With an open call for applications dropping in January, Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Program offers a solid opportunity for arts organizations in the U.S. and U.K. to receive critical support with their technology infrastructure. Beyond that, though, the program is a good illustration of the benefits of funding nonprofit IT, how to do this kind of funding right, and the challenges inherent to navigating technology for nonprofits generally, and arts organizations in particular.
This is the fourth round of Digital Accelerator funding; Bloomberg made previous grants by invitation only as it developed the effort during its pilot phase. For this round, Bloomberg plans to support up to 50 arts nonprofits with annual budgets of at least $500,000. Since my colleague Mike Scutari reported about the launch of the Digital Accelerator in 2021, the program’s beneficiaries have undertaken the kind of bread-and-butter projects that aren’t exciting on the surface, but that are essential to an organization’s continued success.
For example, New York City’s Tenement Museum created a new set of integrated systems to connect its ticketing and development data, which helped the museum attract 1,200 donors over the past year. London’s Unicorn Theatre, a children’s theater, racked up over 100,000 views of its digital content, learned more about how teachers use their work thanks to improved website functionality, and earned £50,000 in licensing income that the theater shares with the artists who created the work. The 92nd Street Y (92NY) in New York City, a 150-year-old cultural and community center, built a global online learning hub from the ground up. Thanks to the new program, “we’ve attracted tens of thousands of learners and generated over $2.4 million in revenue with a path to accelerated growth and sustainability,” said Rolando Nunez Baza, CEO of Roundtable by The 92nd Street Y.
Since Bloomberg’s Digital Accelerator launched, the 40 nonprofits from the first round have collectively raised more than $20 million in additional revenue, engaged 4,000 new artists and partners, and reached more than 1 million new audience members. Overall, the pilot phase has supported 150 organizations. In short, these nonprofit tech grants are making a big difference, thanks to a few key features of the initiative. As Unicorn Theatre’s co-Executive Director Helen Tovey put it, “The program has had a lasting impact on our approach.”
“Learning from the really smart people we get to work with”
Granted, part of the success that participating nonprofits are seeing with the Digital Accelerator may have to do with the fact the grantees are already established, relatively well-resourced nonprofits. But the way Bloomberg Philanthropies runs the effort has lessons to offer funders that want to support nonprofit tech for grantees of virtually any size. That’s largely because the program goes well beyond just writing a check.
Each Digital Accelerator grantee designates a tech fellow who then receives expert assistance defining a problem that can be solved by technology, figuring out the scope and and specs of the system or system(s) to solve that problem, and then determining the budget necessary, in terms of both money and personnel, to implement the solution. Additionally, Bloomberg brings the fellows together in a cohort so they can support and learn from each other.
“We started realizing that there was a lot of power in the cohort,” said Kate Levin, who oversees Bloomberg’s arts program, because as the fellows met, their work started going beyond the immediate projects in front of them. Instead, she said, people wanted to “learn more and other things,” including how to become more savvy as tech consumers. As a result, Levin said, over time, the program has changed the offered resources and support so the fellows can develop a better understanding of how tech works overall.
“Basically, we’ve been learning from the really smart people we get to work with and fund through this, and figuring out the best way of optimizing their experience,” Levin said.
According to 92NY’s Nunez Baza, the Digital Accelerator “transcends mere funding, spotlighting a critical element that’s often underestimated: a holistic approach encompassing community building, targeted cohorts, immersive training workshops and mentorship, alongside proficiency in areas such as processes, project and program management.”
Don’t take away “the button” unless you provide a better button
Bloomberg created the Digital Accelerator roughly two years before Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG) released its own guide to funding nonprofit IT, but the program’s holistic approach mirrors some of the recommendations in that guide. This makes sense, given the challenges facing all organizations dealing with tech — and possibly even more sense given the unique obstacles that confront nonprofit arts organizations as they attempt to to solve problems without causing worse ones.
To give one example, changing or updating tech isn’t as simple as any number of other upgrades a nonprofit might make because of the potential to ruffle feathers among human users as changes are rolled out.
You’re asking someone to do something different,” said Bloomberg’s Levin. “If you’re taking away the button that Suzy always used to do the thing and you’re not replacing it with something better, Suzy’s not going to be happy with you.” The same holds true if Suzy doesn’t get the training she needs to use the new button properly. Other common complications include the mystique around tech that can lead people to try the shiny new thing rather than first defining the actual problems that need solving and determining whether or not that new thing will actually address the issue.
Further, unlike some nonprofits — for example, those focused on healthcare and education — there isn’t a lot of tech out there that’s customized to fit the specific needs of arts organizations. Because of the nature of cultural nonprofits, Levin said, “a lot of organizations have felt they have to do something very bespoke and very specific to them. And they have certainly found vendors who will agree. And so some very sophisticated organizations have ended up in some real cul de sacs with systems that don’t particularly work for them and no way to migrate beyond those systems.”
On the surface, funding nonprofit IT is about as sexy as any other infrastructure project. Take away the IT mystique and tech is about as exciting as heat, running water and electricity. The nuts-and-bolts nature of IT, coupled with the sector’s frequently noted antipathy to so-called “overhead” funding, may be the reason it took the COVID-19 lockdown to really start moving the needle, and money, to nonprofit tech.
There’s also the fact that successfully supporting nonprofit grantees’ IT needs “is not a one-shot deal,” said Tenement Museum Director of Digital Projects Chelsea Bracci. “Technology infrastructure requires regular maintenance, upgrades and training. Funders are sometimes more eager to invest in a new project or system, but less willing to support an upgrade or maintenance. Ideally, funders would invest in both.”
So, yes, getting nonprofit IT support right sounds, at first glance, like the opposite of the kind of splashy, immediate-gratification project that many funders may gravitate toward. On the other hand, making a nonprofit’s IT work, and work well, can allow that organization to start thinking big.
“I’m now dreaming about what the Unicorn could do in that arena in the future — what is the Unicorn’s version of a digital immersive experience for children?” said Unicorn Theatre co-Executive Director Helen Tovey. “How would we choose to express the essence of theatre and liveness in this format? Who are creative partners in this and how and who could help make this kind of project a reality? The opportunity to go beyond one’s immediate sector, and to hear from people at the forefront of creative digital innovation, is so incredibly enriching.”
The deadline to apply for the next round of funding and support through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Program is March 13.
