.6%
$60,000 to $75,000.......10.8%
$75,000 to $100,000......10%
$100,000 to $125,000......4.6%
Over $125,000..............2.3%
(skipped this question) 3

Does your organization provide heath coverage?

Yes .........74%
No............26%
(skipped this question) 2

Does your organization provide some kind of retirement plan?

Yes..........49.2%
No............50.8%
 (skipped this question) 1

Interestingly (and perhaps indicative of systemic turnover), nearly half the respondents have been in their jobs less than three years.

Also interesting is the fact that nearly 41% of the pool indicated they got a raise in the past year (while almost 31% said they have never gotten a raise. Of course those people probably fall into the category of having been on the job, less than three years).

Length of time in current position:

One year or less.....21.8%
1 to 3 years............27.1%
3 to 5 years...........16.5%
5 to 10 years..........15.8%
Over 10 years........18.8%

When did you last get a 'raise'?

In the past year.....40.2%
1 to 2 years ago.....12.9%
2 to 4 years ago ....10.6%
Over 4 years ago ....5.3%
Never..................31.1%
 (skipped this question) 1

When asked what the respondents thought would be a "fair" salary (admitedly a loaded question and of limited benefit), the largest percent response was "an additional $10,000 per year).

What do you think would be fair compensation for your position?

The same as I am currently being paid.....16.9%
An additional $10,000 per year.........35.4%
An additional $15,000 per year.........16.9%
An additional $20,000 per year.........16.2%
An additional $25,000 per year..........6.2%
An additional $30,000 per year..........5.4%
An additional $50,000 per year..........3.1%
(skipped this question) 3

Finally, some 45% indicated that if they don't get an increase in compensation soon, they will have to seek employment elsewhere. That seems a relatively high percentage.

If I don't get an increase in compensation within the next year, I may have to find other employment.

Yes........45.9%
No..........54.9%

Of course, this kind of survey raises more questions than it answers: What is the correlation between increased budgets and raises, if any? What is the correlation between length in one's position, and recent salary increases, and both to the expressed need for more money or the necessity of looking for other work? Which discipline based sector is the most satisfied? The least satisfied? Which discipline sector is the best paid? The least well paid? Is the provision of health care and / or retirement benefits related to the budget size of the organization? Doubtless there are numereous other questions for which it would be beneficial to have the answers.

Increased research, opinion sampling and other data collection (of a more precise and scientific rigidity) would be of value to the field, and perhaps we should begin to address how we might systemically provide that kind of tool across the field.

II. SF Earthquake Anniversary
"Whole lot a shakin' going on............."

April 18th marked the 100th Anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. What was life like 100 years ago? Here are some facts to ponder:

The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US, and only 144 miles of paved roads.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. (With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.)

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour.

The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.

Ninety percent of all US doctors had no college education.

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

The American flag had 45 stars. (Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.)

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 US adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

There were about 230 reported murders in the entire US

One wonders what life might possibly be like in 2106.

Have a great week.

Don't forget to register for the Americans for the Arts Conference June 3-5 in Milwaukee. The HESSENIUS GROUP goes live on June 3rd as an opening plenary session. Click here for more info: http://www.artsusa.org/events/2006/convention/010.asp

Next month we will preview the convention group issues in this blog.

Don't Quit!

Barry

April 09, 2006

Barry's Blog focus on arts administrator compensation

Table of Contents:
I. Arts Administrator Compensation Survey
II. HESSENIUS GROUP live at Americans for the Arts Conference
III. New York creates new office to retain creative advantage

Hello everybody.

"And the beat goes on.................."

The HESSENIUS Group is taking April off, and will resume May 9th.

I. Arts Administrator Compensation - TAKE THE SURVEY
"The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I want money, that's what I want..........."

As there is little real change in the five year depressed funding for the arts in America, I've been wondering about the impact on the level of salaries paid to arts administrators. Several comments to last month's HESSENIUS Group on recruiting new leadership mentioned the continuing low pay as an issue.

Except for the very largest (major city) cultural institutions, and perhaps some of the national arts organizations, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that base pay for senior arts administrators remains below competitive market levels for the private sector. There are, of course, numerous issues to consider in discussing compensation: how can we recruit the best and brightest of the next generation if we lag too far behind the private sector in competitive pay? To what extent does low pay result in systemic turnover? Is this an issue nonprofit boards of directors are dealing with? What role do funders play in either the solution to the problem of low pay, or in the problem itself?

I wonder if arts administrators have gotten any raises in the past couple of years? Have organizational budgets grown during the same period? Is health care and / or retirement plans the norm or the exception? What do arts administrators think is "fair and reasonable" compensation for their jobs?

I've put together a very simple, on-line, unscientific survey that I hope you will complete.
It is completely anonymous.
There are only 13 multiple choice questions, and
it will take you less than three minutes to complete.

Here is the link to be taken directly to the survey: ">Click here to take survey Please pass on this link to your colleagues. The more people that fill out the survey, the more accurate it will be.

If enough people take it, I will report the results to you in a couple of weeks.

Thanks.

II. HESSENIUS Group "Live" at the Americans for the Arts Conference in Milwaukee June 3rd.   
"Together, at last at twilight time............"

The HESSENIUS Group (the McLaughlin take off with an arts focus) will go live at this year's Americans for the Arts Conference on June 3rd in Milwaukee.

The AFTA Conference (like the Rose Bowl, the "granddaddy of them all") is perhaps the single best "networking" conference for the arts. I've been to ten of them, and have come away from each one with an idea and contacts for something specific that later became tangible. If you've never been to one of these conferences, you should consider going. Click here for registration information: http://www.artsusa.org/events/2006/convention/010.asp

III. Squandering the advantage of creativity
"The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind............."

In an article in the New York Times last week (April 5th), it was reported that:

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that the city would create a new office to "aggressively pitch New York City around the world as the nation's art and cultural capital" by helping nonprofit organizations, especially those in the arts, cope with the high costs that threaten their survival.

"We won't and can't be complacent," Mr. Bloomberg said, adding that he was determined not to cede New York's status as a world cultural center. "In the creative sector, as in so many other areas, at one time New York City didn't have to compete with other cities," he said at a conference at the Museum of Modern Art that brought together 220 officials, artists, business people and academics. "Now we do. Other cities are quickly learning the benefits of being a creative hub."

The conference was intended as a response to a report in December that described the "creative sector" -- defined broadly to include advertising, publishing and broadcasting as well as the arts as a critical element of the city's economy. The Partnership for New York City, an alliance of business leaders, organized the conference, along with the city, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Center for an Urban Future, a Manhattan-based research organization that prepared the report with help from the consulting firm Mt. Auburn Associates.

"This is our competitive advantage, and we are losing it," said Robin J. Keegan, a research fellow at the Center for an Urban Future and co-author of the report.

The arts have been chanting this mantra for years. Building on Dr. Richard Florida's thesis, we've been arguing that the economic advantage of American's creative capital is being threatened. New York is, at least, seemingly doing something to address the issue. Can this approach be replicated?

Those concerned with global warming have, of late, been trying to awaken people by suggesting, based on experts' beliefs, that we have perhaps ten years before it will be too late to do anything about the problem -- you can't re-freeze the ice caps. Maybe we should steal a page from that strategy and posit that in "X" period of time, it will be too late for America to retain its' creative capitol status (if it isn't too late already).

I think we've been doing a good job in making our argument - but, like those concerned with global warming, we face the question of whether or not people are listening. Anything we can do to keep the issue at the forefront helps, and so maybe we can urge city leaders across the country to consider a New York approach and create an office within each Mayor's office to do something to protect creative capital.

Have a great week.

And, Don't Quit.

Barry