Our Work, Our Worth
"Dear Chicago Arts Community, this report is for you."
These are the opening lines of Our Work, Our Worth: The Lives and Labor of Chicago’s Arts Workers, a 64-page report outlining key findings from an analysis of over 1,200 sets of survey responses from Chicagoland arts workers. The generosity of our peers who shared this data with us deserves careful stewardship and it is the hope of the organizers of the Chicago Arts Census that we have returned this data with care and thoughtfulness.
As we neared the completion of the interactive data dashboard, we conducted a series of user-testing sessions. We heard from multiple testers that the dashboard would be even stronger if it was accompanied by a detailed report containing high-level observations, close readings, and even recommendations. We took this feedback seriously and began developing Our Work, Our Worth.
The report has three main sections:
1: An Overview that is about three pages long and can be digested in a few minutes.
2: Key Observations. a deeper dive into our data organized by themes
3: A set of Recommendations that we added as a response to feedback we received during the user testing phase of the project. People asked us to share some of the insights that we’ve gleaned from spending so much time stewarding this information.
We hope that this report will help illustrate opportunities for connection, inspire change, and build solidarity among arts workers and others who share our desire to see better living and working conditions for all.