The California Cultural Data Project (CDP) is a collaborative project of public and private funders throughout the State of California. Fiscal Year 2011 will be the second year that the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture (Commission) with financial support from the San Diego Foundation will be using the CDP to collect parts of the Organizational Support Program (OSP) application.

The Commission, along with other public and private funders in California, now requires applicants to complete a profile through the Cultural Data Project website.

The CDP is an online system for collecting and standardizing historical, financial and organizational data and will provide the cultural community with consistent, reliable, and comprehensive data on arts and culture in California. It is hoped that access to reliable data about the cultural sector will enhance both individual organizational capacity as well as the overall effectiveness of the nonprofit cultural community in our state. Further, applicants applying to more than one of the participating grantmakers will only need to complete this form once each year.

Uses and potential benefits of the CDP Web site and data will include:

• Information for participating nonprofit organizations for use in benchmarking and capacity-building.
• Information for the cultural sector for the purposes of policy and program development and public relations.
• Information for participating grantmakers for use in their application process.

Participation in the CDP is required for all Organizational Support Program applicants and is part of the application.

CDP is intended to benefit the field by providing a means by which to analyze and report on the impact, assets, and needs of the state’s cultural community. This powerful tool will enable participating organizations to benchmark their progress and better equip advocates to make the case for arts and culture and will facilitate improved grant making and policy development by the funding partners.

In order to complete the CDP Profile (Profile), organizations must first register at the CDP website by creating an organizational login ID and password.

Information for the Cultural Data Profile is organized by fiscal year-end and data is only entered for completed fiscal years for which a board-approved financial audit or review exists. Organizations that are not audited or reviewed will enter data based on board-approved year-end financial statements.

Applicants are asked to provide two years of financial and organizational data the first year of participation; this entails completing a Profile for each of the two most recently completed fiscal years. (Going forward, groups will only need to provide one year of data.) You will have access to online training and can get free support from the Help Desk during regular business hours.

The Profile will collect the historic financial and programmatic information for your organization or arts program. Project budgets and narratives will NOT be captured by the CDP.

Upon completion of the Profile, applicants must go to the “Funder Reports” section of the CDP Web site and print the pre-defined report for the OSP application, which is to be included with the application materials. Relevant information from the applicant’s Profile will automatically be imported into the Commission’s “Funder Report.”

The completion of the Profile will require an investment of time. A number of resources will be available to help applicants, including a Help Desk and online training.

Applicants should direct questions concerning the Profile to:

California CDP Help Desk
Toll Free: 1-866-9-CAL-CDP
Email: help@caculturaldata.org
The CA-CDP Help Desk is available Monday – Friday from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. PST.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to begin entering their data as soon as possible. Your participation in this project will benefit both your own organization and our region as we strive to collect better data related to the outcomes of arts and culture.