2013

Chorus Operations Survey Report

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Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2Survey Participants………………………………………………………………………………………. 3Detail Tables and Commentary.....................……………………………………………….. 4Board Practices……………………………………………………………………………………………. 4Operating Finances……………………………………………………………………………………… 6Chorus Management Practices……………………………………………………………………. 8Performances, Audiences and Tickets…………………………………………………………. 9Staffing and Compensation…………………………………………………………………………. 11

Introduction

The 2013 Chorus Operations Survey Report represents GALA Choruses’ first survey of member chorus information beyond staffing and compensation data. We hope that our member choruses will find the information useful in benchmarking the performance of their own chorus and setting strategic goals for improvement. The data herein has been broken down by chorus size so that you can make comparisons with choruses similar to your own.

The 2013 report draws on data from the 2011/2012 season. Many of our choruses are still struggling with the decreases in grant funding and individual donations that were the fallout of the 2008 recession. Others have seen record increases in membership and audience size. There is much for all of us to learn in the survey results.

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Survey Participants

The survey was conducted online and was distributed to all of GALA’s member choruses. Useable responses were received from 27 choruses. While the total number of responses were less than we had hoped for, the makeup of the respondents is largely demographically consistent with the underlying member chorus population.

Response by Chorus Type Response by Chorus Size (Number of Singers)

The majority of the data which follows in the detail tables and commentary divide the choruses by size based on number of singers. There are occasions where a chorus with a small number of singers has a large budget and vice versa but these are rare.

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Detail Tables and Commentary

Board Practices

This section presents data on the board practices of the responding choruses. The survey asked about board size, board meeting frequency and board donation practices.

Table 1: Board Size and Number of Meetings

The boards of responding choruses range in size from 6 to 22 members with a trend towards larger boards for the larger choruses. The number of meetings ranged from 3 to 13 meetings per year with the most common pattern being monthly meetings regardless of chorus size.

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Table 2: Board Donation Practices

Table 2 depicts the board donation practices at the responding choruses. The responses included just asking their board members to pay dues, requesting a donation at the board member’s discretion, suggesting a donation of a particular amount, requiring a donation of a certain amount or having a required “give or get” amount. Board members can reach the specified total donation by either requesting donations from others, “get,” and/or make donations themselves, ”give.” The most common practice among the smaller choruses is for donations to be either at the discretion of the board member or for there to be a suggested donation amount. At the larger choruses the board donation practices become more defined with required donations and give or get amounts being set.

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Operating Finances

The survey asked about the chorus’ overall budget size and the breakdown of its sources of revenues and expenses.

Table 3: Operating Budget by Chorus Size

Across the respondents there is a vast range of budget sizes from $2,500 to $1.2 million. The median (value where half the responses are higher and half are lower) and average values proceed as would be expected from the smaller to larger size choruses. The range between the min and max in each size group is also notable and may reflect the age and/or the culture of the chorus.

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Table 4: Revenue Sources by Chorus Size

Earned revenue sources (primarily ticket sales) are one piece of the funding picture with grants, donations and event fundraising as the other largest categories. It is interesting that grants are the largest component of revenues for the smallest choruses and become an increasingly smaller component as the choruses become larger. Individual donations are the largest component of revenues for the mid-size choruses. Ticket sales are the dominant source of revenues for the largest choruses.

Table 5: Expense Categories by Chorus Size

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The dominant expense category for most of the choruses is programming. It is possible that the prominence of operations/management expense for the small choruses reflects a failure to allocate artistic director salary costs to program activities. The expenses devoted to fundraising increase as the size of the chorus increases which is not surprising.

Chorus Management Practices

Member chorus practice varies regarding member dues and audition requirements. Table 6 shows annual dues requirements broken out by chorus size. The median dues amount increases as chorus size increases. The average dues amount for small choruses is impacted by one unusual data point.

Table 6: Annual Dues Information

Chorus practices also differ regarding auditions. About 70% of the responding member choruses require an audition when a singer joins the chorus. In response to a question regarding whether ongoing auditions are required, 52% of the respondents did not provide an answer. Of those who did respond, 83% do not require ongoing auditions and 17% do.

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Table 7: Singer Audition Requirement

Performances, Audiences and Tickets

The question asked in the survey distinguished between programs and performances with a particular program capable of being performed multiple times. The most common number of program performances was 6 – 10 with 20% of the respondents having 5 or fewer performances and 37% of respondents having 12 or more performances. The survey also requested information about outreach performances. Responses regarding the number of outreach performances varied widely with some groups responding that the question was not applicable to 14% of the respondents reporting more than 25 outreach performances each year.

Table 8: Program and Outreach Performances

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Audience sizes, as measured by ticket sales, vary widely across the respondents with some choruses not charging for their concerts. The range of annual tickets sold went from < 600 to more than 10,000. The respondents were about evenly split on whether or not season subscriptions were sold.

Table 9: Ticket Sales

The final question asked in the survey regarding performances, audiences and tickets related to ticket pricing. As with number of performances and audience size there is a broad range of minimum and maximum ticket prices. The lowest ticket price reported was $10 and the highest was > $50.

Table 10: Ticket Pricing

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Staffing and Compensation

The 2013 operations survey asked about the types of positions utilized (artistic director, accompanist, executive director, etc.), the nature of the position (full-time, part-time, volunteer) and the compensation for the position.

Table 11: Paid Employees

The trend in number of full time and part time employees across the table as the chorus size increases is exactly as you would expect. Most small choruses pay their part time artistic directors and accompanists. As the chorus grows towards 100 singers a part time administrative person tends to be added. As the chorus continues to grow additional positions are added including assistant artistic director, operations manager, development manager, marketing manager and production manager.

The salary data gathered in the survey allows us to look at artistic director salaries broken down by chorus size, artistic director tenure and type of chorus. While most of the choruses responding to the survey employ their artistic directors on a less than full time basis, all salary information has been converted to a full time equivalent basis to make it comparable. For example, an artistic director paid $10,000 annually and working 10 hours per week would be earning $40,000 annually on a full time equivalent basis.

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Table 12 Artistic Director Salaries by Chorus Size

The pattern of increasing salaries as chorus size increases is not unexpected and may be explained by education/years of experience, metropolitan area, and by the simple realities of the chorus’ ability to pay.

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Table 13 Artistic Director Salaries by Tenure

There seems to be a general positive correlation between artistic director salaries and tenure although the data is not entirely consistent.

Table 14 Artistic Director Salaries by Chorus Type

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There is insufficient data in the SSAA group to reach any conclusions but there does seem to be a general trend towards higher salaries paid by TTBB choruses followed by SATB choruses and then SSAA choruses.

Table 15 Executive Director Salaries by Chorus Type

The executive director salaries are presented on a full-time equivalent basis as described above for the artistic director salaries. The same factors cited above for artistic director salaries are likely relevant here as well with education and experience, metropolitan area and chorus ability to pay impacting the general trend toward higher salaries at larger choruses.

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Table 16 Wages as a Percent of Budget

The survey data also allowed us to calculate wages as a percentage of budget. While the min, max and median vary, the average values show the progression one would expect of wages as a percentage of budget declining as the size of the chorus grows.

The survey also asked several questions about benefits. Of the survey respondents who answered the question, 37% indicated that they offered health care to their staff. For those offering health care, 33% required an employee co-pay. Paid vacation is provided by 38% of the respondents with paid sick time at 28%. Paid family leave is offered by 16% of the respondents and a retirement plan is provided by only 8%.

Over 75% of the respondents utilize a written contract with their staff with almost all of the contracts one year in length. Two-year contracts are used by 8% of the respondents and 4% use a three-year contract.

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