Capitalization and Nonprofit Financial Health Workshop

3-hour workshops: One for grantmakers and one for cultural organizations

In these unprecedented times, as we face new and long-standing challenges, how do funders ensure cultural organizations thrive? How do funders assess the financial health of their applicants and grantees in order to support each responsively? How can funders assess and respond to organizations’ financial health through the lens of racial equity? Join GIA and Rebecca Thomas & Associates, with advice and counsel from Sage Crump, for our online Capitalization and Nonprofit Financial Health Workshop.

Defining capitalization as “the financial resources an organization needs to fulfill its mission over time,” GIA embarked on the National Capitalization Project (NCP) to seek answers to the nonprofit field's being under-capitalized. Capitalization and Nonprofit Financial Health Workshops have been held in dozens of cities engaging cultural funders in a dialogue about the financial health of nonprofit art groups in their community and how funders might better support capitalization principles for their grantees. GIA has added a three-hour companion session for grantees looking at what it means to be a well-capitalized organization achieving financial health and vibrancy within their marketplace. GIA has worked with cultural strategist and facilitator Sage Crump and arts finance consultant Rebecca Thomas & Associates to update the workshop to reflect the financial impacts of the pandemic and to do so through a racial equity lens.

The goals for the Capitalization and Nonprofit Financial Health Workshops are to:

  1. Elevate knowledge of capitalization for nonprofits and their funders
  2. Elevate the racialized impacts of under-capitalization and how to respond
  3. Provide shared vocabulary that granters and grantees use to inform and transform grantmaking and nonprofit financial practices
  4. Provide insights into having effective dialogues between funders and grantees
  5. Facilitate discussion with funders and nonprofits about their community’s capital drivers, their institutional values and practices, and the ways that each entity fits into the arts eco-system
  6. Create a greater sense of complementary practice and camaraderie for a stronger, healthier arts and culture ecosystem.

We have adapted our workshops from the in-person format to online. The workshops will be three hours.

2024 Workshops

Workshop for Grantmakers: January 25, 2024 from 10am-1pmPT/1-4pmET. This workshop is SOLD OUT. Please email workshops@giarts.org to ask to be placed on a waiting list for upcoming workshops.

GIA charges those with the largest grantmaking budgets a higher fee so that we are able to secure the participation and perspectives of those with smaller budgets.

Grantmaking budget GIA members Non-members
Up to $1,999,999 $150 per participant $200 per participant
Public Agencies $150 per participant $200 per participant
National Partners $150 per participant $200 per participant
$2,000,000 - $4,999,999 $200 per participant $250 per participant
$5,000,000 and above $250 per participant $300 per participant

Register Now

Attendees

Funder Session (3 hours) Arts funders, large and small, private and public, that are invested in the wellbeing of the nonprofit arts sector.

GIA also offers a version of this workshop for nonprofit cultural organizations so that they and their funders can all speak the same language regarding their financial health. Funders can sponsor an in-person or online workshop for their grantee organizations so they may access these insights for free. For more information on sponsoring a workshop for nonprofit cultural organizations, please contact workshops@giarts.org.

Instructors/Facilitators

Nationally recognized arts finance consultant, Rebecca Thomas of Rebecca Thomas & Associates (formerly with Nonprofit Finance Fund) and senior staff from Grantmakers in the Arts will lead the sessions.

Emiko Ono, Program Director, Performing Arts, William + Flora Hewlett Foundation has said that Grantmakers in the Arts’ Capitalization and Nonprofit Financial Health Workshop is among the most influential work that she has participated in. “It changed the way I think about my responsibilities as a funder,” says Ono. “The workshop gave us a philosophy around financials along with a shared language that is easy to communicate. We evolved the financial information we collect from applicants and expanded how we talk with and support grantees.”

Contact

For more information on format, timing and costs, contact workshops@giarts.org.