About CDP
The CDP is a powerful, online management tool designed to strengthen arts and cultural organizations. This unique system allows users to track their own financial and programmatic performance over time and to benchmark themselves against comparable organizations in specific disciplines, geographic regions and budget sizes.
Benefits of participating
The CDP will provide nonprofit arts and cultural organizations with the best tools to easily track trends in performance and benchmark against others. Organizations can quickly and effortlessly produce reports that will help them make their case for support to funders, board members and policymakers. After entering historical financial and operational data into a standardized online form at the end of each fiscal year, organizations can rely on technology to reformat the data to match the needs of different funders. The report needed as one part of the grant application process to participating funders can be generated instantly, greatly reducing the time required to provide the same information to multiple funders.
User support
All participants will receive technical and user support through a toll-free help desk, free access (by phone) to a team of financial consultants, statewide on-location workshops and online training provided throughout the year. The Help Desk and User Support staff are highly trained in the functionality of the CDP, and the team of financial consultants specialize in accounting for nonprofits. All CDP staff have experience in the cultural community. The Illinois CDP Help Desk and financial consultants are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
As part of the CDP’s ongoing effort to ensure the integrity of the data, the help desk and user support staff will also review the submitted data for potential anomalies or inconsistencies and contact organizations with any suggested revisions. This review process does not prevent organizations from running reports and applying to partnering funders in any way.
Data Profile
The Data Profile is the 11-section online form that participating arts and cultural organizations complete at the end of each fiscal year. The types of data collected include basic organizational information, revenue, expense, marketing activity, balance sheet items, investments, loans and a wide range of non-financial information (including contributor and attendance numbers, facilities, pricing, capital and endowment campaigns, program activity and staffing). Organizations of all sizes can complete the Data Profile, utilizing only the line items applicable to them. This standardized form, used by thousands of organizations in all the participating states, will allow for accurate comparisons across regions.
The data collected by the CDP is based on categorizations used by auditors in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. In contrast, the IRS Form 990 is used by the Internal Revenue Service as an indicator that nonprofit organizations are meeting the minimum requirements for tax exempt status. As a result, the CDP captures more extensive financial and programmatic information that can better tell the story of each organization as part of a grant application, report to a board or research publication.
Cost of participation
There is no cost for arts and cultural organizations to participate in the CDP. A statewide coalition of funders has provided the leadership support for the Illinois CDP as a service to the field and to advance the arts in Illinois and nationally.
Completing the Data Profile, however, will take some time each year. During the first year of participation, each organization will enter information for each of the two most recently completed fiscal years for which the audit/review or year-end financial statements has been board-approved; this will allow groups to see trends in their organizational performance immediately. Depending on the size and complexity of the organization, it can take time to discuss the project with staff, collect the information needed to fill out the Data Profile and enter it online. Generally, organizations should allow themselves two weeks to read the definitions, gather the data and complete the first Data Profile. As completing a Data Profile becomes part of the organization’s annual routine, the time required will decrease.