Dear Dayton Area Cultural Leader, 

We respectfully request that your organization to consider participating in a research effort being undertaken by Culture Works. As may or may not know, Culture Works has engaged AMS Planning and Research, a consulting firm well-known nationally for their planning and research services to the arts and entertainment industries, to conduct field research. This effort will help support future cultural planning for the Dayton region and provide information to inform the marketing efforts of all regional cultural groups. We are grateful to the Greater Dayton Cultural and Arts Initiative Fund of The Dayton Foundation for their support of this project. 

Please view a fact sheet regarding the study, prepared by AMS, to help you better understand the entire research process. 

If you would like to participate, you will need to supply AMS with any available lists of attendees and patrons to your organization from the past two complete operating years (most cultural organizations should have this data as the 2010-11 season or fiscal year 2011 and the 2009-10 season or fiscal year 2010). The Data File Setup Instructions and Data File Layout – Example will guide you in the creation of these files for their use in this effort. Your data file will be combined with other cultural organization’s data files to make a master aggregated data file. All information supplied for this study goes directly to AMS, is strictly confidential, utilized for this research purpose only, and will be destroyed once the survey is completed.  Please see the attached privacy policy. 

AMS will utilize this data to conduct an online survey to both the general population and current cultural participants of the Dayton region to better understand what their interests and preferences are for cultural products as well as what are the perceptions, motivators and barriers of the cultural landscape in the Dayton region. Therefore, the inclusion of email addresses for this study as a part your data file will prove crucial in getting reliable data with the highest response rate possible. 

If you do wish to participate, please submit all data to Clint Studinger from AMS Planning and Research at cstudinger@ams-online.com no later than September 26th at 12pm (noon).  

We anticipate having the results of this research in hand to share with all of you (whether you participate or not) by mid-November.  But of course, the more organizations who participate the more accurate the data will be.  Please feel free to contact Martine Meredith Collier at (937) 222-2787 ext. 220 or mcollier@cultureworks.org  if you have any questions whatsoever.