Patricia Barber and Sonny Rollins received Guggenheim fellowships as
individuals. As I've written since the start of this exchange,
fellowships are a way to support individuals, there's no need for a
non-profit structure, just an application that gets all the way
through the process.
On the other hand, it's extremely unlikely in the current funding
climate that an organization will be very successful in receiving
grants if the organization isn't a well-run non-profit business. It's
not simply a matter of the Arkestra showing up for gigs on time more
often than they did in the past. Virtually no granting agencies will
provide funding for arts organizations that are not standard
non-profits with a 501c3, board of directors, staff, business
structure, budget review process, audits, long-range plan, etc. The
less like that the Arkestra is, the less they're likely to receive
grant support from ANY institutional sources. This has absolutely
nothing to do with the relative value of the Arkestra, & it's not
about need. No responsible funding agency is going to give money to
an arts organization that doesn't look like it can handle it.
There's no state constitution in the US that will allow public arts
funding agencies to give grants to an arts organization that's not a
non-profit. Nearly every governmental arts funding agency has
additional limits on the structure of the organizations they can
support. Very, very few private funding agencies will do this in very
rare cases. Some individuals with deep pockets who also don't care
about the tax advantages for charitable contributions will support
organizations that aren't non-profit, but the individual has to
really love the work. Every funding organization, whether it's public
or private, will go over panel comments and let you know what looked
good and bad about an application package. This information is worth
as much as a grant award, cause with it, an organization can learn
how they can make their approaches more effective.
If the Arkestra is unable to become a non-profit organization that
looks like it has the ability to sustain itself as such (& again,
this is a lot more than just being less flakey than the band used to
be under Sun Ra), there's virtually no chance that the organization
will receive funding from granting organizations.
If you want to help the Arkestra out, help them put together a board
and staff that will look like it has a chance of sustaining the band,
help them identify funders that might be more appropriate sources of
support. Unless they have a stable non-profit business structure
together, complaining about the Arkestra not getting grants isn't
much different than complaining about them not getting air play on
country stations.
Or you can try to find a rich fool who'll throw money at the band
regardless of what they do.
--
Herb Levy
P O Box 9369
Fort Worth, TX 76147
herb(a)eskimo.com
