Acquiring Start-Up Funding for New Arts Organizations

Abstract

This article addresses the challenge of assembling financial support for emergent arts organizations. In addition to organizational logistics and the demands of making art, such groups must garner financing from various sources, including governments/foundations, private sector companies, individual donations, and earned revenues. Drawing on the relevant literature, as well as insights from a case study of a recently formed arts organization—the Grand River Jazz Society (GRJS)—a framework is created proposing the key success factors and corresponding core competencies associated with each funding source. Governments and foundations require addressing mission as a key success factor, and navigating bureaucracy is an essential core competency in which early stage arts organizations need to be successful. Businesses, in contrast, look for action as a key success factor, and it is managerial core competencies that lead to sponsorship. Individuals respond to vision and require relational core competencies for successful involvement. Finally, the key success factor for earned revenue is a connection with audience members, necessitating core competencies with a services mindset. The article interweaves the conceptual frame with examples from the GRJS case study and also addresses the challenge of operating with a portfolio of income sources. Finally, results from a survey of fifty-two arts start-ups in Ontario, Canada, provides context from a wider group of such organizations with respect to their early stage funding.