blog by arwen

I had the extreme pleasure to spend last Sunday working on a film that is part of this year’s RIPFEST. I was doing extra work as a yogi and gym regular for a friend who was the Director.

What is RIPFEST you might wonder (as I did)?

RIPFEST is a unique collaborative filmmaking project that allows filmmakers the freedom to do what they do best – just make films. At the launch of a RIPFEST event several teams of filmmakers who have never met are given guidelines to create a 5-10 minute film. Each group is comprised of a Producer, a Writer, a Composer, a Director, a DP, an Editor, a Choreographer (for musicals), 2-4 Actors and 2 locations. The teams are given guidelines to create a 5-7 minute film. Then they have:

-  2 days to write the first draft
-  2 days for re-writes
-  2 days for pre-production
-  2 days to shoot the film
-  1 week for post production, scoring, and graphics.

All the films are premiered, just 16 days after the process began.There are no restrictions on content or style – pieces range from the most serious to absurdly comic and for musicals, in styles from R&B to operatic to traditional Broadway. Each team is, however, given the same guidelines for creative inspiration and a theme, and the teams are required to only shoot in the two locations provided and to tailor their movie to the actors on their teams.

I got to chat with one of the Exec. Producers on set and learned all about the process & philosophy behind it. It is pretty amazing that this project/program has survived on bare-bones funding and a completely volunteer staff for the last decade. While working for free is never the best situation, I think the real benefit RIPFEST provides is networking – it is structured so artists can meet and work collaboratively with people outside their normal circles. I can’t wait to see what the different teams created in their 16 days.

They are screening all six films during three showings at Anthology Film Archives next Monday night 4/26. You can get tickets and full details here.

Given that tomorrow is Tax Day, I wanted to write about a volunteer project I’ve been doing for the last few months.

For three years I have been an active volunteer with the amazing New York Cares, which is a volunteer-aggregation organization. If you are local to NYC, or have been through Grand Central Station anytime during the holiday season, you may know them for the Winter Coat Drive program which provides gently used outerwear for free to homeless people. In the past, I’ve helped out with a gigantic Easter egg hunt in Prospect Park and did a one month stint in my neighborhood at a special ed high school helping teach life skills to kids through an after-school cooking club.

In this time of growing economic insecurity, I felt compelled to do something more, so I joined the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Preparation program (aka VITA) to serve low-income New Yorkers by helping them file their taxes for free. Sexy, no? I have done my own taxes for years but this was taking my penchant for completing forms to a whole new level. I had to take an extensive online course through the IRS and do in-person training to cover the NY state & city forms. I spent the week after Christmas getting deep into tax law – what better way to start the New Year than dissecting recent Congressional revisions to the tax code!

I was scared at the beginning – I’ve never done any economic development work and the constituents of this program are people I rarely comes across in the gentrified world of the performing arts. Reaching out to help people who live radically different lives than my own was actually the biggest attraction.

This is the final week, and while I don’t have totals yet for the whole season, I can tell you this (from the NY Cares program director):

As of the beginning of March, halfway through the season, New York Cares volunteers have completed more than 4,600 returns. You have helped return $10.6 million to low-income New Yorkers, about $6 million of which is from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The average refund is about $2,300.

Total refunds secured through our program are up by over $2.5 million from this time last year. In the current economic climate, this will have a great impact on our community and will change the lives of many of the families you have served.

My tax site specifically (housed at the wonderful Brooklyn Cooperative) got this progress report last month:

As of the end of February, New York Cares volunteers at the Bushwick site have completed 432 tax returns for a total of $875,469.

We were also visited by an IRS quality control agent and received exemplary remarks and ratings based on interviews with folks we helped and a random audit of returns we prepared – no mistakes at all.

I didn’t realize how rewarding it would be to help someone who qualifies for the Earned Income Credit, or work with a young adult who is filing their taxes for the first time, or help a retired widow collect her refund. We in the arts often live on meager income and develop resourceful strategies to get by, but it is a whole different thing when you meet a someone in their early 20s who qualifies as Head of Household by supporting their parent & siblings on less than $20,000 in NYC.

This program was an amazing learning experience for me on many levels. Do you volunteer and if so, what kinds of programs do you like to participate in?

Bonus link: I recently found another great resource for artists & taxes. Check out the FREE worksheets that the fantastic folks at Riley Associates PC have put together to help artists keep accurate records for tax purposes.

I promised the participants of my recent appeal letter workshop that I’d share two great resources we discussed.

First, we have an academic examination of the typical language included in appeals. I found this fantastic linguistic analysis last autumn and was surprised it didn’t get more notice in the arts blogosphere (the intrepid Artful Manager covered it). Written by Frank C. Dickerson, Ph.D., the work is based on doctoral research he conducted while attending Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker School of Management. Mr. Dickerson has an extensive resume and decades of experience working in fund raising, so we would do well to heed his warning.

What is he saying exactly? Well, the title says it all when it comes to the direct appeal (also known as an “ask” or solicitation letter): “The Way We Write is All Wrong“. He argues that most appeals are written in the style of an academic treatise or worse yet official government documents, which creates distance and alienates the reader. He proposes that we write with personal passion and infuse our appeals with stories that connect emotionally to the reader instead. As a measure of his commitment to public service, he has made several important documents available for free on his website. For that, I’d like to say “Thank you, Frank!” on behalf of independent artists everywhere.

The other important resource is a recent market research report called “The Next Generation of American Giving“.

A landmark research study into the charitable giving behaviors and attitudes of Gen Y, Gen X, Boomer and Mature donors from Convio, Edge Research and Sea Change Strategies. The art and science of fundraising, as we know it, is undergoing rapid and permanent change driven by technology, the imperative to attract new donors, and by the evolving traits of different generations of supporters. This report is a contribution to understanding this change and offers some strategic guidance for fundraisers who are struggling to keep up with it.

This is huge to anyone undertaking an individual campaign – especially given the rapid evolution of fund raising trends & techniques as we now straddle the worlds of the old school (unsolicited direct mail form letter) and the new school (online & email appeals, donating via text messages, Facebook causes etc). You have to provide your contact info to download the report, but in my opinion it is WELL worth it. Nonprofit marketing expert Nancy E. Schwartz agrees and offers a quick summary of the findings.

When looking at these resources together, I think two big takeaways are:

1. when asking for money, effective writing for individuals is completely DIFFERENT than effective writing for grants, so do your homework and figure out how to tell a compelling story (as opposed to demonstrating your capacity for program success via measurable criteria);

and

2. appeal letter writing/campaigning might require just as much work as writing a grant if you want to do it right, given technological advances in digital media and the range of generational preferences relating to communication channels.

What do you think about these reports? Any additional appeal letter resources we should add into the mix?