6/14 Creative Conversation – 501c3: Is it working for me?

How would arts organizations operate if they couldn’t depend on the generosity of individuals and meager government grants?  Is the “standard” 501c3 the only viable model for a creative and artistic enterprise today and what does an alternative to the nonprofit business model look like? In this conversation, panelists Marisa Catalina Casey, Robert Elmes and Connie Hall with the moderation of Melissa Dibble explored a few of the standard operating assumptions of the non-profit arts organization and how they are being successfully up-ended.

What: A Creative Conversation – 501c3: Is it working for me?
Where: WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, 44 Charlton Street @ Varick Street
When: Monday, June 14, 2010, 6:30-8:30pm

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Read on for info on panelists….

MODERATOR:

Melissa Dibble, Director of Client Partnerships & General Manager, EmcArts

Melissa Dibble directs EmcArts’ operations, while also working with funding and cultural partners in their efforts to realize breakthrough strategies. Melissa has engaged with partners from a variety of disciplines, including Streb/SLAM, COCA – Center for Creative Arts, and Children’s Theatre Company as part of the Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts, and ArtSpace and Young Audiences Connecticut as part of the New Pathways for the Arts Initiative. Melissa is also lead facilitator for the Irvine Foundation’s Arts Innovation Fund, supporting California’s largest cultural institutions in development of new ideas. Other past partners include Carnegie Hall, Aspen Music Festival and School, New England Conservatory, The Wallace Foundation and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Prior to EmcArts, Melissa held leadership positions with Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She is a Fellow of the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Orchestra Management Fellowship Program, and holds a Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance from Boston University’s School for the Arts.

PANELISTS:

Marisa Catalina Casey, Founder & Executive Director, Starting Artists, Inc.

Marisa Catalina Casey is Founder and Executive Director of Starting Artists, Inc. a nonprofit community-based arts center in Brooklyn. Marisa obtained her BA in Latin American Studies from Brown University and her MA in Arts Administration from Columbia University Teachers College. Marisa has worked as a photojournalist for CARE-Peru and The Providence Journal.  She has held positions at the William Randolph Hearst Foundations, Teen Ink, NYS Arts, Alliance for Children, and APERTURE Foundation. Additionally, she co-authored Born in Our Hearts: Stories of Adoption, selling over 11,000 copies with proceeds benefiting international orphanages. Marisa has received scholarships from the NEA, Americans for the Arts, Columbia University, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. She is member of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Council and a founding member of Emerging Leaders of New York Arts. A 2009 YouthActionNet Global Fellow, Marisa participated in the American Express Nonprofit Leadership Institute and is a new member of the Transatlantic Network 2020, a coalition of young Europeans and North Americans taking collaborative action on global issues selected by the British Council. In September 2010, Marisa will attend the Lucca Leadership Academy in South Africa.

Robert Elmes, Founder & Director, Galapagos Art Space

Robert Elmes is the founder and director of the award winning Galapagos Art Space. The New York Times called Galapagos “an ever-growing cultural oasis”, Time Out New York called it an “essential element of New York City”, and The Village Voice wrote that Mr. Elmes is “building a cultural movement brick by brick.”  Galapagos’ new DUMBO location in New York City houses a 1600 square foot lake inside its building, and will soon become NYC’s first LEED certified “green” cultural venue. The venue was awarded the ‘Building Brooklyn Award’, nominated for the Municipal Art Society’s ‘MASterwork Award’, and awarded “Best New Art Space” by the New York Press.  Galapagos does not accept government grants or public funding of any kind. Elmes writes that “if the work we present is strong, communicative, and effective work, we will survive. This is New York City. One of the greatest cultural cities to ever have risen, perhaps the greatest. As cultural leaders in New York City we can’t simply be placeholders, bystanders in the midst of what others before us have built – we have to lead.”

Connie Hall, Producing Director, Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant

Connie Hall is the producing director of Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant. She has helped to create and mount over 20 new plays in New York, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, France, Canada and Thailand as an independent producer, fundraiser, and actor. She has been a contributing writer and performer with several New York ensemble-based theater companies, including Knife, Inc., Saga Theatre, SaBooge, and International WOW and at such venues as St. Ann’s Warehouse, La MaMa e.t.c., and Repertorio Espanol. She has performed at the Ohio Theatre in the title role in Robert Woodruff’s Godard (distant and right) directed by Robert Woodruff, as Dr. James Barry in Deborah Wallace’s Psyche and with the International WOW Company’s Death of Nations cycle.  Connie is currently a grantwriter on staff at New Dramatists. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and she is a graduate of the Culinary Management Diploma Program at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York.

Recent related articles you mind find interesting:

• State of the Art (Artsjournal, June 6, 2010)
• The Blurring Line Between Business and Charity (The Chronicle of Philanthropy, June 1, 2010)
• Is the Not-for-Profit Structure Destructive? (Artsjournal, January 28, 2010)
• And here is the ELNYA Resource Guide: 501(c)3 Alternatives & Nonprofit Issues that was compiled around our last Creative Conversation discussing the not-for-profit model in June 2008.