Southern Finger Lakes Arts Preparedness Network

“He who is best prepared can best serve in his moment of inspiration”  — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Resources for Artists and Organizations: Links, documents, and forms below are intended to help you at any point in your ongoing efforts to be ready, or recover from an event.

The Actors Fund fosters stability and resiliency, and provides a safety net for performing arts and entertainment professionals over their lifespan.

American’s for the Arts: THE CREATE ACT Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) reintroduced the Comprehensive Resources for Entrepreneurs in the Arts to Transform the Economy (CREATE) Act  in both the U.S. Senate and House at Arts Advocacy Day on March 5, 2019. The CREATE Act aims to more thoroughly serve the people, places, and programs that make our nation’s creative economy prosper in all its cultural, social, and commercial forms. This sweeping legislation expands on the research of numerous economic studies, such as Americans for the Arts’ Arts and Economic Prosperity, our Creative Industries maps, and the CREATE Act issue brief in the Congressional Arts Handbook.

Artists’ Fellowship – provides emergency aid to professional fine artists and their families in times of sickness, natural disaster, bereavement or unexpected extreme hardship. You must be a visual artist making a livelihood through sales reported on a Schedule C U.S. Federal Tax Return and have an active exhibition history.

The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes has made the availability of emergency funds permanent through the Artist Development Grant. These grants of up to $500 support professional opportunities and unexpected expenses affecting an artist’s livelihood and help to alleviate financial insecurity and inequality facing working artists. If you would like to contribute to Emergency Funding, click here.

ArtsReady, an online emergency preparedness service by and for arts/cultural nonprofits, provides arts organizations with customized business continuity plans for post-crisis sustainability.

American Society of Journalists and Authors – Writers Emergency Assistance Fund helps establish freelance writers who, because of illness, disability, a natural disaster, or an extraordinary professional crisis are unable to work.

Carnegie Fund for Authors – The applicant must be an American author who has published at least one full-length work — fiction or nonfiction — that has been published by a mainstream publisher. An applicant must demonstrate need; the emergency may be because of illness or some other urgent need such as fire, flood, hurricane, etc. Documentation should be included with the application: a doctor’s letter or other proof of the emergency situation.

CERF+ A studio artist’s career has its own set of ups and downs. Some are predictable, others are unexpected. CERF+ is here to ensure that your career is able to sustain both. They envision a future where working artists thrive and have a safety net of resources and support to protect and sustain their livelihood, studio and art.

COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resources – This list is specifically designed to serve freelance artists, and those interested in supporting the independent artist community. This includes, but is not limited to, actors, designers, producers, technicians, stage managers, musicians, composers, choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, craft artists, teaching artists, dancers, writers & playwrights, photographers, etc.

Creative Capital COVID-19 Resource List – For artists working in all disciplines, as well as philanthropists, and arts professionals.

dPlan|ArtsReady – an online disaster planning tool, click here.

Dramatists Guild Foundation – has a listed of available Emergency Grants for writers and theatres here.

Event Safety Alliance has released a Safety Guide For Reopening using input from over 300 professionals in the field.

FEMA Life of Art Collections Improves with Better First Response 

Fractured Atlas has compiled a list of Security & Privacy Tools for Artistic Collaboration – increase safety and privacy without sacrificing functionality.

Grantmakers in the Arts is the only national association of both public and private arts and culture funders in the US, including independent and family foundations, public agencies, community foundations, corporate philanthropies, nonprofit regrantors, and national service organizations – funders of all shapes and sizes across the US and into Canada.

Jazz Foundation of America is working to establish a COVID-19 Relief Fund. Apply for Assistance here. The foundation works year-round to provide emergency assistance, create work opportunities, and community connections.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation is both a model for how resources can be offered to artists, and an advocate for the value of artists. The impact the Foundation seeks to have is to help to create a world in which the following conditions exist: Artists are valued and thriving; The visual artists who are recognized in contemporary culture reflect and represent the diverse world in which we live; A comprehensible and comprehensive set of systems provide resources for artists’ lives and careers.

MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly influence the health and welfare of the music community.

Musicians Foundation In today’s volatile professional climate, many musicians experience greater financial risk than ever before. Musicians Foundation provides aid that enables performers, educators, composers, and arrangers to continue pursuing their artistic process and vision. As the oldest non-profit of its kind in the United States, Musicians Foundation is dedicated to assisting musicians, and their families, in times of emergency, crisis, or transition. Our goal is to relieve the financial burdens of musicians who qualify according to the Foundation’s criteria. Musicians Foundation has helped sustain the creative life of thousands of musicians throughout the United States since 1914. The organization’s more-than-100-year reputation speaks for itself—a longevity supported by generations of individual and corporate donors, carefully planned fundraising events, targeted outreach, and the maintenance of fruitful collaborations with like-minded groups.

National Assembly of State Arts Organizations A professional association of the nation’s 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies. NASAA is a national, not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that champions public support for the arts in America. Together, NASAA and the state arts agencies advance the arts as an essential ingredient in the well-being and prosperity of our nation’s individuals, communities and families.

National Coalition for Arts Preparedness and Emergency Response (NCAPER) can help by connecting and convening. If you are currently in the midst of a situation or have experienced a disaster or crisis, please fill out the artist assessment or organization assessment report. NCAPER will contact you to discuss how we can help.

temporary NCAPER COVID-19 Resources

National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.

National Performance Network seeks to provide risk-taking performing and visual artists with the resources needed to develop and tour new work, to ensure arts leaders have the skills and opportunities to be change-makers in the arts presenting field, and to influence cultural policy for more just and artist-centered practices.

New York Foundation for the Arts is a nonprofit service organization that provides the concrete resources that working artists and emerging arts organizations need to thrive.

NDN Collective announces a $10 million COVID-19 Response Project to quickly provide grants, communication and strategic support to Tribal Nations, front line Indigenous-led organizations, and individuals who are providing essential services to Indigenous communities in North America during the current global health pandemic.

The Performing Arts Readiness project was formed in the recognition that performing arts organizations are especially vulnerable to disasters and emergencies which can halt performances, sometimes indefinitely, and can put an organization out of business overnight.

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s dual criteria for grants are recognizable artistic merit and demonstrable financial need, whether professional, personal or both. The Foundation’s mission is to aid, internationally, those individuals who have worked as professional artists over a significant period of time.

Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants – The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has partnered with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to administer a new medical emergency grant program called Rauschenberg Emergency Grants. The program will provide visual and media artists and choreographers with one-time grants of up to $5,000 for medical emergencies. Eligible expenses include, but are not limited to: hospital and doctor bills (including insurance co-pays), tests, physical/occupational therapy, prescription drugs specifically for the emergency medical condition, and emergency dental work.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has short-term Emergency Medical Grants available for genre writers affected by a short-term illness. Click here for details.

SMU | Data Arts – We stand in solidarity with arts organizations, their employees, and artists on the front lines of impact from COVID-19, and the community of audience members, donors and grantmakers that support them. Capture data that will help to tell the complete story about COVID-19’s direct and indirect effects on finances, operations, and attendance – for free.

South Arts has built a robust library of publications by other organizations, institutions, and researchers. Organized by theme, sections on the publications page include arts education, arts participation, creative economies, folk-life & traditional arts, international cultural engagement, presenting & touring, and the South.

Syracuse University‘s online resource How Libraries Can Prepare for Natural Disasters and Preserve Community History has preparedness and disaster tips for libraries.

Principles for Ethical Cancellation – compiled by Springboard for the Arts, these suggestions can help businesses and organizations to help mitigate the impact on artists, freelancers and contractors.

Sweet Relief Musician’s Fund – Sweet Relief Musicians Fund provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems. In other words, Healing Musicians in Need. We all have received so much out of music, it’s time to give a little back! A special COVID-19 fund has been established.

Theatre Communications Group has prepared a FREE video, available on Facebook, on the topic of Coronavirus Preparedness for Theatres.

UC Berkley Extention – Mental Health Resources to Help Prevent Creative and Professional Burnout