CBmore session 1 - Arts Funding & Capacity Building - notes (createbaltimore@googlegroups.com)

[Kevin Griffin Moreno (Google Docs)]

I've shared CBmore session 1 - Arts Funding & Capacity Building - notes

Click to open:

• CBmore session 1 - Arts Funding & Capacity Building - notes

Create Baltimore

Arts Funding & Resource Development Conversation

January 21, 2012

33 participants

Note-taker: Kevin Griffin Moreno

Topics of conversation:

1. Funding - seeking funding for arts organizations outside traditional sources
2. Capacity Building - finding pro bono professional development, technical assistance, resource development, legal assistance, other support
3. Collaboration - affordable artist space, arts advocacy

Premises/Problems:

1. Solely relying on a traditional model of foundation and government funding is not a sustainable solution for arts organizations.
2. There are alternate sources of arts funding - corporate sponsorship, individual donor cultivation, etc. - but artists and organizations are unclear of how to access them
3. There is a patchwork of capacity building & technical assistance resources in Baltimore, but they are not organized and it is difficult to find information about them.
4. Collaboration, properly conceived and managed, can be a determining factor in creating alternative approaches to funding, capacity-building, space-making, community engagement, etc.

Suggestions

1. Funding

1. Start a locally-focused “kickstarter-type online giving application and/or use existing social media more effectively as friend-raising/fundraising tools.
2. Establish opportunities to convene around creative/alternative funding mechanisms.
3. Focus on cultivating business leadership and corporate sponsorship opportunities.

2. Capacity Building

1. Create clearinghouse of low-cost and pro-bono professional development and technical assistance resources that arts organizations can tap into.

RECOMMENDATION

1. Host a follow-up conversation to talk about creating a clearinghouse of information about pro-bono technical assistance/capacity-building resources for arts organizations.

1. Baltimore Community Foundation would be willing to provide space.

Participant comments

Funding - seeking funding for arts organizations outside traditional sources

1. Doreen Bolger: idea of “Annual Tithing” model for arts funding
2. Idea of a local kickstarter - GiveCorps takes more than kickstarter, has smaller reach.
3. Kickstarter gives air of legitimacy.
4. New people won't fund your project through Kickstarter.
5. Crowdsourcing - kickstarter, indiegogo, aren't realizing their full promise for artists, but they have great potential.
6. Kate B: Baltimore has a huge digital divide preventing people from giving through kickstarter
7. Rodney - they are tools; you still have to do the work. if you're a small org, you have to familiarize yourself with the traditional methods of donor engagement and cultivation.
8. Brew consumers are the kickstarter donors
9. Why not use twitter, existing social media to develop a fundraising campaign, rather than to develop new dedicated sources.
10. John S.: traditional fundraising didn't just end yesterday.
11. Mia: funders act as gatekeepers - city wants college students to stay here
12. Best funded programs were the worst run

Capacity Building - finding pro bono professional development, technical assistance, resource development, legal assistance, other support

1. Bilal Bahar (spelling?) - arts incubator in Bmore National incubation Association - nurtures emerging artists for doing communities
2. Walt Leymann - firm has a long history of working with nonprofits & want to help artists succeed
3. - interested in MLArts - experiences from people around the room
4. Creating resources for creative entrepreneurship
5. Actually a lot of entrepreneurship support at MICA, just not coordinated, not a group set up for it
6. Support for entrepreneurs - collaborations
7. Nat'l Incubation Assoc provides support, etc. to make artists palatable to investors
8. Neverbird Theater cooperative guy - funded as an educational group - we could have been thinking of it as theater, but we are now looking for funding from schools for educational
9. Nathan Fulton - trap experienced by small arts orgs - mission creep, chasing funding. Instead, SCT focuses on being a resource to the community through community art projects, invite people from neighborhood to come see shows, have impact on immediate neighborhood, capitalize on Station North success
10. KGM re small groups lacking capacity
11. Smaller orgs have a capacity issue - they need pro boon resources for t.a./capacity building
12. - KB: there's a group that meets under the banner "tech & social change baltimore"
13. KGM: Patchwork
14. Alan Farkas - there's no centralized source for t.a. for nonprofs, esp. w/staff w/day jobs
15. Nathan F: mentorships - need mentorship resource
16. KKT: board of directors can be your friend…if done correctly (KGM: advisors)

Uncategorized

1. Mia Jones - Baltimore lacks equitable distribution of resources for the arts
2. John Shratweisser (spelling?), Maryland Citizens for the Arts- Prioritize arts advocacy
3. Shawn Campbell

1. interested in unused storefronts as short-term artist leases? (lots of interest expressed)
2. Paul - question of how comfortable people are with unusual places        
3. Free space is important

4. How can we better support street performance?

CAPACITY BUILDING RESOURCES

1. Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore
2. Small Business Administration
3. MICA
4. Tech & Social Change Baltimore group
5. MD Lawyers for the Arts
6. MD Assoc. of Nonrprofits
7. JFB: session for arts orgs
8. Fractured Atlas
9. Space - coworking
10. Business groups
11. Harry Abramson - Direct Dimensions

- supports sculptors with technology through 3d imaging

- as a collaborator - you have to put in a lot of work before we get paid

- where are the sources for funding?

- DD has space for meetings, etc.

Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations.