This seminar examines the practical and administrative aspects of a profession and life in the Arts (performing, visual and other). Topics include: speaking articulately about your work, budgeting basics, marketing your work, building a sustainable fundraising program that fits your artistic practice, cultivating relationships with key industry professionals, and pitching your artistry, among other topics. Guest Artists and Arts Administrators join us with informative presentations that shed light on the practicalities and realities of being a professional artist. Over the course of the class, students will design a hands-on plan and accompanying budget focused on developing and pursuing a life in the arts post-graduation. By the end of the course, participants will be better prepared to perform the business tasks expected of arts professionals aimed at promoting your work, funding it and growing artistically within the larger arts landscape.

Sara shares what it means to build fundraising capacity via a multi-pronged annual fundraising strategy. This best practice is applicable whether you’re raising money for a single project or looking to sustain your artistic operations annually. Changing your mindset and building a diverse fundraising approach, based on your capacity, is a game-changer when it comes to making your art happen, and sustaining it over time. We’ll also look at how budgets and budgeting help inform this work.

Donations from individuals are the backbone of all fundraising strategies. This workshop offers an overview of fundraising from solicitation letters to benefits to cultivation events all of which help artists and managers develop a network of supporters. Participants will learn to develop their own donor strategies and walk away with a multi-pronged plan for raising money from individuals.

This workshop offers a primer on building a Board of Directors or deepening your current board efforts including reviewing board terms, codifying your give/get commitment, and formalizing roles and responsibilities in a board contract.

Sara teaches the differences between small and large gift campaigns and how the strategies are best utilized as part of an annual fundraising strategy. We’ll review marketing techniques to attract donors to these campaigns, along with how to use data capture/your current mailing list to glean prospects for either/both approaches. This workshop also discusses annual appeal best practices.

Beginning with an overview of basic budgeting principles, we’ll discuss how your project budget can inform your timeline and nuanced steps along the way. This workshop will use participants’ projects as models for learning.

This class breaks down the practical steps to asking someone for money. Sara will set the stage for a 1 hour chat over coffee (with a prospect) and together we review talking points. We’ll break down the chat into 15-minute increments and explore several key techniques and strategies. We’ll then do some role playing so we can ask questions, giggle at our discomfort, and ultimately get comfortable around asking people for money. By the end of the class, participants will feel more clear and empowered on how to raise money for their work.

This class reviews the plethora of resources available to assist with fundraising from utilizing local, regional and national service organizations to finding and researching grants, fellowships, residencies to what role AI can play in your fundraising.