Alejandra Duque Cifuentes: Good evening everyone, we're going to get started. Thank you so
much for being here and welcome to a conversation focused on the future of fiscally sponsored
artists and projects in New York City. My name is Alejandra Duque Cifuentes and I am
the Programs Manager at Dance/NYC, and I will be your MC tonight along with Risa Shoup,
Executive Director for Spaceworks. I am about 5 feet tall. I am a Latina that is fair skinned,
I have long hair. I'm wearing an open blue shirt that is kind of wavy, with black pants
and black knee-high boots.
Risa Shoup: Hi folks. As Alejandra said, I am indeed Risa Shoup. I am very…*ADC hands
over microphone.* There we go- hey! One more time for the seats in the back, literally.
Thank you Alejandra, thank you all for being here, and again- yes, I am Risa Shoup. I'm
5'7'' on a good day, white, I am wearing a grey button-down shirt, blue jeans, and
brown suede shoes. Tonight the conversation is about fiscally sponsored artists and about
how we may best advocate together to inform Cultural Planning which is currently underway
here by the City of New York. To start off, I would just like to take a moment to offer
us a framework for our evening. Tonight is going to consist of the following activities:
welcome remarks (which we are in the middle of right now), a research presentation (which
will be coming up very soon), a panel discussion with invited artists representing the inter-disciplinary
landscape of fiscally sponsored arts here in New York City (which will be co-facilitated
by Alejandra and myself). And finally, the very best part will be us going upstairs to
the 3rd floor to get together in small groups to do a much deeper vibe into the opportunities
and challenges presented to fiscally sponsored artists and the folks who provide them with
fiscal sponsorship here in New York City. We're really really excited for this. It's
an opportunity to hear a lot more from all of you about your experiences and come up
with some additional recommendations and information that will hopefully align with the research
we will hear here tonight, but also maybe not- and that's OK, too. We will be providing
you with dinner, not just because we want you to stay, but also because it is important
for us to be happy and healthy together. We are really looking forward to that small group
portion at the end.
ADC: Now, some logistical information. Smile! You are on camera. We are taking pictures
and we are recording the event for archival purposes. If you wish not to be photographed,
just let one of our ushers know and they will make sure to connect with our photographer.
Second, you can continue the conversation on Twitter using the handle @DanceNYC and
the hashtag #FiscallySponsoredArtists, #townhall, and #CreateNYC. Third, to learn more about
tonight's event, we also have the program that you see in your hands and all that information
available on the web, and you're welcome to use your devices to check it out. The site
is www.dance.nyc/events/fiscallysponsored artists. And
without further ado, I would like to welcome Janet Wong, Associate Artistic Director for
New York Live Arts.
Janet Wong: Hi everybody. I'm Janet Wong as your heard. I'm the Associate Artistic
Director of New York Live Arts, and I gather I have to describe myself. I am 5'9.5'',
Chinese-American woman, wearing dark flowing clothes. That's about it. I'd like to
welcome you all to my space first of all. New York Live Arts is a proud member of the
coalition of fiscal sponsors that have joined forces with Dance/NYC to start this conversation
about the landscape and future of fiscally sponsored arts. And tonight, we are going
to share the results of this among other things. Fiscal sponsorship has been part of our programs
at New York Live Arts since we began, and we are very proud to be able to continue to
help artists' body base performance and educational projects, raise revenues, and
benefit from consultations on fundraising and grant writing, so on and so forth. Some
of you may be new to New York Live Arts, and some of you have been here before and are
familiar with what we do. I hope you come back to see some upcoming shows- Next week
we have Larissa Velez-Jackson and Yaquez's world premiere of "Give it to You Stage."
After that would be Adrienne Truscott's "This Also" world premiere, and then later
in April we will have the New York premiere of Okwui Okpokwasili's "Poor People's
TV Room." And also in April is a studio in-process showing of Dance Noise's new
work. So, please come back! And now I would like to introduce the Executive Director of
Dance/NYC, Lane Harwell.
Lane Harwell: Thank you. Thank you, Janet, and thank you to the whole team at New York
Live Arts for hosting, and thank you all for being here with us tonight on this cold Sunday.
I'm Lane Harwell, Executive Director of Dance/NYC. On behalf of Dance/NYC, and a coalition
of nine fiscal sponsors, I am delighted to welcome you to this Town Hall about the Future
of Fiscally Sponsored Artists and Arts Projects. The whole evening is conceived as a major
contribution to ongoing cultural planning by the City of New York, and also as a game-changer
for advocacy for those making art outside of traditional nonprofit institutions. The
research that we will share is arts-wide. It builds on Dance/NYC's discipline-specific
studies, and it also complements a recent workforce demographic study by Ithaca SNR
on the Department of Cultural Affairs' grantees, roughly 1,000 nonprofit institutions. Our
goal is to shift the city's purview beyond institutions, and reveal the characteristics,
needs, and opportunities of the sponsored arts, and in doing so, we hope to help realize
the cultural plan that is expansive, that is equitable, and that uses government innovation
that directly impacts artists and their artistry. Now, this effort has been one of collaboration
at every level, and I have many people to thank. The first, the project's lead funder,
the New York Community Trust, in particular, the Programs Director Carrie McCarthy for
her leadership. We have with us representing the trust Michelle Kumi Baer- welcome Michelle,
thank you. Also the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs,
the New York State Council on the Arts (hi Deborah Lim) and the National Endowment for
the Arts. While focused on the city tonight, we all must continue to focus on public support
at every level of government, and we must rally together to save the NEA. *Applause*
I also want to thank you researchers, Carrie Blake, Christina Kruise and her team at Web
Management Services, our partner Ian David Moss at Fractured Atlas, and the Dance/NYC
staff and volunteers working on the ground, in particular, Alejandra Duque Cifuentes,
who is one of your co-facilitators this evening, and J. Soto. Also, our program partners, they're
9: Brooklyn Arts Council, City Lore, Center For Traditional Music and Dance, The Field,
Fractured Atlas, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Live Arts, GOH Productions,
and Pentacle. I think we got everyone there. Thank you all, and thank you to the artists
who lent their voices to survey research and are here with us tonight. Finally, for their
critical collaboration, I thank the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and
its cultural planning team, CreateNYC, particularly Risa Shoup, your other co-facilitator this
evening. And now I'd like to make a quick introduction to Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Cultural
Affairs, Edwin Torres, and to thank him for his leadership in so many ways, and to invite
him just to say a few words of welcome. Please join me in welcoming Edwin. *Applause*
Edwin Torres: I am going to keep this brief. Whenever I've been at an event and somebody
who works for the government grabs hold of the microphone, I can usually think of a number
of things I would rather be doing. I just wanted to say thank you for making this time.
I am really grateful that Lane brought you all together in this way, because our having
gone through this process, and still going through this process, but one of the things
that has really impressed itself upon us is- Now we've been doing this towards the development
of a cultural plan that we will release at the start of July, but ultimately what
it comes down to is as long as we are working for the city, we remain public servants, and
our engaging the public towards this end has revealed to us the extent to which we learn
from you. And that's the way it's supposed to be: the fact that we're doing this now
towards this end has just revealed that we we need to do this, period. That this is a
really great opportunity for us, no matter what we're doing, to hear from the people
who most support the city's creative life, without whom the city's creative life would
not exist or be possible. And so, while I am very excited to have this conversation,
I'm really excited to continue having these conversations as long as I'm working for
you- so I just wanted to say thank you. *Applause*
RS: And now, it gives me great pleasure to finally introduce Carrie Blake of Web Management
Services Incorporated, lead researcher and consultant on this project. Carrie will be
presenting the preliminary findings and recommendations from survey-based research extended to nearly
3,000 fiscally sponsored artists and art projects in New York City. Welcome, Carrie. *Applause*
Carrie Blake: Thank you. OK, here we go. First, a brief review of the research effort. Dance/NYC,
as you know, engaged nine fiscal sponsor partners who were critical to the effort. They provided
background data on nearly 3,000 fiscally sponsored artists and art projects. They helped us develop
a survey, they helped us distribute the survey, they provided feedback on the results of the
survey, and how to understand the outcomes a bit better. They helped us get the word
out about this event to their artists on their list-serves, and they did so in order to ensure
that fiscally sponsored artists are represented in the Cultural Plan. There was also additional
outreach on the part of our team to maximize reach and participation. In addition to emailing
the survey, we called all the artists for which we had contact information- thank you
to those of you who took our call. And it is important to note that all of the artists
who received the survey were invited to send it on. So ultimately we collected 519 complete
survey responses, which represent 485 projects. This research is organized into 3 parts. The
first is the landscape of fiscally sponsored artists and projects in the survey sample,
then the demographics of the fiscally sponsored arts workforce, and finally the needs, barriers,
and funding situation facing the workforce. So that last section speaks most directly
to the Cultural Plan and will undoubtedly be the focus of our discussion later on tonight.
As we consider the survey results, it's helpful to have some context on the landscape.
We worked hard to estimate the size of the fiscal sponsorship arts market, using a combination
of real numbers and informed estimates. The survey yielded an 18% response rate for our
research partners, and our additional research suggests that there are a minimum of 461 additional
projects that are sponsored by at least 7 organizations that didn't participate in
the project. So those figures allow us to estimate that survey respondents represent
about 16% of the community of fiscally sponsored projects. But what about in terms of artists
and the workforce? So we don't know the true size of the workforce because most fiscal
sponsors do not collect data on the number of workers involved in each project, but we
can make some assumptions. We had 519 artists responding to the survey, and the artists
were working on a total of 485 projects, so a total of 1.07 artists worked on each project.
So that allows us to conservatively estimate that there is a minimum workforce of 3,348.
In terms of budgets, these projects are quite lean, with an average budget size of just
under $23,000. The sample of survey respondents is representative of a partner data and all
creative disciplines except for two. The survey received a higher proportion of dance respondents,
and a lower proportion of film, video, and media respondents than was represented in
data from our partner fiscal sponsors. Some of that variance may be due to the unclassified
category that you see on the far right. Some of our partners maintain that category as
it represents interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary artists that aren't classified into one
of these primary disciplines. The survey also asked about secondary disciplines. 86% of
respondents are working in multiple disciplines, and the average number of disciplines per
artist is 2.73. The survey respondent pool is very representative of the partner data
in terms of location, the data show very little variance by borough. This image maps both
survey respondents and partner data. The colorful lines show the concentration of survey respondents,
with red indicating higher concentrations in Lower Manhattan, the Upper West Side, and
Central Brooklyn, and the purple shading shows the data of our partner projects, which is
distributed more widely throughout the city, but is concentrated in similar areas, as well
as in Western Queens. Survey respondents identify as artists, nearly half do not get paid for
their work on projects, and this is generally true across disciplines. Also, we should note
that for the respondents that do get paid, we do not know how much they are getting paid.
The survey results also suggested some interesting things about the characteristics of the fiscally
sponsored arts workforce. The workforce is quite homogenous in terms of race and ethnicity.
This chart compares survey results on the left to the recently released report of the
Department of Cultural Affairs workforce, which we refer to as the DCLA workforce, to
the city population according to recent city census data. This suggests that the fiscally
sponsored workforce is less diverse than the DCLA workforce, and significantly less diverse
than the city. For example, 74% of survey respondents are white-nonhispanic, as compared
to 33% of New York City residents. The DCLA workforce employs higher proportions of Black,
African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian workers. However, it is important to note
here that we did undertake two additional pieces of analysis to try to get a sense of
the degree of representation of survey respondents to the the actual workforce of fiscally sponsored
artists and arts projects. While it's not perfect information, the results of those
efforts do suggest that our response is not totally representative. For example, our additional
analyses show that the people who took the survey were more likely to be white and were
more likely to be female, so the survey is likely downplaying the amount of diversity
that is present within the workforce. In fact, the white-nonhispanic segment of the workforce
may actually be 6% below what the survey suggests. So that is an important caveat to think about
as we look at this data. The fiscally sponsored workforce is more diverse in terms of disability.
13% of the workforce is disabled in comparison to 10% of the New York City population. The
workforce includes fewer millennials and artists at the younger end of the age spectrum. 35%
of survey respondents were born between 1980 and 1999, while 47% of the DCLA workforce
were born between 1980 and 1999. The survey data also suggests that the fiscally sponsored
artists workforce includes more females than the DCLA workforce as a whole. 65% of survey
respondents identify as female in comparison to 53% at DCLA and 52% for the city. However,
as I noted with race and ethnicity, our additional analysis suggests that there is likely some
sort of survey bias present here as well, and that the proportion of females that are
working within the workforce could be 7% lower. So if we were to correct for the survey bias,
the difference in female representation between the fiscally sponsored workforce and the DCLA
workforce would not be so significant. The fiscally sponsored arts workforce includes
LGBTQ community members. Recent Gallup research studies suggest that 4% of the city's population
identifies as LGBTQ, whereas 27% of survey respondents do. And here are a few other interesting
findings from this piece of analysis. LGBTQ respondents generally work across disciplines,
though slightly higher proportions exist in dance, literary arts, and music. More Gen
X respondents work in the visual arts and film/media/video, more millennials work in
dance. Younger respondents are more likely to reside in Brooklyn or Queens. Literary
artists are more likely to identify as non-binary. Nearly all disabled artists are white. And
most African, Latina, Asian, Arab and Native American artists (which we refer to as
ALAANA artists) reside in Manhattan. The result of a series of questions developed in collaboration
with CreateNYC with the team there addressed challenges and opportunities facing the fiscally
sponsored workforce. First, the workforce needs assessment. Survey respondents were
asked to rank 7 needs on a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being "not needed" and 5 being "very
needed," and the results suggest that living wages are the most critical need for the workforce,
followed by affordable space, affordable presentation space, affordable development space, supplies,
equipment, health care, living space, and finally training. These rankings are generally
consistent when we look at the data across identity categories. However, they do suggest
that living wages are paramount for respondents working in all disciplines, except those from
the literary arts, for whom all other needs rank higher. For dance respondents, living
wages and affordable development space are tied. In terms of borough, the need for living
wages is paramount for respondents in all boroughs except for respondents living in
Queens, where affordable presentation space ranks higher, and the Bronx, where respondents
ranked living wages and affordable presentation space as both needed- they tied. The vast
majority of the workforce is both unable to identify and access resources to fulfill their
needs. Only 8% of the workforce has been able to identify and fulfill their needs. Examining
these responses by discipline, borough, and additional identity categories help us to
better understand the barriers to access at a more granular level. For example, more of
those working in the visual arts are challenged to access and identify resources, and more
of those working in Queens are challenged to identify and access resources. More respondents
identifying as disabled have more difficulty accessing and identifying resources, far fewer
men report challenges than women, and more millennials struggle to identify and access
resources than other age categories. This may be one reason why the representation in
the workforce is lower. 271 artists, or just over half of the artists who ranked those
needs that were displayed a few slides ago offered recommendations on how the needs of
the workforce might be satisfied. The top 5 most mentioned recommendations concern affordable
development space, access to funding sources, affordable presentation space, affordable
living space, and affordable health care. This ranking of priorities generally holds
consistent as we look across borough and identity categories. It was interesting to read all
the responses to this question: it is important to note that the repeated phrases within the
responses here indicate that there is great importance placed on mentorship and training
for the sponsored arts workforce as well as opportunities for greater centralization of
communications and other services, such as fundraising, administration, and otherwise.
Values and Barriers of Fiscal Sponsorship. Fiscally sponsored artists primarily choose
to work with a fiscal sponsor in order to access funding, charitable donations. Other
reasons include support and access to resources, that they weren't ready to become a formal
501(c)3, and that they were drawn to the credibility and increased visibility that fiscal sponsors
can provide to them. These rankings are generally the same across disciplines, boroughs, and
identity categories, although Brooklyn and Queens artists ranked "not ready for 501(c)3"
a bit higher, as did literary arts, music and theater arts. Nearly ⅓ of the workforce
experiences barriers with regard to fiscal sponsorship. Gender, race, ethnicity, and
disability don't seem to be indicators for respondents. Older artists, from the baby
boomer and silent greater generations indicate that they are less likely to experience barriers.
And fewer LGBTQ artists experience less barriers than artists who do not identify as LGBTQ.
While access to funding is the primary reason for working with a fiscal sponsor, funding
limitations are the most noted barrier. Others feel limited by their fiscal sponsor's policies,
or because the public is not aware of or understanding of the concept of fiscal sponsorship. A segmentation
data suggests these barriers exist across creative discipline, borough, and identity categories.
So does the workforce have ideas about how to address these barriers? Of course. 31 of
88 artists providing recommendations to address barriers suggested improved access to funding
sources, and they were principally addressing eligibility and specifically government and
foundation funding. This finding generally hold true for all the creative disciplines,
boroughs, and identity categories, although we should note that a significant proportion
of those 31 artists come from fiscally sponsored dance makers. Additional recommendations also
emerged from this area of the survey, such as amending fiscal sponsor policies and services
that better respond to artists' needs, specifically quite a few mentioned financial policies,
and establishing resources for fiscally sponsored artists to support their ability to develop
and deliver their work. So for example, training and communications on alternative business
models for artists, and expanded and improved fundraising services, specifically a number
of artists noted a need or request to better connect with specific donors. To dig further
into the funding questions, survey respondents were asked to identify sources they've received
funding from for their project. While 94% of artists receive donations from individual
donors, just 29% receive funding from government sources. These charts summarize the segmentation
findings, and they show that just 15% of video/film/media and 18% of literary arts receive government
funding compared to 29% of all responding artists, and this also shows a high level
of support for non-Manhattan geographies, especially the Bronx and Queens. Further segmentation
analysis into the identity categories shows that lower proportions of ALAANA, disabled,
and female artists access government funding. And, in terms of funding needs, artists were
asked if they were currently lacking funding for key expense categories. The results suggest
that key funding gaps concern artistic and operational costs that support living wages,
with 88% of artists indicating the need for salaries and artists fees and 86% for operational
costs, including salaries. So this reinforces the earlier survey results that suggest that
living wages are paramount. So, what does all of this data and input suggest about the
future of fiscally sponsored artists, and how should they be addressed within the Cultural
Plan? Together, with our team of nine fiscal sponsors, we reviewed the results of the survey,
and discussed their implications. We prioritized issues and potential outcomes, and this is
what we came up with. The first priority for the fiscally sponsored arts workforce concerns
funding. Funding for fiscally sponsored artists and arts projects must be strengthened. In
order to do so, our team suggests increasing city funding for decentralized granting programs
to the fiscal sponsorship community, through borough arts councils and other entities.
Also, we feel that these programs need to be reassessed and refreshed in order to align
with the needs and realities of fiscally sponsored artists. New funding programs should be developed
with existing or new partners, that provide multi-year and general operating support. Opportunities
for the DCLA to provide direct financial support to fiscally sponsored artists and projects
should be explored, and we must ensure that fiscal sponsors and fiscally sponsored artists
and projects are involved in city funding initiatives from their very development. The
second priority addresses the need to connect fiscally sponsored artists and projects to
the sources they critically need. This work involves creating access to affordable presentation
space, and that can be by increasing access to existing spaces and protecting existing
spaces, but also developing new space. Creating access to affordable development space, again
via accommodation of new and existing space, and also supporting the fiscally sponsored
arts community and identifying and accessing resources that help them develop and deliver
their work more effectively. That might be through stronger communications and collaborative
environments, and it may also be through additional technical assistance. And, our final priority
is to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sponsored arts workforce. This works
recommends working toward that goal by including fiscally sponsored artists and art projects
in current and ongoing diversity initiatives, and relevant efforts and programs, and also
developing targeted initiatives to reverse the exclusion of ALAANA populations, amplifying
the voices of disabled fiscally sponsored artists, creating opportunities to engage
both millennial and aging populations, which are under-represented in the arts workforce.
And finally, we need to build the capacity of fiscal sponsors to advance diversity, equity,
and inclusion in their networks. These efforts could serve individual sponsors but they could
also serve the collective group of sponsors via triaining, technical assistance, and financial resources.
*Applause* Thank you! Back over to Risa and Alejandra.
ADC: Alright, everyone, so now we are going to move into the part of the program where
we are going to start our panel discussion. So we're just going to do a minor set change
and invite our fiscally sponsored artists to join us on the stage.
Alright everyone, so I am just going to do some brief introductions, a little bit of a roll call, so folks in the
audience know who's who, and then Risa will take us away with the conversation. I am going
to go from your left to right. So we have Carrie Beehan who is joining us, we have Flash
Rosenberg, we have Mark Travis Rivera, we have Jennifer Wen Ma, we have Rusty Zimmerman,
we have Ramon Ponce, and Jeremy McQueen. *Applause*
RS: Hi again. I want to thank all of you guys for being here this evening and speaking with
us, and I want to thank everyone in the audience for listening, and Dance/NYC and various partners
for this event and for helping to make this happen. I am really excited to dive into this
discussion, so that's what we'll do now. I also want to make a note and say that in
my discussions with Dance/NYC, I've learned that they intentionally asked a much more
diverse group of artists to sit on the panel this evening than are reflected on the respondent
survey, so I just want to call that out and say that I really appreciate that, and again
that I appreciate all that you will share with us this evening, and your work thus far
in the field. I think it's great to hear from people in their own words, so for convenience
sake, Carrie, if we can begin with you, and then go to your left, and have each of you
briefly tell us who you are, maybe a little bit about your fiscally sponsored project,
and why you wanted to speak here on this panel this evening.
Carrie: Hi, I'm Carrie, and I'm with GOH Productions. I'm fiscally sponsored by GOH
productions which is a nonprofit. GOH is a Japanese character meaning working together
under one umbrella. GOH have combined services, management, and consultation for dance, theater,
music, media, and cultural arts, and they've been established since the early 70s, and
they also have quite a selection of fiscally sponsored groups, and it's interesting to
note that some of the projects that they choose to fiscally sponsor are actually 10 times
the size of GOH. GOH is a phenomenal nonprofit that I really respect. I came to America 16
years ago, and I've been sponsored with GOH for the past 12 years. I am a multimedia
artist, musician, performer, and painter- yes, all of those. And prior to that I was
a news and documentary video editor for German television during the era before the wall
fell and shortly after. In that time, I ended up painting my reflections on working in a newsroom
during a time when there was a lot of political turmoil and war, and I would project these
on venues in Berlin, and then write songs and perform about the characters either in
my paintings or in the situations that I incurred in the news editing suites. And from this
I came over to America, and I created electronic music, worked on various productions with
GOH productions: we've worked on public festivals together, we've worked in theater,
marionette theater, musical, I've made several art films, and for me, it's not possible
without fiscal sponsorship, it is not possible without the support of a company that actually care
about you as an individual and care about you as an artist, and respect your work and
want your work to spread and help other people. And just to end that, my current show is on
immigration, and people that have been displaced, and it's on at Culture Hub on May 4th, please
come. Thank you. *Applause*
Flash: Hi, I'm Flash Rosenberg, and I'm an attention span for hire, which means that
I do drawing, photography, writing, and performing, because they all are part of expressing yourself.
They use all these skills to do animation, and primarily I support myself doing live
drawing, which means while people are talking, I capture what they're saying and try to
make it into images to try to accelerate understanding. This kind of use of art began...I've always been
interested in how art was used as a language to communicate, not something to decorate,
and I began as artist in residence in the New York Public Library where I was drawing
conversations between authors. Could you think: Why would they need an artist in a library?
And so, I'm trying to figure out how we can make the arts be more public and more
connected with people, which is why I wanted to be in this forum and talk to you tonight
to see how we can help make artists be more necessary to people who might only think of
it as something over there, that's done selfishly just to express yourself, when in
fact it can connect us. I'm sponsored by Unique Projects Inc., as well as Fractured
Atlas, and what I like and what I think that it's important to understand is that these
fiscal sponsors are not in competition: we are all in cooperation to try to support what
it is we can bring to this society to make life more meaningful, and more playful, and
more fun. I was especially interested in coming here because I want to try to find what is
humorous about fiscal fitness.
RS: I'm just going to jump in here and say that it's so wonderful to hear about everyone's
work and what is important to them in their relationship with their fiscal sponsor. We
are on a clock, the clock for my friends on the panel here is right there. So if we could
speed this up just a bit, it would allow us to dive into the discussion more fully. This
is not a reprimand, at all. I wish we had more time, but we have what we have.
Mark: With that being said… Hi everyone, my name is Mark Travis Rivera, I am the Founder
and Artistic Director of Marked Dance Project, an integrated dance company for disabled and
nondisabled dancers. I'm fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, and I am on this panel
today because I represent multiple marginalized voices, and I wanted to make sure that disabled
people, queer people, gender nonconforming people, were represented in this fiscally
sponsored discussion about the arts and our role in creating for this city.
Jennifer: My name is Jennifer Wen Ma, and I am a visual artist. Before fiscal sponsorship,
I worked on cross-disciplinary installations, and in 2012 I had this idea of making an opera.
I had met an opera singer that I wanted to write the opera for. But I'm also musically
illiterate...But I conceived the idea, I visually designed it, I worked with a lot of artists
I collaborated with. We found a composer. And very fortunately, I did have wonderful
commissioners (Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival) that came on board, to commission
the project. However, it took so long - I came up with the idea in 2012, and the world
premiere was 2015 - so it was a very long development period, and it just started with
me inviting people to dinner, bribing them with food in order to work with me. So it
was not very sustainable, I started looking for funding, and I luckily found someone that
was willing to sponsor, give us some money for creative development. But they could not give
to individual artists, instead you have to get a fiscal sponsor, so that is how I kind
of learned of fiscal sponsorship. I received a grant from NYFA a number of years ago, so
I felt like I had a relationship with them. I went to them, applied, received it, then
not only found funding through this initial foundation, but other foundations and other
ways, and that really greatly enriched our creative process. So even though we were so
fortunate to have had these wonderful commissioners, without fiscal sponsorship - and also what
I found out was that it's not just "Give me money", but also so much access to resources,
that I guess I want to be here and talk about that aspect, that it's not just money, it's
so much more.
Rusty: Hi everybody. I don't think I need this microphone. Alright, in that case, my
name is Rusty Zimmerman, I'll try to keep everything real quick by talking very fast.
For the visually impaired, I look just like Brooklyn, I'm a bald-headed, bearded white
man, in a shirt not unlike an Easter Egg. I am also a heteronormative cisgendered white
male, which are words I learned in the last few years, letting you know I'm here to
fill out a quota. And I'm a portrait painter. I took the last year or so to paint 200 portraits
of people in my neighborhood, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and I used the Brooklyn Arts Council
as my fiscal sponsor to help make that large dream of upheaving that tradition of taking
a dominant paradigm of portraiture being reserved for a wealthy few, and seeing what happens
when you give it to everybody. And in the process, I set up a microphone, recorded everybody's
oral history, and made an unintentional oral history of my neighborhood, which is currently
receiving grants to be turned into podcasts. The End.
Ramon: Thank you so much. My name is Ramon Ponce, and I am founder and director of the
Mariachi Academy of New York, which is a nonprofit which we started back 15 years ago to preserve
and keep alive the beautiful music and tradition of Mariachi music from Mexico. We've been
doing Mariachi music for a living here in New York for 26 years. My father and I started
a band called Mariachi Real de México. We've been lucky enough to bring our music and our
tradition over to this city, to share it. We are fiscally sponsored by the Center for
Traditional Music and Dance, which is a great organization that helps a lot of programs,
and we are their first educational program that they started. They usually just did presentations
or concerts, but we came to them with the idea of doing a school, an actual program
where we could teach about music, about what we do. And they were kind enough to help us
out and we got an NEA grant - the first one - and we've been, as I said, 15 years keeping
this tradition alive in New York, and it's just a pleasure for me personally to represent
not only the Mexican community, but also the Latin community in general, and I'm here
to give a little feedback on what we do, but also to let know that the Latin community
needs more information, and sometimes is not accessible to us. It's also a way for me
to ask for help to the city, and to make it available to everyone in New York City. Thank
you.
Jeremy: Good evening. My name is Jeremy McQueen, I am the Founder and Artistic Director of
the Black Iris Project. The Black Iris Project is a ballet-based collaborative, that brings
Black professional ballet dancers together, along with Black creative artists from different
disciplines throughout the arts, to create new stories or new ballets that are rooted
in the Black history tradition. We are fiscally sponsored here by New York Live Arts, and
we just recently created a new ballet titled Madiba, which outlines the life of Nelson
Mandela, and that will be performed at the Kennedy Center next month.
RS: Thank you all for sharing with us. *Applause* Indeed. So let's jump in. Jennifer, I heard
you talk about the need for things beyond just fundraising, and I would actually love
to know from all of you - especially with that figure we heard in the study, that the
average budget of the respondents was less than $2,300. I have no idea what you guys
are working with in terms of budget. But with that in mind, given that that's what we
all heard, and the understanding that we all need physical resources with which to do our
work, including space to both develop it and present it to the public. I would love to
know from some of you how being fiscally sponsored has helped you access those critical physical
resources, again, to develop and present your work or not.
Jeremy: I'll share. Fiscal sponsorship has helped me with fundraising, in order to be
able to support the kind of work that we do. I've been able to have fiscal sponsorship
to raise funds from individuals as well as from foundation grants, and those are all
made tax-deductible. It's a lot harder to get individuals and especially grants to give
money either to for-profits or to individuals. So it's been really helpful to have a sponsorship
that allows us to make all of our donations tax-deductible.
Carrie: I've been lucky enough to receive a lot of help with getting access to space
to rehearse, and test out imagery, and this has been very helpful given the cost of trying
to rent something.
Flash: It's helpful because everyone wants to know "What can we do?" We are in a
particularly helpless feeling time, and to be able to tell anyone: you can donate to
the arts and help save this without having to just attend the show, but also to be part
of the support structure for it. And it helps everybody, especially individuals who are
donating - that's mostly where I get funding from - feel like they have a place, that they're
acknowledged, and respected, and productively doing something.
Jennifer: Also, I was thinking about - this related to applying for grants - sometime's
we're not really great at managing our financial situation, so I think there are these resources
that just help you just looking at the budget sheet. Actually applying for grants helped
me understand the different aspects of creating a project. Sometimes we just dive in without
really thinking. And I think that the financial planning is actually really imperative to
run a sustainable project.
RS: And that's something that you got from working with your fiscal sponsor?
Jennifer: I feel like maybe not directly, but indirectly. That process certainly did.
Rusty: Building on what Flash was saying, there's something special about asking people
for money, and telling them to click on a link. And when it goes to a Brooklyn Arts
Council page, as opposed to "Send money to Rusty," it just looks so much more credible.
It gives a sense of what I call manufactured credibility, that just makes you look more
like a proper thing that people can feel confident making an automated monthly tax-deductible
donation through this portal, making it easier for people to give you the money.
RS: And that's a great example of how a fiscal sponsor - Rusty, for you - helped you
access something you really needed. Ramon, I see you with the mic, and I hope you might
talk to us about - you mentioned in your introduction that part of what inspires you is the strong
desire to share the work of Mariachi with people. And if you could maybe talk about
how your fiscal sponsor helps you do that, especially with regards to space.
Ramon: I think that one of the problems that an artist has is not having the knowledge
or the resources that other organizations have. For us, it was a great opportunity to
learn about nonprofits via the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, because it is
something that we don't do - I mean every time I hold the mic it's to sing and to play guitar
and to do music. So it's a totally new thing that you have to learn, and it's always
good to come up to someone who already knows or has the knowledge to give you that advice,
and to help you.
Rusty: I think I can likely speak for everybody, I just have a feeling might have had a similar
experience. In my case, I raised about $50,000 through CrowdFunding to run my project
last year, one of the first thing that fellow artists ask me was "How did you do that?"
And I think that's probably why we're all here today, to share this information
and make it breathtakingly accessible to a mass audience.
RS: Just to get a multiplicity of viewpoints here: Is that not anyone's experience? Do
you have other reasons for being here?
Mark: I think that part of being here for me is really about representation. "Nothing
without us" would say the disabled community. And I would say that part of the reason…
As I young person - I was 17 years old when I started my company, we celebrate 8 years
this month - and when I started, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I was learning
as I was going and making mistakes and stumbling and tripping over my own feet, literally.
And then being fiscally sponsored gave me some legitimacy, it gave me some currency
as a business person, and say, "I can be an artist, and I can be a business person
at the same time." Those two things don't need to be exclusive of each other. And so
I think that part of the reason why I'm here is just to share that, that you can be
an artist and be a business person and take control of your brand, and use social media
and technology to connect with your audiences, and to really make sure that you generate
these individual donors. Because we know that the majority of our funding comes from individual
donors. And that's the power of storytelling.
Flash: Also, I just want to say that it's different than writing grants. I find that
such a waste of time. I mean I can just shoot a Bar Mitzvah and make more money and get
it that weekend instead of waiting 6 months to get a $3,000 grant from something that
I probably won't get anyway. And so this sort of speeds up the process for having ongoing
funding which actually makes a difference. So you're not just getting a little pat
on the head of validity because you got a grant, but you're actually getting support.
ADC: So I'm hearing a couple of things resonating if we were to connect a lot of the points
that everyone is bringing up to the recommendations that the research brought forth. So I'm
hearing a lot of conversations about business literacy and accessing the kind of tools and
information that you need to be able to navigate yourselves both as artists and as folks that
are managing budgets, which is something that definitely came up in terms of the kind of
tools and recommendations that we would like for the DCLA to bring forth either to the
different fiscal sponsors or to fiscally sponsored artists individually. I'm also hearing a
lot about access to space and to fundraising. I want us to move into now a conversation
about equity and inclusion, around our work, around our practice, and also around how the
workforce can become more diverse, and more inclusive, and more representative as you
said, Mark, in the work that we do and how these different fiscal sponsors and the DCLA
can support that.
Mark: First of all, it's making room at the table. That's the first step. Who is
missing at the table, and how can we include them in the space? Making sure that your spaces
are wheelchair accessible, making sure that you have sign language interpreters, making
sure that you take this business language and you turn it so that everyone can understand
what's being said. You know I come from Patterson, New Jersey, which is an inner city,
number 3 I think ranked in crime and high violence. And when I was growing up, no one
told me how to be a leader, I came up through a broken education system, and as I learned
as I went that we need to develop young artists of color, young artists of color who are disabled,
queer - we need to develop them as leaders. How do we let them pass on the torch and say,
"The arts belong to the future, and you are the pioneers of that future." So how
do we train them? I think that fiscally sponsored programs need to take on that role of training
these fiscally sponsored artists, to do more and be more.
RS: I love this notion, and I wonder if we could at least a moment envisioning together,
like what would that leader development in conjunction with a fiscal sponsor, what could
that look like? And Jeremy I'm looking at you because you haven't spoken yet and we
want to hear from you.
Jeremy: Yeah! I think that that looks like mentorship, and kind of advisement: someone
who can really hold your hand and help you understand - like what some other people have
said this evening about creating a budget, and what that's like to really look at the
financial landscape of how to make a project go from a dream to a reality. And so in terms
of what else can be done, I think that just making more of an individual connection with
your fiscal sponsors, with the organizations that you're sponsoring, to find ways not
just to offer services but being able to provide that individual connection to say: "This
grant or this opportunity might be specific and really great for your organization, what
you're trying to do." I think that mentorship, that one-on-one time, is really helpful.
RS: I see your hand Flash, I will get there, and maybe this will also inspire you. There
are a lot of disciplines represented here as well, and this aspect of mentorship - I
wonder how that could better be connected to discipline. There's also a lot of you
and I'm really impressed by this, who're moving between disciplines. Rusty you talked
about painting moving into podcasts, Flash you're doing animation, which combines a
lot of different disciplines. Mentorship with regard to discipline, What might that be like?
Flash: I just think that we need to have everybody be involved in the arts, not just even those
who have fiscal sponsorship. This is my pet theory: I believe in a national artists in
residence initiative, and that every thing, every industry, every organization, every
business, every household should have the three major things in life, which would be
a toilet, a computer, and an artist in residence. And that you think about the pizza store that's
down this block from you, and you become the artist in residence. Get rid of these free
internships, and intersect in the community, so that everyone is involved. You go to the
grocery store, that's your place, you figure out "How can I be the writer there, how
can I do theater in this place?" so that we stop isolating ourselves and say "Oh
boo, we need money." Everybody needs money! But everybody needs art, too. So how do we
intersect that and get small businesses to even sponsor us. And maybe those small businesses
can do this through the fiscal sponsor to get a tax write-off so that we engage more
people to be sponsoring the arts, not just people that think that they're only interested
in the arts.
Rusty: In my experience, my work necessitated me to reach all 125,000 people in my neighborhood
to let them know that the thing that I was about to provide would be available to them.
And so, in order to canvas the neighborhood appropriately, I had to reach out to people
who had bigger voices than my own, to make contact with my State Senator and City Council
member, and Assembly members and District leaders and have them speak on my behalf,
and have invite me to speak to Town Hall meetings and show up to Community Board meetings and
show up to Precinct Community Council meetings, and find out what all these things were, because
the first time I did my work, and I showed it to people and I was like, What do you think?
And they would ask, What did the Community Board think? I said, What is the Community
Board? I didn't know. I also think it's vastly important to meet people where they're
at, to have meetings like this in Gravesend, in Canarsie, in Flatbush, in East New York,
in the Bronx, and not trust that everybody can make it to Manhattan on a weeknight. Because,
you know, when I had my exhibitions, to make things radically accessible to a mass audience,
I chose not to just put my work in galleries, but to put it in yoga studios and nonviolence
community centers, and laundromats, and synagogues. And when I had parties, receptions for the
community, I found that the audience was predominantly 18 to 35 Caucasian folks, in a neighborhood
fabled for being Hasidic and Caribbean. And I said, Why is that? And people said, well
you know the Hasidics have a job and 5 kids, and the Jamaicans have one kid and 5 jobs,
and people are busy in their homes and they can't make it out all the time, and so you
have to set up shop where you want to reach your audience, go right to them.
Carrie: I had a slightly similar experience, which has been incredibly positive, and that
is reaching out to a group that normally I wouldn't have done. And there was a political
huddle in my building - I live on 14th Street by the ConEd power station - and I attended
it several times even though I am not a citizen and can't vote, I feel very strongly about
politically what's going on. And through this huddle, the ideas and the feedback that
came back from the community who aren't artists, but are placed at various strategic
positions or associations across New York, they are so encouraging, and they are like:
"Oh my God, we are going to get you hooked up with this coalition, and that person can
sponsor the next thing as long as this is helping that charity and this and that."
You would just be surprised, really - artists in general - that if you just reach a little
further than what you're used to, explain what you're doing, there are people out
there that actually care.
RS: Alejandra, I just want to check in and see, can we go a bit longer?
ACD: Yeah!
RS: OK, so we're having this great conversation about moving into community as artists and
how to meet with the folks whom we want to participate in the work that we're doing
- that's what I'm hearing. Can anyone talk about how that desire to reach a certain
group of collaborators, a certain group of audience members, and to perhaps go deeper
within your local communities - wherever they might be and whoever they might be - how that
was or was not facilitated through your relationship with your fiscal sponsor?
Jeremy: I can share. It was a lot of self personal digging deep. You know, I'm proudly
with New York Life Arts, but at the same time, there are some gaps where I feel I've been
underserved. I'm also a recipient of a Pentacle housing program, called ART, and I'm a fellow
with them, which provides me with a mentor, which provides me with an administrative assistant
who works about 10 hours a week for me. I've only been working on that program for maybe
about 3 months now, but through that mentorship program it's been really valuable. It's
helped open my eyes in so many different ways, and it's kind of allowed me to free up some
administrative brain space so that I can focus more on the arts and how I can make an impact
in my communities. In terms of navigating specifically the Black community, and how
I can make an impact there, it's literally just been me digging deep. You know, I'm
not quite sure of the demographics of how many fiscally sponsored artists that are of
color are Black within New York Life Arts, but for me it's really been having to reach
out to schools and communities and neighborhoods that I know of and just kind of pulling the
field and saying, What would be beneficial for you? Would it be a master class, would
it be a discussion, would it be a visit with a dancer, or what would really impact your
school, and how can we be a part of that collaboration?
Mark: Yeah, that's great, Jeremy, and I think that it does start with our communities.
But I also think that Lisa from fractured Atlas has been great in coaching me and guiding
me and giving me the direction of things. Because of her, I was able to do really well
on #givingtuesday, and we were able to raise $500 in just one day, and that was so unheard
of. But part of my work is making sure that my leadership team looks like the community
I'm serving. So we have people of color, we have disabled people in positions of leadership,
and they have an investment in the vision of the company. You know it's not just a
dance company but it's a company that tries to break barriers, and how do we make sure
that disabled people have access to these things. And our fiscal sponsorship so far
has been really supportive in that. When we went to apply for our first grant, they put
up with my nonsense. And I was just like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing,
this is really complicated, can we try to do this? And they were really helpful, and
they're always really helpful in that regard, you know, just always answering our questions
and things of that nature. And so we really just need to start making sure that the community
looks like the people we are serving, and that is not just the one-person show. I can't
do everything, and so I have to build a team of people who can help me succeed in my mission,
and my fiscal sponsor is part of that helping team.
ADC: I think that in the spirit of going into the community and hearing from the community,
I think this is a perfect segway for us to move into the discussions that we want to
have with all of you tonight, to hear from you, to hear about what your recommendations
are, what fiscally sponsored artists might have to say in order to inform the Cultural
Plan, and that can begin to address some of the things that we mentioned here tonight.
So with that, I want to first say thank you to all of our fiscally sponsored artists who
are up here and if you can join me in thanking them. *Applause*
RS: Thank you so much.
ADC: And now we are going to transition upstairs, to the 3rd floor studios, where you have dinner
waiting for you, and water and refreshments, and all the things you could need. And then
we are going to get into small groups, and together you'll be interacting with all
the artists and we'll dive deeper into these conversations so that we can hear from you
what you have to say. Alright? So we'll see you upstairs everyone. Thank you!
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