Above: Miami's Rise Up Gallery, a recent Knight Arts Challenge winner. Next fall, when Knight Foundation announces the 2016 winners of the Knight Arts Challenge, each winner will embark on the hectic and rewarding process of raising funds to match their grant. Hence, the word “Challenge.” Raising money sounds daunting, and it is, especially for individuals like me and organizations not familiar with the process. However, it’s doable – and I’ve done it. To help others, I talked with previous winners of the challenge for their stories on how they matched the grant. I’ll start with mine: When I started Reading Queer, which promotes queer literary culture in South Florida, I had never raised money before. I was concerned, but Knight made the process doable. We raised money three ways. I started with traditional and online (social media-driven) fundraising appeals, grants, event revenue and donations. I started with friends and family, and then I reached out to the people who have always supported me in other projects in the past and grew my network from there. I met as many attendees of our events as possible and some of those connections have become financial supporters. I’ve also asked our supporters to talk up the importance of Reading Queer for the community to their friends and family. I asked for ‘big’ money donations. I asked for small, $5 donations. I asked for what people could afford and I did it throughout the year to catch those who maybe couldn’t contribute in May but were ready in July. Here’s the kicker: I’m not a networker or very social, but you don’t have to be a networking-socialite, though it helps. You just have to connect and authentically communicate your idea to the community and they’ll have your back. That’s why you’ve been awarded a grant. Knight picked you because your idea has value. Build your fundraising efforts from that premise. Here’s what other winners said about how they raised their matches. Above: The Smallest Museum in St. Paul. The Smallest Museum in St. Paul, which turned a vintage fire hose cabinet outside a coffee house into a curated display of artists work: “I helped the Smallest Museum in St Paul meet the $5,000 match by appealing to my personal family members, all of whom live outside of Minnesota. My grandmother had passed away in 2013, and her legacy was one of civic leadership through church, school, and politics. She was a formidable matriarch of a North Carolina family, and I sought to engage my family around the excitement of civic participation. I sent a single email to 20 of my family members, explaining the project and Knight Foundation’s vision for igniting communities.” “I knew these family members were not necessarily ‘arts supporters,” so I engaged the next most obvious shared value: civic participation. Within two months, I raised the entire match from that single email. It was a powerful reminder that seeking out donor relationships around shared values is critical to raising funds. We will certainly have to raise money going forward, and we have some ideas about how to make our fundraising playful, which further honors the character of the project. For example, we could riff on the idea of “small” - a fundraiser for small donations (no more than $5) - furthering the spark of accessibility and playful engagement.” – Shannon Forney, founder Detroit Fiber Works, a fiber arts studio in Detroit that is also a gallery, boutique and learning space: Mandisa Smith, co-owner, Detroit Fiber Works, with Najima Wilson (right). “Raising the funds for our Knight Arts Challenge Fiber Art Project was at once a terrifying prospect, frustrating, mystifying, satisfying and magical. How did we do it? We began by making a list of every single person that we ever met, with the hopes that if everyone we knew just gave us $10, we could make it to our $20,000 goal.
