An article in last week’s Chicago Tribune discussed a study of Illinois arts executive compensation in some gloomy terms:
….the new study finds that only 10 percent of Illinois arts leaders receive any employer contribution whatsoever to their retirement savings. Other fringe benefits are in similarly short supply. And a striking 50 percent of Illinois arts groups make no contributions to the costs of their employees’ health care, the study finds.
From the survey of 655 Illinois arts organizations, the study found that the average salary for a non-profit arts leader was $49,911, with the most frequent salary amounts at $35,000 and $25,000 (which means there are some serious outliers on the high side, throwing the curve).
There’s all sorts of interesting data and analysis in the report (which is available for download in PDF format from the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center). But particularly worth a note are the organizational profiles extracted from the data. These profiles cluster the variables with the highest correlation to compensation practices, and tell a story about each type:
- A competitive environment is found in pacesetting organizations. This environment attracts star leadership and is characterized by high factor loadings on donated income levels from board members, foundations, and ticket sales, and compensation variables with cash values including the value of the organization’s contribution to retirement fund, total value of benefits, and base salary.
- A generous environment is found in benefit-friendly, standard-bearing organizations. These organizations include some institutions and some smaller, moderately stable organizations. They offer nearly every benefit available including health insurance, pregnancy leave, and contribution to retirement, but with less emphasis on the cash value of these benefits and more emphasis on access to benefits. Available benefits are not strongly correlated with budget size. The strongest loadings are on ”all benefits index” representing the total number of benefits offered and ”number of benefits representing an indirect cost to organization.” In a few of the smaller organizations with this environment, ”sometimes” the executive director’s check is late.
- A restrained environment is weak on benefits. This judicious organization balances staff management with strong institutional ties to government, strong ties to community leadership through its board, concern for the bottom line, and strong customer-service through ticket sales and food service. The strongest loadings are from ”how many full-time staff,” ”line item from government,” and ”board donations,” with comparatively weak loadings on base salary and other compensation variables. All the loadings on ”benefits” are weak, with a negative loading on ”organization pay a portion of health insurance.” This environment attracts competent managers whose pay and benefits are not extraordinary. Strong governance through political and board relationships means it does not have to attract star leadership.
- A hard-working, struggling environment is found in organizations with strong benefits principles and low income. It supports a strong work ethic with good, basic benefits. While always struggling to make ends meet, it is, nonetheless, as supportive as it can be of its very hard working leader. ”Average weekly hours” and ”organization pay a portion of health insurance” load the strongest in this factor. Health insurance as a benefit is likely a strong attraction to executive directors working for such organizations. ”Check late index” appears in this factor, although weak, (-.137) indicating that ”sometimes” the executive director’s check is late.
While the bundled assumptions in these groupings may take some time to unpack (is the fourth group the only one that’s ‘hard-working,’ for example?), the gist of the analysis is worth a moment’s pause.
We tend to cluster ‘the arts’ into one big bucket for any conversation — be it economic impact, social importance, or management analysis. It’s good to see some hard analysis working toward a more nuanced and granular view of how our world works. I’ll look forward to digging in and sharing what I find.
