We are doing a budget for a not for profit arts and cultural center in
New York. We are trying to come up with a basic % of our total
operating budget that should be allocated for Information Technology
needs. We are looking for references on what other major arts
organizations spend (percent wise).

EJP –

Having done a fair amount of research in the area of corporate AND
non-profit spending on IT, you’ll find a dearth of information on the
area.  Of course most research concerns corporate spending.  But that
doesn’t mean that it’s non-existent!

This is an interesting project report on IT investment for the San
Francisco Opera.  It considers the strategic goals of the upgrades and
has excellent budget details alongside the revenues for the Opera:
University of San Francisco
"The San Francisco Opera – An Introduction" (undated)
http://dons.usfca.edu/~muhaji2/sfopera1.html

A Canadian consulting firm, Levurus Associates has tracked IT spending
for non-profit agencies specifically and has two interesting reports
with budget information.  The 2002 survey is much heavier on web
spending, noting that in Canada:
50% spend less than 1% of total budget on the Internet
32% spend 1-3%
  7% spend 4-5%
  6% spend 6-10%
  4% spend more than 10%

Leverus Associates
"Leverus Annual Internet Survey for Associates and Non-profit
Agencies" (April, 2003)
http://www.leverus.com/associationresourcecenter/Leverus_%20Survey_Results2002.pdf

Equally valuable is the first survey that Leverus conducted in 2001. 
The surveys are both excellent because of the large number of
organizations contacted and because Canadian and U.S. numbers are very
comparable in IT markets:
"Leveraging the Net: Association Internet Benchmark Spending"
(December, 2001)
http://www.leverus.com/associationresourcecenter/Leverus_survey2001.PDF
 

You may find this Google Answer on corporate IT spending of interest,
if only because it shows how wide the range of spending can be among
commercial firms:
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=199713

 
Google search strategy: 
"non-profit" + "IT spending"
"arts organizations" + "IT spending"
 
Best regards, 
 
Omnivorous-GA

Thanks for the quick reply. The research looks great. Now I just have
to convince the boss to spend the $$$.  Thanks, ed.