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Introduction

The world is an increasingly interconnected place, busy with mobility and rapid change. Families are relocating, immigrants are settling in, and rural areas and industrial towns are being transformed through global economic shifts. A sense of community is not something many of us can take for granted anymore. Yet across the United States, nonprofit cultural heritage organizations are helping people to remember and celebrate their shared experiences, traditions, identities, struggles, and aspirations. Most civic activity leads to a greater sense of community and that is one reason it is vital to civil society and public life. For cultural heritage organizations, building and sustaining a sense of community is the primary objective. This can happen simply by providing a place for neighbors to meet on the streets and corners they share, as it does at neighborhood fairs. It can happen when an ethnic group gathers to observe an important holiday, or when a city celebrates its diverse music and food traditions, or when immigrants organize to teach their history and values to young people. It can happen at county fairs and folklife programs, and in community cultural centers and native language schools. Despite the importance of cultural heritage organizations, almost nothing is known about how these groups are structured and sustained. This report examines the size, scope, and financial health of nonprofit cultural heritage organizations in the United States and their importance to our communities.

The analysis is based primarily on information gathered from Form 990s that nonprofit organizations file with the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) and provided by the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS). While the NCCS has the most comprehensive, national database on nonprofit public charities (i.e., 501(c)(3) organizations), this database underreports (1) small organizations that receive less than $25,000 in gross receipts annually and (2) religious organizations, because these two types of nonprofits are exempt from filing Form 990s (although some do so voluntarily).

These limitations are particularly relevant to research on cultural heritage organizations. Several studies suggest that very small organizations and religious institutions provide essential structural supports for cultural heritage activities, particularly in minority, immigrant, and low-income communities (see Cleveland 2000; Staub 2003; Stern 1997; Wali, Severson, and Longoni 2002; Walker 2003). Moreover, cultural heritage organizations present some special challenges because cultural differences are central to their activities. Culturally different understandings of the terms used to describe organizational mission, linguistic differences, and cultural assumptions built into the classification systems become particularly apparent when looking at this group of nonprofit organizations. For example, some South Asian nonprofits describe what appear to be community cultural organizations as "churches," apparently because these organizations are based on Hindu principles of communal responsibility and philanthropy. Such groups can therefore get overlooked or misclassified in the NCCS data files. Nonetheless, because of its size and comprehensive nature, the NCCS database is an excellent resource for assessing the basic parameters and financial structures of this diverse and understudied aspect of civil society.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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