Dear Friend:
We are living through an unprecedented time. Like many organizations, RISCA is thinking about what we do and how we can better support the RI arts and culture community. This may involve continuing to provide the programs and services on which you depend. It may also involve reimagining our work so that it is of greater assistance during this unique period.
We know you have been asked to do many surveys. We have resisted the urge to bombard you with surveys, and have only asked you to complete one survey (so far) that directly supported federal advocacy efforts by Americans for the Arts. Today, we are asking arts and culture organizations to complete two surveys by September 18th. This quick turnaround time is important as we will immediately review and make use of the data to support the work of state and federal policy-makers.
• RISCA’s Organizational Support in the time of COVID-19 Survey (17 questions; estimated time to complete survey: 20 minutes with assembled information). The primary purpose of this survey is to understand the financial impact of the pandemic on your organization. We understand these questions are sensitive, but we need to ask them as they will support our continued efforts to access public support for arts and culture organizations. Your responses will be confidential. Outside of RISCA staff, the data collected from this survey will only be shared in anonymous aggregate. See survey and instructions here – you will want to read over the questions and instructions to see what information you need before completing it.
• RI Nonprofits and COVID-19: A Survey on Organizational Impacts, Needs, and Supports (21 questions; estimated time to complete survey: 20 minutes). The purpose of this survey is for RISCA and other partners to understand the impact of the pandemic on the entire Rhode Island nonprofit ecosystem.
This survey is a partnership with Grantmakers Council of RI, Fio Partners, RISCA, and other RI-based funders. Many community partners are distributing this survey, so if you receive multiple invitations to complete it, you only need to do so once (we will be sharing response data). As funding organizations are considering how to best support the nonprofit sector through grants, technical assistance, and learning, we want to make sure arts and culture organizations needs are included in their assessment. See survey and instructions here.
We have crafted these surveys to complement each other and not duplicate questions. In a few cases, RISCA’s survey digs deeper on a related question asked in the RI Nonprofits survey.
It’s important to remind everyone that we do not – as of early September – have a state budget for the fiscal year that started on July 1st. We have no idea what the state budget will look like, but we do know that the State of Rhode Island is facing significant financial challenges. This, too, will have an impact on what we are able to do to support the Rhode Island arts and culture community.
For now, please stay safe! We value and appreciate all that you contribute to the cultural life of our state.
Sincerely,
Randall Rosenbaum