New NEH-NEA Partnership Will Expand Data Available on Humanities and Arts and Cultural Organizations

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A new interagency partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will support the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Humanities Indicators project to assess the size and health of the nonprofit humanities, arts, and cultural sectors.

Since 2019, the Academy has maintained a National Inventory of Humanities Organizations (NIHO) designed to identify nonprofit institutions—such as libraries, archives, university humanities centers, and historical societies—that support research, education, and public engagement with the humanities. 

Under the new partnership both agencies will work together to expand the dataset to incorporate 80,000 additional organizations and capture a fuller picture of the range of humanities, arts, and cultural activities happening at nonprofits across the United States. The work is supported by a cooperative agreement between NEH and the Academy, with an interagency agreement between NEH and NEA allowing for the project’s expanded vision. This broader remit will allow the Academy to extract federal data on arts and cultural organizations, in addition to humanities organizations, which had been the primary focus of the inventory. In recognition of this expansion, the project will be renamed the National Inventory of Cultural Organizations (NICO). 

“We are thrilled to be working with our sister agency NEA and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Humanities Indicators team to expand and improve our understanding of the range of cultural and educational activities that our nation’s nonprofit organizations support,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo). “The National Endowment for the Humanities is committed to supporting and promoting high-quality humanities programs and to ensuring all Americans have access to humanities resources. These new data sets will give us a more comprehensive understanding of the range and types of humanities activities occurring at nonprofits of all sizes and will better inform the agency’s future outreach and grant offerings.” 

“The National Endowment for the Arts is thrilled for the opportunity to collaborate with NEH on this project to refine and broaden our understanding of the nonprofit arts and cultural sector,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “The NEA is committed to providing researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and the public with relevant data on arts and culture. We look forward to sharing this resource and using it to help inform our own work.”

“The Academy is pleased to partner with NEH and NEA in a collective effort to recognize organizations across the country that help people connect with the value and values provided by the arts and humanities,” said David Oxtoby, president of the Academy. “While cultural activities can add unquantifiable richness to our lives, it is useful to inventory the places that deliver those experiences and resources.”

NICO will assist researchers, funders, and policymakers in better assessing the health of the arts and humanities within the United States and in addressing emerging needs and trends in arts and humanities organizations and fields. Within NEH, this new effort will be administered by the agency’s new Office of Data and Evaluation in cooperation with the Academy. In addition to the incorporation of information on arts nonprofits drawn from IRS filing data, the project will entail the review and coding of metadata within the existing index. NEH and NEA have committed $495,000 for the project, which will release a public dataset in Fall 2026. NEH created the Office of Data and Evaluation as part of its Equity Action Plan to evaluate NEH’s impact on the humanities field and deepen the agency’s engagement with underserved communities.  

Additional data on the arts and cultural sector is available in the NEA’s Research Impact section, including the National Arts Statistics and Evidence-based Reporting Center, an online hub for monitoring the U.S. arts ecosystem through a series of national indicators, and for accessing data-driven guides and reports aimed at arts practitioners. In addition, the NEA’s National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture provides an online repository of arts and cultural datasets, for analysis by scholars, arts managers, and policy leaders.