A bunch of terrific organizations provide fiscal sponsorship and I was fortunate to meet and learn about them last week at the second Annual Gathering of the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors. The NNFS is dedicated to improving the practices, capabilities, and awareness of fiscal sponsorship in the nonprofit sector through education and advocacy. 50 participants from 35 organizations met to discuss best practices, strategies for improving the understanding of fiscal sponsorship, paths to create technological savvy for fiscal sponsors, and fundraising during an economic downturn. Some of the other arts organizations participating in the gathering included Arts Engine, Brooklyn Arts Council, Independent Arts & Media, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Field, and Women Make Movies.

Some tidbits from the meeting regarding fiscally sponsored artists include:

• Engage funders as allies. Be pro-active when contacting funders. Focus on aspects of your work that are innovative, outside the mainstream, and encourage civic engagement.

• It is often overlooked that a fiscally sponsored project is part of a community of artists. Consider ways to join with others in this community to strengthen your goals and support each other. Doing so may help you to not only strengthen your resources, but to improve your outcomes and impact.

• Remember when you’re contacting funders as a fiscally sponsored project, you’ll need to be able to clearly explain and show why your work deserves charitable dollars - especially since your project has not been deemed charitable by the omnipresent IRS hovering on the brains of funders. Break down everything you do into measurable parts and make sure the funders understand what type of quantifiable results you expect.

As a member of the NNFS, Fractured Atlas is excited to work with other fiscal sponsors to help the public and funders navigate fiscal sponsorship and build capacity to advance public benefit. I have volunteered to act as the arts participant for the Strategic Planning committee of the NNFS and will continue to work with other fiscal sponsors along with funders to advocate for fiscal sponsorship.

P.S. If you really want to know the answer to how many organizations provide fiscal sponsorship, you can check out the Tides Center’s Fiscal Sponsor Directory and the soon to launch Fiscal Sponsor Directory by the San Francisco Study Center.

I’m in Moncton, New Brunswick this week for the annual Canadian Public Arts Funders conference.  I’ve been invited to speak about “emerging alternatives to the traditional non-profit model” for the arts.  I warned them that all of my meager knowledge on this subject is based on US laws and tax policy, but they assured me that wasn’t a problem.  Nonetheless, I thought it would be prudent to do a few minutes of research on the legal and fiscal landscape here, so that I could competently address any big differences with the way we do things down south.

To my surprise, it appears that the laws governing charities and charitable giving in Canada are extremely similar to what we’ve got in the US.  I say this surprised me because I know they’ve got a very different ratio of public support to private support than we have.  In the US, the vast majority of support for non-profit organizations comes from private sources (e.g. individuals and foundations).  In Canada, it’s much more balanced.  (In Europe, of course, almost all support comes from public sources.)

Since I’m one of those free-market-believes-in-the-power-of-incentives kind of guys, I was expecting that the discrepancy in funding source significance would be the result of some underlying difference in tax codes or giving incentives.  But if that’s the case, then the culprit is too subtle to be revealed by my superficial research.  That’s possible, of course, but more likely there are simply different factors at work.

Could this difference simply be cultural?  Is there more of a collectivist/socialist mentality in Canada that suggests that social needs can and should be fulfilled primarily by the government?  Or perhaps the fact that public funders are comparatively generous lets private supporters off the hook.

It’s a tricky question, and I don’t have anything approaching an answer.  Regardless, it’s clear that the US model of philanthropy is ascendant and the European model in decline.  This will dismay some of us in America who have spent decades salivating over the generosity of countries like Finland.  Still, it’s the way things are headed, so we who have always lived with a quasi-market-based approach to philanthropy should be prepared to counsel and coach our peers as they detach from the government teat.

A few weeks ago I was in Pittsburgh for the Technology in the Arts Conference.  Presumably because I was both a presenter and a member of the conference steering committee, they decided to interview me for the official podcast.  If you’ve got an interest in the subject matter, it might be worth a listen.  I’m the third person interviewed, but the first two have some great stuff to talk about so you should check them out as well.

On a selfish/self-conscious note…  Do I always sound like such a nasally dweeb?  (Please don’t answer that unless the answer is “no”.)

Several of us from Fractured Atlas will be at the Technology in the Arts Conference this week(end) in Pittsburgh.  FA Managing Director Arwen Lowbridge and I will be doing a presentation called “The End of Data Entry: Liberate Your Organization through Automation and Integration”, while Director of Member Services Adam Natale will be teaming with a colleague from Dance/USA to do a session on online learning.

I know this is a niche event, but it seems like everyone I know is going to be there (which is kind of a sad commentary on the narrowness of my world, but I digress…) so if YOU will be there as well, drop me a note at adam [dot] huttler [at] fracturedatlas [dot] org.

The 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference will be taking place in Pittsburgh, PA, from October 9th-11th.  Both Fractured Atlas’ Executive Director, Adam Huttler, and Director of Member Services, Adam J. Natale, will be conducting seminars during the conference.  And, since Fractured Atlas members can receive a 25% registration discount, we encourage you to attend (we would encourage you to attend anyway, since it’s one of the best conferences out there!).

The Technology in the Arts Conference is a resource for the arts community, sparking dialogue around the role of technology in our planning and programming, discussing best practices as well as lessons learned, and providing hands-on, practical skills where possible.  The annual conference brings together the full spectrum of organizations within the arts, from the local to national levels, to examine the commonalities that exist in useful technologies as well as the opportunities for partnership.

Online registration for the 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference is now open.  If you are a Fractured Atlas member and wish to take advantage of the discount, simply go to our Special Offers & Discounts section and scroll to “Technology in the Arts.”  This discount applies to the Hands-On Training Workshops as well as to general conference registration.  If you apply by September 5, 2008 (the early bird deadline), you can save even more money!

Further information on the conference - registration deadlines, hotel accommodations, schedule, etc. - may be found at http://www.technologyinthearts.org/conference.

The conference is also still accepting nominations for the 2008 ArtsTech Awards for Artists, Arts Organizations, and Funding Organizations through August 8, 2008 (so please nominate us!).  Further information on criteria and the nomination process may be found at http://www.technologyinthearts.org/?page_id=492.

We hope to see you in Pittsburgh!

I am thrilled to announce that Fractured Atlas has signed on as an official partner for the National Performing Arts Conference. The conference happens every four years and will be held this June in Denver, CO.

I am moderating two panel discussions focused on fiscal sponsorship/incubator programs and our Director of Member Services, Adam Natale, is serving as a panelist for a session titled “The Art of Living or Living for Art: A Survival Guide for Artists”.

To all our members who work in the performing arts, I encourage you to consider attending!

Expect more posts on this subject as things with the conference move ahead.

I’m here at the Technology in the Arts Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. This morning’s session is The Art of Second Life: Artists and Arts Organizations in a Virtual World.

Two confessions:

1. I’ve never used Second Life
2. I find the whole concept both fascinating and a little scary

My interest in Second Life isn’t about meeting chicks or escaping my own sad existence. I’m happily married and have a fulfilling career. However, being the good young capitalist that I am, I’ve been endlessly curious about the business opportunities presented by Second Life. The whole thing feels a bit like an uncharted frontier or the Wild West. Few of the rules and restrictions of civilization apply, which presents some incredible opportunities for those who are inclined to jump in and take them.

Most of what Fractured Atlas does is about leveling the playing field for artists and arts organizations. We try to give our members tools and resources that narrow the gap between our industry’s haves and have-nots.

My instinct is that Second Life presents a huge opportunity to do just that in a big way. A small performing arts organization could, in theory, build a massive multi-stage performance complex in Second Life for just a few dollars a month (and a lot of creativity and sweat equity). Compare that to the millions of dollars and years of work that it would take to do that in the real world.

What does all this mean? Is there a role for Fractured Atlas to play here? I don’t know. But I’m going to keep thinking about this. Stay tuned.

I’m here in lovely downtown Schenectady, NY at the annual Arts Summit hosted by The Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations. Being the downstate snob that we NYCers tend to be, I only heard about this conference because I was invited to speak on “mobilizing artists” (a subject that consumes quite a lot of my attention these days). I’m glad I came, though, since it gave me a great perspective on the arts service infrastructure throughout NY State.

A few observations, in no particular order:

1. Kudos to Philip Morris for his amazing work on Proctor’s Theater. The Mainstage is by far the most spectacular venue in which I’ve ever appeared (albeit on a panel discussion).

2. Interesting keynote from State Assemblyman Steven Englebright, the new Chair of the Committee on Tourism, Arts, and Sports Development. He seems sincere in his belief in and support of the arts, albeit from a rather traditional, preservationist perspective. I asked him whether his peers in Albany yet understood what a powerful driver of economic development the arts can be. He was quite eloquent in articulating the intrinsic value of the arts, as he urged us not to ignore the “art for art’s sake” argument. This was a great answer for the assembled crowd, but my own experience suggests this approach is more than a little optimistic. Even when you’ve got a sincere advocate like Assemblyman Englebright (or a few others I know in Albany) he’s still got to make the case to his constituents when it comes time to justify a tax increase or budget allocation.

3. New York really is a rather rural state once you leave New York City and the surrounding counties. The vast majority of attendees are from tiny regional arts councils, most of which represent a county in upstate or Western NY. I’m used to thinking of arts councils as being rather substantial, well funded institutions, but a lot of these organizations appeared to have budgets under $1 million and only a handful of staff. Nonetheless, some great, intelligent, dedicated advocates can be found in the leadership ranks of these rural arts councils, which is a good reminder for we downstate snobs.

4. We’ve got to expand our advocacy beyond the funding issue. The leading arts advocacy organizations on the city, state, and federal levels all focus the vast majority of their time and energy on increasing public funding. As a grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs it would be hypocritical of me to complain too much about this (although I’m not afraid to say that I’m generally ambivalent about public funding for the arts). Still, fighting over budget allocations is a zero-sum game. Asking for another dollar of support for the arts means asking for a dollar more in taxes or a dollar less in other government spending. You’re bound to make enemies and there’s a limited upside.

Advocacy on other policy issues tends to be far more complex and a lot more challenging when it comes to mobilizing the arts community. But we’ve got to buckle down and do it. We can’t be afraid to tackle healthcare, urban cultural policy, community development, tax policy - all the issues that impact the context in which artists live and work. This kind of advocacy needn’t be a zero-sum game, which means we’ve got opportunities to form alliances with all sorts of non-arts constituencies facing similar challenges. There’s also the added benefit that bolstering our infrastructure interferes less with our industry’s natural workings than curatorial funding does (i.e. a rising tide lifts all ships).

5. “Mobilizing artists” is really, really hard. I began my breakout session by admitting that I don’t know how to do it, and as far as I can tell, neither does anyone else. I’m optimistic, however, that some of Fractured Atlas’s current work on civic engagement and community mapping holds some real potential to develop a replicable model.

Anyway, today it’s back to my cage in the garment district. Thanks to Judy Weiner and the Alliance for inviting me to speak and for putting on a worthwhile conference.