ARTS FUND GRANT RECIPIENTS
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 Theatre, $50,000
Dad’s Garage Theatre Company, $60,000
Horizon Theatre Company, $38,000
Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, $60,000
Monroe Art Guild, $5,000
Moving in the Spirit, $35,000
Out of Hand Theater, $12,500
CAPITALIZATION DEFINED
Well-capitalized small and midsize arts organizations, according to the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, have a sustainable business model that produces surpluses on a regular basis. They further have access to the capital necessary to:
- Carry out their artistic mission fully
- Achieve the goals in their strategic or business plan
- Mitigate normal cash flow bumps
- Take advantage of programmatic or operational opportunities when they arise
- Withstand fluctuations in revenue and the economy
- Take care of the wear and tear on facilities and fixed assets
Over two decades, through elevating bull markets and crushing downturns, the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund has invested $11 million in inner-city, suburban and even a few exurban arts organizations, trying to help position them for a more prosperous future.
But, in 2011, as fund leaders studied the records of 40 of the top organizations in which it has invested, they arrived at a startling realization. Seventy-eight percent of the groups, outfits that by most measures would be considered the metro area’s most stable, possessed less than three months of operating liquidity. Worse, 53 percent had negative liquidity.
“That’s no way to live,” Arts Fund Director Lisa Cremin said.
The Arts Fund, which announced its typical annual round of general operating support grants totaling $500,000 to 13 groups at a luncheon Thursday, decided to do something more, and different.
Hiring national experts the Nonprofit Finance Fund as consultants, it quietly launched a comprehensive program to educate select arts groups, established funders, business leaders and other stakeholders in the metro area’s arts infrastructure about capitalization. In the arts, that’s defined as the building of a strong balance sheet that provides the resources for groups to meet their artistic missions.
As an extension of that outreach, the Arts Fund created a pilot capitalization grant program last year. The winner, announced Thursday, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, received $200,000, the largest grant ever made by the Arts Fund to a single arts organization.
It was a prosperous afternoon for the Contemporary, which also was one of three groups (along with Dad’s Garage and Kenny Leon’s True Colors theater companies) awarded the largest general operating support grants, $60,000 each.
For the Contemporary, which unveiled a $600,000 renovation of its main galleries last year as part of a 40th anniversary celebration, the capitalization grant provides a road map to a more financially stable future, board President Tim Schrager said.
Schrager said the board’s goal is to raise the Westside art center’s annual budget from $630,000 to $860,000 over the next four years. “We feel it’s attainable, with the grant, if we make changes to the way we’re operating, the goal being to really increase and diversify our audience and our donor base.”
The funding arrives at a time when the Contemporary is in the process of replacing its leaders, managing director Stacie Lindner, who departed in March for family reasons, and artistic director Stuart Horodner, who leaves soon to head the University of Kentucky’s art museum.
“It’s just sort of interesting that it’s all happening at once,” Schrager said, “but we came to the conclusion that it’s a good thing that it’s all happening at once.”
The Contemporary is tweaking its co-management structure, and Schrager said the board expects to hire an executive director in a month, “somebody with the right skill set to follow through with this (capitalization) plan.” Then a national search will be launched for a curator.
The art center was one of three finalist organizations, along with Atlanta Celebrates Photography and Horizon Theatre, selected to go through a form of capitalization boot camp organized and paid for by the Arts Fund, part of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. That included extensive support in compiling a capitalization plan from a professional nonprofit consultant trained by the Nonprofit Finance Fund and coaching sessions with Atlanta business leaders that helped the groups polish their pitches.
Principal support for the various capitalization initiatives came from the Atlanta-based Zeist Foundation, along with PNC Bank and the Coca-Cola Co.
Atlanta Celebrates Photography executive director Amy Miller said she felt like her organization, which operates on a $330,000 budget, won even though it didn’t receive the $200,000 grant.
“This was an amazing opportunity for us on so many levels,” Miller said. “Last year we completed our strategic plan, and have the overall vision in place. What we were missing was the financial plan to … provide structure to accomplish that vision.”
Pitching an a la carte menu of initiatives for support from potential donors, Atlanta Celebrates Photography has set a capitalization goal of $115,000 per year over the next two years.
Though it’s undetermined if the Arts Fund will offer capitalization grants in the future, Cremin believes the pilot program can be “catalytic” for the broader arts community.
Instead of planting seeds, Cremin said, “We’re planting skills.”
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