National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures Survey
Problem
Latinx/é arts and culture organizations shape communities across the United States, yet their work has remained largely invisible in national datasets.
Many Latinx/é arts organizations anchor cultural life in neighborhoods across the country, sustaining traditions, nurturing artists, and serving as community gathering points. Yet the contributions of these organizations have received relatively little recognition in the systems, structures, and research that support the arts sector, leaving funders, policymakers, and the field itself without a clear picture of their scale, needs, and impact.
To begin closing this gap, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) launched a national survey of Latinx/é arts and culture organizations in 2019. By the early 2020s, however, the COVID-19 pandemic had significantly reshaped the field. NALAC sought an updated and more comprehensive assessment to inform future programs, advocacy, and funding priorities.
Solution
NORC and NALAC partnered to expand the national directory of Latinx/é arts and culture organizations.
NALAC and NORC’s research partnership expanded both the reach and the depth of the 2019 survey. NORC led survey design, bilingual (English/Spanish) translation, and a revamp of the questionnaire to focus on post-pandemic recovery, organizational capacity, community engagement, and long-term sustainability. To reach organizations not represented in existing directories, NORC combined NALAC’s existing network with experimental sampling across two waves of data collection, then led analysis of the resulting data.
Result
NALAC now has the national data and public tools to raise the visibility of the Latinx/é arts and cultural field.
The 2024 National Latinx/é Arts and Culture Survey gathered information from 493 organizations across the United States and Puerto Rico, giving NALAC a national evidence base to inform its programs, advocacy, and funding priorities and make a case for the field with funders, policymakers, and the public.
The data documented a locally rooted field with wide programmatic breadth. Nearly 3 in 4 organizations reported increased community demand for programs since 2020, and almost half were unable to fully meet that demand due to funding, staffing, or resource shortfalls. Cash-flow and unrestricted-funding pressures emerged as the most significant pressures on organizational sustainability.
NALAC and NORC published the findings in the December 2025 research report, A Mirror and a Map: Reflecting Organizational Realities and Navigating Change among Latinx/é Arts and Culture Organizations. NALAC also launched an interactive bilingual website and resource toolkit that lets organizations, funders, and policymakers explore the data, and apply it directly to board conversations, sustainability planning, and field-wide advocacy.
Related Tags
Data & Findings
Project Leads
-
Gwendolyn Rugg
Senior Research ScientistProject Director -
Mitchell R. Barrows
Research ScientistProject Manager
Key Project Staff
Ryan Buechel
Research Director II
“This study helped fill a long-standing gap in what we know about the Latino arts and culture field and gives NALAC the evidence base to advocate accordingly.”
