New Dashboard Tracks Financial Health of Allegheny County Arts Nonprofits
Allegheny County’s nonprofit arts sector now has a powerful new tool to track its health and sustainability: ArtPulse, a financial indicator dashboard from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.
Developed using software in partnership with EcoMap Technologies, ArtPulse analyzes and visualizes trends at both the organizational and sector levels. Data is compiled from public sources like IRS Form 990s, minimizing the need for manual entry, and is currently representative of 90 regional assets of Allegheny Regional Asset District (RAD). ArtPulse provides annual comparisons that show whether key indicators are improving, holding steady, or declining.
The dashboard fills a long-standing gap: the lack of clear, consistent data on finances, operations, and impact of nonprofit arts organizations and the ecosystem at large. Without this kind of information, it’s hard for organizations — and the funders and policymakers who support them — to understand sector health, spot risks, or plan for the future.
"This new dashboard sets a standard for how regions can use data to strengthen creative communities."
ArtPulse is interactive, allowing users to toggle between five budget tiers and includes data as far back as 2010.
“The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council recognized that arts organizations need the same kind of visibility that other sectors rely on. ArtPulse delivers that clarity,” says Sherrod Davis, co-founder and CEO of EcoMap. “This new dashboard sets a standard for how regions can use data to strengthen creative communities, and EcoMap is proud to power it with a turnkey technology-driven solution built for this sector.”
The Arts Council has identified two key insights in the preliminary review of the ArtPulse dashboard:
Fundraising efficiency ratios have trended downward across every budget tier for at least the past 15 years. In 2010, organizations spent on average about 7.5 cents to raise a dollar. By 2023, that figure declined to just 3.5 cents. While this looks like a positive trend on paper, it also raises questions: Are organizations investing enough in fundraising staff, systems, and donor stewardship? When efficiencies are this low, nonprofits can become overly reliant on grants, limiting their flexibility and long-term growth potential.
When organizations with annual budgets of $5 million or more are removed, operating reserve ratios have dropped by nearly 30% in the past five years. This means many organizations now have fewer unrestricted funds to draw on, making them more vulnerable to unexpected challenges.
“These findings highlight shifts in how arts organizations are securing and managing resources. Understanding these trends within our sector is essential,” says Arts Council CEO Patrick Fisher. “Only by seeing the full landscape can we develop the strategies and tactics needed to strengthen the resilience and impact of our ecosystem.”
ArtPulse’s sector-level dashboard is made public to inform the field, and all individual organizational data remains private and secure. Organizations interested in receiving a personalized dashboard can contact Membership Director André Solomon at membership@pittsburghartscouncil.org.
The dashboard is currently in a pilot phase and the Arts Council is actively collecting feedback to optimize the dashboard to benefit user experience and ensure accuracy. Over time, the Arts Council also plans to expand the dashboard to include additional operational, governance, and programmatic indicators. Those interested in submitting feedback can do so using this online form.
