This boom in the overall number of nonprofits, however, has not come in response to an increase in overall funding. By 2008, some 41 percent of arts organizations were running a deficit. But even before the economic crisis seriously hit in 2007, more than a third of nonprofits were running a deficit, because more organizations were competing for available funding that remained at roughly the same level.

– Also continuing a trend that's been unspooling since before the downturn, the arts are losing ground to other potential recipients for charitable donations: "The share of all philanthropy going to the arts has dropped from 4.9 percent to 4.0 percent over the past decade," the report notes. Between 2006 and 2009, arts support declined from 8 percent to 6.2 percent of total corporate giving.

– Another alarming trend: A noteworthy decline in the number of visitors to artistic events. "Between 2003 and 2009, the percentage of the population attending art museums and performing arts events both decreased (‐19 percent and ‐22 percent, respectively)," the report states.

– Despite this trend, more people are being pushed to try their luck as "self-employed" artists: "The self‐employed artist‐entrepreneur — active as poet, painter, musician, dancer, actor, and in many other artistic disciplines — is alive and well, with total numbers growing every year between 2000 and 2008 (from 509,000 to 676,000)."

Presumably reflecting a nation that continues to become more diverse, one of the fastest growing areas of interest in the arts is "culturally and ethnically diverse arts organizations." Such organizations have doubled in number over the period tracked by the Arts Index, from 4,806 to 9,609.– Last, but not least, for anyone thinking that Americans for the Arts's National Arts Index is nothing more than a transparent gambit to win more government funding, read on to the bracing conclusion of the summary version. There, the report proposes that given the profusion of underfunded organizations, the nonprofit model may have to be abandoned in favor of more experimental or market-oriented business models for the arts. Ways to cull the herd should be considered, the report suggests, in order to help the struggling organizations "die with dignity."