Website aims to help artists space out

 

Nycpaspaces.org launches as a place where artists can find, schedule and rent performance and rehearsal space; and organizations can produce revenues from their underutilized space.

A new website makes it easier for performers to tap into space quickly while offering the organizations leasing it the opportunity to generate some extra cash from an asset that might have sat idle otherwise.

Updated: August 27, 2012 4:32 p.m.

It's hard enough for anyone to find real estate in the city, but for artists, who often have not just limited budgets but odd needs in terms of the timing of the space they need, the search can be all but impossible.
Now a nonprofit is trying to make it easier for them to find, schedule and rent performance and rehearsal space. Last week, Fractured Atlas, an arts service organization, launched NYC Performing Arts Spaces at nycpaspaces.org, which allows artists to search for space using a variety of their own requirements from dates and times, to location and price.
"We are like an Open Table for the arts world," said Adam Huttler, the executive director of Fractured Atlas.
He said there is a chronic shortage of rehearsal and performance space in the city and that it is especially difficult to find on short notice. The website makes it easier for performers to tap into space quickly while offering the organizations leasing it the opportunity to generate some extra cash from an asset that might have sat idle otherwise.
"Now instead of making 50 calls for find space, you can make just one," Mr. Huttler said.
The product was in testing for about six months before its official launch last week. So far, 1,090 organizations in all five boroughs have listed space on the site.
Organizations pay $20 a month to list their space. When an arts' group rents the space, Fractured Atlas keeps 1.5% of the transaction's cost.
Mr. Huttler says Fractured Atlas doesn't view the service as a major revenue generator, but it does need to charge to cover the cost of running and maintaining the site.

Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120827/REAL_ESTATE/120829912#ixzz24oELK04F

For Artists’ Fund-Raising, a Social Network Site

The NY Times featured an article about United States Artists, a nonprofit group founded by foundations and wealthy art donors to broaden support for working artists, and their new Web site that solicits small donations from regular people to help underwrite specific artworks.

Part social network, part glossy brochure, part fund-raising mechanism, the site seeks to democratize arts patronage as government support for the arts continues to decline and private sources of financing also shrink.

“What we’ve tried to do is take the good ideas about microphilanthropy and the good ideas about social networking and put them together in a way that people can learn about artists and learn about their projects and how they work,” said Katharine DeShaw, the organization’s executive director.

In testing, the Web site attracted roughly 36,000 unique visitors and raised a total of $210,000, with an average of $120 from each of 1,500 small donors, Ms. DeShaw said.

Artists like Zoe Strauss, a photographer, who have received United States Artists grants in the past were asked to participate in the test, and 47 did so. Ms. Strauss sought $4,000 for a project to document the effects of the BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast and its people, and to make a book of her photographs.

Ms. Strauss said about fund-raising, “I would rather have someone stab me in the face.” She added, “I’m totally unskilled in how to hustle money and totally repulsed by the idea of asking people for it, so this site was a dream come true for me.”

She ended up raising $5,185, which is helping her make additional trips to the region to take more photos. “I probably would have had to stop at the one trip I made because I couldn’t afford anymore,” she said. “By making one or two more trips down there, I will have much more to choose from for the book.”

Ms. Strauss said she also appreciated the social networking aspects of the site. “I work very much by myself, and so the ability to talk back and forth with other artists and see how they go about raising money and talking about their work is great.”

Thomas Allen Harris worried it might be too much work. But he decided he could use the test to raise money for a documentary that grew out of his work on Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, a multimedia project that asks blacks to share their family photos as a means of broadening the historic record of the black experience in America. As part of that project, he interviewed Byron Rushing, a Massachusetts legislator who had played a pivotal role in the state’s debate over gay marriage, and saw a way of tying that issue to the civil rights movement in a film.

Using the new Web site and other resources, Mr. Harris raised $11,600, 16 percent more than he had sought, to pay for archival materials, a composer and other postproduction costs.

“In first week or two, all I raised was $25, and I started wondering what would happen if people started thinking about this as a failure,” Mr. Harris said. “I’m used to sharing my creative process, but sharing how I’m actually raising money in such a public way introduces another level of vulnerability.”

Bill Frisell, a jazzss guitarist, said he, too, was uncomfortable with so publicly soliciting money. “I’m not rich but I make a living, and so for me to say, ‘Please, please, please give me money,’ it felt a little embarrassing,” Mr. Frisell said. “I had to get over that.”

He raised $20,300 through the new site, which will be used to complete a program called “The Great Flood,” a suite of original music composed by Mr. Frisell and accompanied by a film by Bill Morrison about the Mississippi River flood in 1927 and its effect on society and music.

The money will enable him to take the band that will perform the music on a tour along the Mississippi River. “We’ll play in various places,” Mr. Frisell said, “set up on the street and play or get smaller gigs that wouldn’t pay enough to cover expenses without this money.”

Ms. Strauss, Mr. Harris and Mr. Frisell say they anticipate that the kind of incremental fund-raising on the site will become more and more important to sustaining art. Mr. Frisell said, “We have to try new things.”

Museum Offers New Venture Idea

The NY Times reported about one history museum's new approach and plan to engage audiences and increase visitation. Great example of new ways of thinking and an entrepreneurial approach. As the article relates:

When thinking of ways to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon, studying history is not high on the list for most families. Now, in a bid to make history more vivid, alluring and accessible for the Wii generation, an interactive “museum within a museum,” focusing on the lives of young New Yorkers, will open in November 2011 on the lower level of the New-York Historical Society, museum officials said.

The DiMenna Children’s History Museum, as it will be known, is part of the $60 million renovation of the historical society building on Central Park West, Louise Mirrer, the president and chief executive officer of the museum, said this week. The roughly 4,000-square-foot museum has been designed by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture & Design Partnership with a $5 million donation from Joseph A. and Diana DiMenna.

The new museum will focus on the stories of children, from famous figures like Alexander Hamilton, who came to New York as a teenage orphan to attend college, to the boys and girls who hawked newspapers on city streets 100 years ago.

“In schools, history tends to be about figures once they have matured and become important,” Ms. Mirrer said. “But if we want history to become alive for children, what better way to teach them than showing them children from other periods? We want to be on the permanent agenda of children and families in New York.” Read more here.

New place for R.I. culture

The following article relates a newly opened arts center that is a for profit enterprise. Is this a new trend? Share you thoughts. As the article relates:

The name is sure to grab the attention of would-be theatergoers. It’s catchy, it’s ambitious, it emphasizes a sense of place.

And yet, when the Rhode Island Center for Performing Arts at the Historic Park Theatre hosts its first stage production next weekend, the people who enter the state’s newest live entertainment venue will find more than just a theater.

In its new incarnation, the building that once housed the Park Cinema is also home to a café, a nightclub and a 200-seat all-purpose area that can serve as a restaurant for theatergoers, a comedy club and a room for receptions and business functions.

The extras are part of owner Piyush Patel’s plan to make sure the new theater at the corner of Park and Pontiac avenues does what any business sets out to do: make money.

That will not be easy. Even in good times, it’s hard for theaters to make money, industry people say. And with the economy in tatters, it will be that much harder.

There’s also the issue of size. With 1,050 seats, the new theater is relatively small in the world of live entertainment.

Patel, 69, a native of India whose business interests include real estate, hotels and personal care products, says that is why he has cast such as wide net.

“Every business plan has some kind of escape strategy, you know, what happens if it doesn’t work,” he said. “That’s why I came up with the idea, a total entertainment complex.”

This is not to say that Patel won’t be trying to make money from the theater end of the business.
He has hired Jack Nicholson, a New Englander with a long history in managing sporting and entertainment venues, to oversee the theater operation. And Nicholson, like Patel, is casting a wide net.

For patrons who think theater means plays and musicals, the new venue will be working with the Stoneham Theatre, in Stoneham, Mass., which has been producing its own shows since it — like the Park — reopened in a historic former cinema. The Park will help subsidize those productions — this year’s list includes “My Fair Lady,” “Gaslight,” “Always … Patsy Cline,” and “Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad” — and will host perhaps four or five shows a year.

Dates for those performances are still being determined, in part because Nicholson is also working to book live acts. Three will come to the Park during the late-winter/spring, though those dates are not set either: The Moscow Circus, the Rat Pack and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
The live theater and live entertainment represent the jewels that the new theater plans to offer. Rounding out those offerings will be large-screen, high-definition broadcasts of sporting events — the Super Bowl, the World Series, World Cup soccer — and independent movies. Read more here.

Lessons Learned

What are the lessons you learned at Entrepreneurial Ventures for the Arts? Any light bulb moment? Anything you found extremely helpful? How about things to remember for others starting down this path? Share you ideas or even your questions. You can also e-mail them to us to post.

Funding Environment

What are funders looking for? That is the question on everyone's mind. During a couple recent conversations I've had with cultural organizations, I am starting to hear a different approach. There is a sense and realization that organizations have to change they way they do business. Waiting for the economy to turn around isn't of consideration any more, nor are funders available to fill the funding gaps and deficits. Instead, these nonprofits are looking at a funding mix (like any other nonprofit), but more importantly, focusing on how much money they generate through services, fees, and other activities. They are looking at what they do well, and how they can capitalize and make money. Are you having this conversation? What offers your organization the best chance of generating unrestricted dollars? This is where you need to be looking as we look to the future, especially as you consider starting your own entrepreneurial venture. Remember, share your ideas or questions here.

Power of Networking

There is a challenge to changing the way we do business, and even more in thinking of different ways to generate revenue for our organizations. But our peers offer an opportunity for us to start this difficult process. At the recent Entrepreneurial Ventures for the Arts trainings in Albany and NYC, participants found their peers invaluable resources for discussing ideas and even how to confront potential hurdles. As you consider your own venture, use your peer network. Our peers can be essential in helping make a venture successful. They can help us think through details we would miss. They can be our focus group. As we look at the time and effort involved in putting these ideas in place, this feedback is important and can help you make the most of your limited resources and time.

What are your ideas?

Following up on the recent program in NYC, there were a number of ideas shared. Here a couple from our discussion:

• Art supply store
• DVD production and sales of programs and materials
• Digital photography products
• Consulting work
• Rental space
• Specialized tours

What are your ideas? Share your revenue generating idea here, and tell people what your challenges are. The more we share, the more connections and opportunities we can discover.

A Beginning

Faced with numerous challenges, arts organizations need to be creative in developing new ways of funding their missions and programs. In response, the New York Council of Nonprofits with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts offered the first of two Entrepreneurial Ventures for the Arts trainings in NYC.

The conversation was great, the food was good, and participants not only shared their venture ideas, but they discovered shared opportunities just through their interaction and networking. There was plenty of information related, and participants explored the world of entrepreneurial ventures, discussing topics ranging from tax implications to the funding environment.

As the discussion of ideas continues, NYCON has launched this simple blog to help facilitate the development of these ventures. We invite you to post your ideas and questions here.