Launched in 2015 in response to concerns of a declining audience base for a number of major art forms, the $52 million Building Audiences for Sustainability (BAS) Initiative seeks to help performing arts organizations strengthen their audience-building efforts, see if this contributes to the organizations' financial sustainability, and develop insights from their work to share with the field.

The BAS Stories Project follows a handful of the 25 organizations in the initiative to see how they are using market research to help them learn about their audiences and address key problems of practice. Their stories can be useful for other organizations interested in using market research to answer their own audience-building questions and challenges.

A series of study guides (the first included below, based on Ballet Austin's story) can also help others learn from the experiences of the organizations profiled.