Artistic Fundraising Group provides fundraising strategies and resources to nonprofits working in Chicago's vibrant cultural scene.

What we do.

Artistic Fundraising Group provides fundraising strategies and resources to small and midsized nonprofit organizations with our own hybrid model of project execution and traditional consulting. We offer services in all areas of nonprofit fundraising, including major gift strategies, individual giving campaigns, freelance grant writing and proposal review/editing, fundraising training for organizational leadership, multi-year development plans, and foundational workshops in all areas of contributed revenue. In alignment with our values of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Antiracism, and Accessibility (IDEAA), we employ a community-centric fundraising model that invests in equitable relationships between the philanthropic sector and the organizations we serve. Our methodology has proven results, as we raise millions of dollars annually for our clients. 

We generate growth in all areas of contributed revenue by building comprehensive, custom fundraising strategies. We take pride in effectively and collaboratively working with each client to develop unique, achievable fundraising solutions that truly work for each organization. Today, Artistic Fundraising Group supports a wide range of nonprofit arts and culture organizations in all artistic disciplines, including theatre, dance, music, independent film, creative writing, and visual art. Our client base has also expanded beyond the arts to include organizations that intersect with education, healthcare, youth development, journalism, and the disability sector.

Why we do it.

Small arts organizations are the lifeblood of Chicago’s cultural fabric. They amplify the voices of the 21st century. They educate youth and adults alike, inspiring them to see the world in a different way. They push the boundaries of an art form while challenging traditional notions of who can be represented by it.

There is a significant lack of capacity-building opportunities that are scaled for small nonprofits. Artistic Fundraising Group makes fundraising strategies accessible and customizable for all of the organizations we collaborate with, whether your nonprofit has a full-time staff of twenty or a volunteer team of three.

Ultimately, small and midsized nonprofits have the potential to grow into true cultural leaders in our shared community, if only they can find the resources to get there. As artists ourselves, we at Artistic Fundraising Group are committed to making these organizations thrive.

Commitment to IDEAA

Artistic Fundraising Group is actively committed to working practices that are antiracist, equitable, and inclusive, and that are free of discrimination or harassment. We strive to be accountable to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled individuals and the organizations that center their lives and work.

We acknowledge that our work and learning is and must be ongoing as we listen to, lift up, and center marginalized voices. We continually learn and embrace practices that dismantle harmful ideologies and practices to ensure that our values of antiracism and inclusion permeate our organizational structure and every aspect of the work we do.

As a company built upon collaboration with other institutions and their policies, we vet all prospective and current clients to ensure that the organizations we support uphold values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within their guiding principles and are on continuous paths of learning and reform. While Artistic Fundraising Group is not a IDEAA consultancy, we instill these principles among our clients by:

  1. making our own values clear while leading by example

  2. "calling in" our collaborators to create a supportive environment in which we can grow from our mistakes

  3. actively pursuing funding, recommending resources, and providing referrals for our clients' own IDEAA work

In our work we:

  • Trust and amplify the perspectives and judgment of our collaborators of color, our queer collaborators, and our disabled collaborators

  • Practice Community Centric Fundraising that centers nonprofits and the communities they serve in the cultivation and stewardship of institutional funders and individual donors

  • Foster a culture of inquiry about traditional philanthropic practices to advocate for change in practices among individual donors and institutional funders

  • Invest in the fundraising skillsets of marginalized artists and arts administrators with regular pro bono learning opportunities and resources

  • Begin each gathering with our land acknowledgement statement

  • Self-identify gender pronouns in all meetings and written communications, and encourage clients to do the same

  • Offer accessibility options for all virtual and in-person engagements, including ensuring all in-person events are held in ADA accessible spaces

Among our team we:

  • Trust and amplify the perspectives and judgment of our colleagues of color, our queer colleagues, and our disabled colleagues

  • Devote annual paid staff time to both individualized and group professional development in antiracism, inclusion, and equity each year

  • Continuously evaluate how to incorporate our learning into our policies and best practices to reform Artistic Fundraising Group as an antiracist and inclusive organization

  • Employ a flat conflict resolution path among our team that enables safe, sustainable IDEAA accountability among our team and clients

  • Conduct equitable, open, and proactive search processes for new hires for all positions, including our work to actively seek out and invest in professionals from historically marginalized communities while also investing in and promoting those individuals from within our existing team

  • Respect work/life boundaries without question

  • Foster an environment of transparent and equitable pay scales with sustainable goals for growth in rates for all roles

Land Acknowledgement

We at Artistic Fundraising Group acknowledge that we work upon the lands of the Council of the Three Fires—the Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe Nations—in addition to the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois Nations. These Indigenous peoples are the traditional stewards of the lands we occupy, before Chicago was a city, and they still thrive here on land that remains important to them today as they celebrate their heritage, practice their traditions, and care for this land and its waterways. It is our responsibility to acknowledge this history. It is also our responsibility to embrace our commitment to build relationships with these Indigenous communities in our own work and practices at Artistic Fundraising Group, and to uncover and invest in ways to include these communities in our efforts to support arts and culture on these lands.