I first want to thank all of the Fractured Atlas members who took our annual survey — all 724 of you.  We had about 10% of our membership (based on the date we released the survey) take the survey, which gives us a really terrific sample to work from.  This is the first year that we’re going to directly respond to certain things that you expressed in your survey comments.  If you took the survey (or even if you didn’t!), I encourage you to read below:

1 - A lot of you expressed that you didn’t know about a lot of the programs and services we already offer — and we’re glad that some of you were made aware of our full range of services as a result of taking the survey!  I encourage both new and longtime members to visit our website as often as possible.  I know we all complain that we don’t have enough time in our lives, but instead of reading everyone’s updates on Facebook, reordering your Netflix queue, or looking at videos on YouTube, take about 10-15 minutes to just wander around on our website every month or so.  We’re constantly adding new services (keep an eye out for 10 new online courses later this summer!) and some of these things could drastically affect your lives as artists — if you only knew about them!  Since many of our new members have expressed that they would like a “Fractured Atlas orientation session,” we’re hoping to add online videos and/or guides in the near future that will provide quick overviews of our programs.  Unfortunately, with 7500+ members living across the country and only nine staff members (soon to be 10), there’s no way we can hold live sessions.

2 - Yes, we are a national organization and, in general, all of our programs and services are available to artists and arts organizations nationwide. A certain fraction of our membership seems to think that we are a New York organization rather than a national one.  Yes, our sole office is in New York City and yes, about 40% of our members reside in that area, but no, we are not a regional organization.  Our programs and services are available in all of the 50 states and we have members in at least 48 of those (we need artists in North Dakota and Wyoming to join!!).  To clarify a few particular, related items:

- As we are a web-based organization and as all of our programs and services can be used through our website, we don’t really think that having satellite offices in different cities would be overly useful.  We have a lot of Open Arts Network partners across the country, so you can connect to Fractured Atlas through them, and we also make frequent visits to cities beyond New York to attend arts conferences and to speak with local artists and arts organizations in order to find out how we can help them.  If you are interested in bringing us to your city for a meeting, and can gather enough local artists together, please contact us and we’ll see if we can arrange something.

- We do not have full health insurance plans in every state (due to state laws or otherwise), but do offer access to the Arts Wellness Network to members in every state.  If you are wondering why we don’t have a full health insurance plan in your particular state, please visit the Health Insurance section of our website or contact our office.

- Whenever we start a new program, we generally pilot it in New York with hopes of bringing it to other cities and states in the future, should it be successful.  That is the case with NYC Performing Arts Spaces and our current local advocacy effort, Place + Displaced.  Though the latter remains in its pilot phase, we hope to soon begin working with other cities to spread the Spaces program nationwide.  In future incarnations, we hope to provide space listings for the performing arts, visual arts, etc. and not just limit it to music, theatre, and dance.  If you are interested in bringing the Spaces program to your city or state, please contact us with a suggestion for a local arts organization that we can partner with to provide these programs in your area.  If you already offered a suggestion in the survey, we have your information — thank you for entering it.

- Fiscal sponsorship, liability insurance, special offers & discounts, online courses, our grant program, and every other service we offer is available to artists and organizations nationwide.

2A - No, we are not an international organization. We have about 60 members who are not based in the U.S.  There are certainly some services that international members can take advantage of depending on their situation but, unfortunately, we are not aiming to be an international organization and, therefore, there are many services we offer that cannot be used by international members (due to U.S. laws, regulations, etc.).  If you are interested in the particular services you can use if you are not residing in the U.S., please contact our office for more information.  We’d be happy to clarify what is and is not available to you.

3 - Any type of artist, creative professional, or arts/creative organization can join Fractured Atlas and can use our services. There are some of you who think we’re completely dedicated to the performing arts and some of you who think we’re dedicated to the visual arts.  We’re actually dedicated to every type of art form under the sun and we feel that most any artist or arts organization, working within any artistic discipline, can make good use of our programs and services.  Certainly, a large chunk of our membership is made up of actors (about 3,000 of them are currently a part of our community), but we also have about 3,000 writers, 2,500 filmmakers, 2,400 visual artists, 1,000 graphic designers, 1,300 photographers, 800 poets, and 800 composers.  And for the few of you that think we’re about the visual arts, we have 2,000 musicians, 1,800 dancers, and 1,800 performance artists in our membership.

4 - Thoughts?  Issues?  Problems?  Contact our office. We loved reading the praise that many of you bestowed upon Fractured Atlas in the survey.  Thanks for brightening our day!  There were many of you, however, that had some constructive criticism for us — and as the point of the survey is to help us improve, we thank you for that as well.  Then there were those of you that had issues with Fractured Atlas that could have been easily resolved by contacting our office.  Please, do not be scared to contact us!  We pride ourselves on having top-notch customer service and, unless we’re out of the office, we always respond to emails and calls within 24 hours.  (Some of us are even “mystery shoppers” for restaurants and hotels — we covertly experience and critique customer service — so we definitely know the difference between good and bad service!)  Seriously, folks, we want to hear from you year-round, not just in our annual survey.  Have a question?  Ask us. Confused about something on our website?  Tell us. Don’t understand something about a particular service?  Allow us to explain it. Keeping things to yourself will just make you more frustrated and won’t help us improve our programs and services.  It’s very important that you be in touch with us as a member — we exist to help you!

And for those of you that are reading this blog post to figure out who won the $100 Amazon.com gift certificate, it was Rachel Harrison and her company, Three Muses & A Fool Productions, in St. Petersburg, FL (Fractured Atlas members since 2004).

Thanks again to everyone that participated… And for everyone that missed the survey (and for the 150 or so new members that joined as a result of the NPR segment!), please let us know what you love about us, what we can improve, what questions you have, and definitely check out our website to review the wide range of services that are available to you as a Fractured Atlas member.