BENEFITING: WATSON UNIVERSITY
*Your donation is 100% tax deductible. Thank you to our fiscal sponsor, Watson University.
This is the first step in our Philanthropic Capital Campaign. We are reaching out to our communities to demonstrate support through donations of all sizes. During the second phase of our Campaign, we will be reaching out to larger foundations and organizations. YOUR support demonstrates to these organizations that this is a cause worth funding!
Strength of Doves is a nonprofit organization that supports artists to financial sustainability so that they can earn a living while healing communities through art. We do this through three functions:
1) Agency – A full service booking agency for 22 of the best spoken word acts in the United States.
2) Training – Transparency into our full process. A do-it-yourself training program for artists to navigate booking themselves.
*Allied Artists Program to serve & train poets beyond our roster throughout the US.
3) Marketplace – Three central places for venues to book spoken word artists. Think Kayak for activist artists:
– Strength of Doves App: central booking location for our spoken word artists (Aug 2015).
– Strength of Doves Website: a second central booking location for our spoken word artists.
– SlamFind App: a central booking location for any and all spoken word artists in the United States (Aug 2015).
Artists have been at the crux of social change movements globally throughout history, yet while there is a roadmap to becoming a doctor, teacher, lawyer, banker… there is no road map for their work. This is where we step in.
A little about what we have accomplished over the past few months:
– Connected SD poets to over $21,000 worth of gigs (since November)
– Built an “Allied Artist” program to support artists outside of our roster
– Partnered with an app called SlamFind, the ONLY comprehensive list of Spoken Word poetry venues in the country and also, come August, a marketplace for any spoken word artist in the country to upload their profiles and get connected to paid poetry opportunities
– Built a team of talented, diverse, and experienced individuals that have been working without pay to support Strength of Doves, and will be paid for their work come June through this campaign (see “our team” below)
– Built a network of advisors that continue to challenge, support, and grow our business development and ensure that we are always focused on quality programming, scalable models, and financial sustainability, to name a few (see “our advisors” below)
– Shifted, changed, and expanded our model to better address the root problem we are trying to solve (namely, supporting spoken word artists to financial sustainability through their work)
– Seen two of our poets win National championships in Poetry Slam, being named the best spoken word poet in the country and the best female spoken word poet in the country, respectively.
– Launched our capital campaign to raise money and become fully financially sustainable by October, 2015!
About our campaign: A bridge to sustainability.
We anticipate a model entirely reliant on earned incomes and absent of philanthropic capital by October 2015. In the meantime, we are raising funds to cover our near term needs.
Timeline
$85,000 over 4 months.
$30,000 in May | $20,000 in June | $20,000 in July | $15,000 in August
$21,500 – One time fixed costs (Software, office materials, launch event, Strength of Doves app and website development)
$14,000 – Operational costs (Office space, fundraising, website management, financial and business management.)
$50,078 – Direct program costs (Showcasing in high-density markets (NACA), gig booking & coordination, artist training.)
Help us redefine the world of Spoken Word Poetry.
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This crowdfund is to support our capital campaign; we are also raising direct donations and will update our fundraising goal here accordingly. If you are interested in talking to us further before making a donation, please feel free to contact us at booking@strengthofdoves.com