Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund makes big announcements at Luncheon: May 15, 2014

The Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, an initiative of The Community Foundation For Greater Atlanta, today announced the creation of its pilot Arts Capitalization program including its largest grant to a single organization in the 21 year history of the Arts Fund. This grant is the first the Arts Fund has made to fund an arts organization’s capitalization plan, awarding a $200,000 grant to the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center (ACAC) to increase and diversify its audience and donor base. The grant will fund investments in technology, marketing infrastructure and fundraising capacity.

The capitalization grant award is the culmination of a pilot Arts Capitalization program that the Arts Fund quietly launched last year, building on two years of research and education on capitalization to improve the financial sustainability of small and medium-size arts organizations. In addition to the cash grant, three arts organizations received a consulting package plus a coaching package: an in-depth, three month consulting package on capitalization and a multi-week coaching package on making presentations and pitches. The Zeist Foundation provided significant support to make the grant possible and infrastructure associated with the pilot program. Other supporters include PNC Bank and The Coca-Cola Company.

“This is a bold first step to change how the community thinks about funding the arts in this region,” says Arts Fund Director Lisa Cremin. “Historically, most small-to-midsize arts groups have very thin financial resources and little if any cushion. A study we did in 2011 showed that most of the region’s strongest arts groups had less than three months of liquidity, placing them at great risk when unexpected twists and turns occur.”

She continued, “Our capitalization initiative advances a healthier, more sustainable model, not only for individual organizations, but for the region’s mid-sized arts organizations overall. Being well capitalized means that an arts organization has the resources to meet its artistic mission; build reserves for stable operations; has access to cash for artistic programs in their strategic plan; pays staff leaders fair salaries; and is able to take care of facilities and fixed assets.”

In October 2013, the Arts Fund confidentially invited six arts organizations to submit preliminary concepts for how they would use a major capitalization grant. Each of the six had recently been through the Art Fund’s annual general operating support grant review process and had all been approved for a 2013 grant. From that group of six, three finalists were given the opportunity to expand their concepts into full blown capitalization strategies. The Arts Fund awarded each finalist significant consulting and coaching packages. The finalists worked extensively with a capitalization-trained consultant to develop a capitalization plan and presentation in the mode of a business investment pitch. The finalists had multiple coaching sessions with business executives to refine their capitalizations pitches. The Arts Fund’s goal was that each finalist would come out of the process with a thoroughly vetted, donor-ready capitalization proposal that was in line with its strategic plan and capable of sustaining a firm financial footing for the organization over time.

The capitalization plans were presented to the Arts Fund Advisory Committee on May 1. In addition to ACAC, the other pilot program finalists were Atlanta Celebrates Photography and the Horizon Theatre Company.

According to Charlene Crusoe Ingram, Arts Fund Advisory Committee Chair, all three finalists delivered impressive capitalization pitches. “Their capitalization plans were all thoughtful and worthy of funding,” she said. “What we saw confirms that great thinking happens when an arts group has the freedom to plan for a solid balance sheet. With the momentum that this project has started, the Arts Fund is actively encouraging other arts donors to participate and to expand this capitalization effort going forward.”

Regarding the selection of The Contemporary Arts Center, she continued, “We’re excited about the potential impact of our pilot capitalization grant on the arts community and the region as a whole. What The Contemporary intends to substantially increase and diversify its audiences, increase and diversify its revenue, and build its financial reserves to assure that its next forty years are as successful as the first forty years. The Arts Fund is pleased to play a role.”

Tim Schrager, The Contemporary’s Board President, said, “The implementation of our plan will allow us to better serve the community by breaking down barriers so that even more people can experience and benefit from all that the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center has to offer. The capitalization plan our team devised draws on lessons learned from leading art institutions around the country that have been successful in exposing wider audiences to contemporary art exhibitions and programs. This will thus reinforce our connection to other progressive arts organizations nationally while increasing our audience, growing our revenue and assuring our future as a leading Atlanta arts organization.”

In shaping the arts capitalization pilot, the Arts Fund worked with the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), based in Philadelphia. NFF is the nation’s premier thought leader on nonprofit financing and specializes in innovative models. For the Arts Fund, over the past two-years, NFF provided educational programs on capitalization to local arts groups and donors, plus in-depth training for 10 Atlanta-area nonprofit consultants on the development of capitalization plans. Concurrently the Arts Fund has laid groundwork by convening corporations and foundations with an interest in arts philanthropy to discuss capitalization as a fundamental thrust for strengthening local arts groups.

Cremin said, “Our intent all along has been to create a groundswell rather than just make a single grant. A movement toward capitalization can change the game for the arts groups with whom we work. It will guide them to think about financial sustainability in a more deliberate, long-term and rigorous way. Arts donors will become more open to giving for long-term sustainability. All of this won’t happen overnight. There is tremendous work to be done. But everything about the pilot encourages us to push ahead.”

The capitalization grant announcement was made at the Arts Fund luncheon on May 15, attended by more than 300 people including leaders of local arts organizations, community leaders, corporations, foundations and individuals who support the arts. The keynote address was delivered by Rodney Christopher, senior fellow of the F. B. Heron Foundation and one of the nation’s leading experts on nonprofit capitalization.

Recipients of the Arts Fund’s annual grant programs were also announced and recognized at the luncheon. The list of grantee is as follows:

13 arts organizations received a total of $500,000 in general operating support grants:
7 Stages – $44,500*
Art Papers – $45,000*
Atlanta Celebrates Photography – $30,000
Atlanta Chamber Players – $15,000
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center – $60,000
Atlanta Shakespeare Company – $45,000*
Aurora Theater – $50,000
Dad’s Garage Theatre Company – $60,000
Horizon Theatre Company – $38,000
Monroe Art Guild – $5,000
Moving in the Spirit – $35,000
Out of Hand – $12,500
True Colors Theatre Company – $60,000

*In partnership with Public Broadcasting Atlanta, the Arts Fund is also pleased to award packages of promotional airtime on WABE-FM to these general operating support grant recipients.
12 arts organizations received Toolbox awards of consulting packages in one of six areas:
Strategic Plan
7 Stages
Conyers-Rockdale Council for the Arts
Madison-Morgan Cultural Center
Theatrical Outfit

Board Development
Atlanta Shakespeare Company
BurnAway

Resource Development Plan
Art Papers 4

Callanwolde Fine Arts Center
Flux Projects

Succession Planning
Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center

Organizational Assessment
Fabrefaction Theatre

Human Resources Plan
Moving in the Spirit

Nonprofit Scholarships
In the last year, 15 organizations sent staff to opportunities including the Getty Leadership Institute, LEAD Atlanta, annual conferences for Americans for the Arts and Theatre Communications Group, and the Georgia Center for Nonprofits certificate courses with nonprofit scholarships.

Established in 1993 as an initiative of The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, the Arts Fund has provided grants of more than $11 million to arts groups in the 23-county region around metro Atlanta. The Arts Fund supports arts organizations with annual budgets of $2 million or less, which is all but four of the arts groups in the region. Only the Atlanta Ballet, the Atlanta Opera, the Center for Puppetry Arts and the Woodruff Arts Center have budgets larger than $2 million. Separate from the pilot arts capitalization initiative, the Arts Fund continues its annual established grant-making programs of general operating support grants, capacity-building Toolbox awards and Nonprofit Scholarship program.

Since 1951, The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has been connecting donors, nonprofits and community leaders to strengthen the Atlanta region through philanthropy. We do this by providing quality services to donors and innovative leadership on community issues. Our work is influenced by our four goals: engaging philanthropists; strengthening nonprofits; advancing public will; and practicing organizational excellence. In 2013, The Community Foundation awarded an estimated $131 million in grants to nonprofit organizations throughout the 23-county metro Atlanta region and beyond. For more information please visit www.cfgreateratlanta.org.