by Courtney Duffy, Robert W. Deutsch Arts & Technology Policy Fellow at Fractured Atlas Source: Flickr Event will feature Founder/CEO as panelist and Deutsch Fellow as moderator Fractured Atlas has a history of supporting artist innovation and entrepreneurship — our mission is to remove practical barriers to creative expression, after all. We’re not alone: the arts and culture sector is a $699 billion industry, and arts-related businesses employ nearly 3 million American workers. In this spirit, we’ve teamed up with the Congressional Arts Caucus and Public Knowledge to sponsor a conversation on Capitol Hill in celebration of arts entrepreneurship (RSVP here) on February 14. I will moderate a panel discussion with five entrepreneurs in the arts space — including our own Adam Huttler — who have disrupted the worlds of fashion, music, technology, animation, and design. Over a catered lunch, the panelists will discuss the challenges they’ve overcome, as well as policy opportunities to bolster the creative economy moving forward. Joining Adam at the event are the following entrepreneurs: Sarah Carson, Founder and President of Leota Sriram Emani, Co-Founder and CEO of Raga Labs Jess Peterson, CEO and Creative Producer of Mighty Oak Erica Taylor, Co-Founding Partner of Tinsel & TWINE The event, which we are hosting in conjunction with Congressional Arts Caucus co-chairs Rep. Louise Slaughter and Rep. Leonard Lance, and in collaboration with Public Knowledge, will take place in Cannon House Office Building (Room 121) at noon on Tuesday, February 14. We’d love to see you there! Be sure to RSVP. Have questions you’d like our panelists to be asked? Post them on Twitter using #ArtsEntreLunch. You can find Courtney on Twitter @cduffy90.

Attention artists and arts organizations in New York State: the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) has posted guidelines for its 2018 funding cycle! Before I share Fractured Atlas’s timeline, let’s go over some important details about the application process and eligibility:

14 Artists and Creative Projects from, by, and for Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen The Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island in New York City President Trump signed an executive order on immigration which indefinitely banned Syrian refugees from entering the United States, suspended all refugee programs for three months and blocked citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries (Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen) from entering the country.

Here’s the good news. Your company has core behavioral values! Here’s the bad news. They might not be ones you want, ones you’re particular proud of, or ones you would print on a t-shirt even to wear on laundry day. Every organization — and every individual, for that matter — has core behavioral values. Values that define and drive the way we act, inform our work and decision-making, and signal to the world in a calling card of sorts, this is what’s important to us.

Source: keepwatchstayfree.org Lessons from the SOPA/PIPA Battle Are Relevant As Ever by Courtney Duffy, Robert W. Deutsch Arts & Technology Policy Fellow at Fractured Atlas On Wednesday, January 18, 2012, major Internet websites united to protest censorship and defeat SOPA/PIPA. Five years later, it’s as important as ever that we — both the arts community and the Internet community at large — rededicate ourselves to the principles of Internet freedom. Join the conversation on Twitter by using hashtags #InternetFreedomDay, #SOPA, and #PIPA. Remind me exactly what happened. Five years ago last week, more than 50,000 websites made their homepages dark, uniting to protest both censorship and threats to Internet freedom posed by two bills in Congress: the House version, the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”), and the Senate’s Protect IP Act (“PIPA”). Participating websites included such recognizable names as Google, Amazon, Reddit, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and more. The move made Congress take notice, resulting in the failure of both bills. What was wrong with SOPA and PIPA? While the bills claimed to protect copyrighted works from piracy, their enforcement mechanisms would have had a dangerous effect on the Internet power balance, promoting censorship. The proposal was essentially a “guilty until proven innocent” model — it would have been easy, for example, for an organization to claim copyright infringement against a competitor in order to shut down the competitor’s website. Even if the accused party was innocent, they would need to pay expensive legal fees to defend themselves. It’s important for us to note that we at Fractured Atlas believe wholeheartedly in copyright law, as well as the importance of artists being fairly compensated for their work. We simply felt strongly (and still do) that the solutions proposed in SOPA and PIPA were tremendously flawed and posed dangers to the constituency of artists that we serve. Did Fractured Atlas speak out against SOPA and PIPA? We’re proud to say that we did — in fact, we were the first major national arts services organization to take a stand. Adam Huttler, our founder and CEO, urged in a letter to Senate leadership to consider other solutions and avoid passing PIPA. We were soon joined by a number of other arts organizations, who together signed onto a second letter to Senate leadership. The coalition consisted of friends like Dance/USA, OPERA America, Theatre Communications Group, and Chorus America, among others. Our efforts were part of a large coalition of Internet defenders, large and small, that spoke out against this harmful potential legislation. Has anything major happened in this space between then and now? In February 2015, the Federal Communications Commission adopted strong rules to protect net neutrality. This victory was largely a result of yet another large-scale advocacy effort that caught the attention of policymakers — 4 million people submitted official comments in support of strong open Internet rules. What does this mean to the arts and Internet communities today? As has historically been the case when the D.C. power balance shifts to a new party, the Trump administration and Congressional Republican majority will put forth their own broadband policies. There is a strong possibility of new FCC commissioners overturning the net neutrality rules, as well as other rulings made over the last several years that could resemble the frameworks of SOPA and PIPA. As artists and Internet users, we must actively keep ourselves informed about these developments, and vigilantly defend an Internet that allows for continued creativity and innovation on an even playing field. Where can I find more information? A new Medium post called “Keep Watch, Stay Free,” is chock full of additional resources. You can also check out this video about the blackout, along with articles from TechCrunch and BoingBoing. You can find Courtney on Twitter @cduffy90, and join the conversation by using hashtags #InternetFreedomDay, #SOPA, and #PIPA. Courtney Duffy is the Robert W. Deutsch Arts & Technology Policy fellow at Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit technology company that helps artists with the business aspects of their work. To learn more about Fractured Atlas, or to get involved, visit us here.

Media Impact Funders, a network made up of philanthropists working to create social change through media, has partnered with the Foundation Center to launch a free database and mapping tool of grants and other funding opportunities. For impact producers working in media and film, finding philanthropic support in alignment with specific causes and communities takes major research. While there are no short cuts to good prospecting and relationships, this new tool certainly lightens the load. As a non-profit technology company serving artists, Fractured Atlas is all about empowering people with information about funding sources worth your valuable time investment — time away from your critical creative work. While there are a number of documentary film grant lists out there on the internet (International Documentary Association has one of the most comprehensive, and of course the Foundation Directory Online is a ‘go to’ for research), the unique value I see in this new mapping tool is this: you are ONLY looking at funders of media who believe in the power of storytelling to make change. Also, media is broadly defined on the map and includes documentary, photo journalism, online platforms, trans-media, games, and more. Impact producers, you can be confidant you are searching within the right network with this tool. Before you click through and start exploring on your own, here are my tips learned from leveraging the Media Impact Funder database in my role as Director of Client Development at Fractured Atlas where I coach our fiscally sponsored projects: Explore the ‘Population Served’ search filter options. Your impact project is ultimately about and for people. The funders who care about the same people you’re serving through your storytelling are the funders you want to have on your radar. This is important not only for funding, but also for potential partnerships and screenings. Because many social impact media projects are intersectional, you will want to think about the multiple populations you serve. Think broadly. Get creative with your ‘Keyword’ search options. Keyword matches are made from the 1–2 sentence description of the media project, written from the funders’ perspective (because they are the ones reporting the grants into the database). So, for example if you are making a documentary about the militarization of policing in America and want to see who else is funding around this topic, you might search for projects that received funding using words such as ‘police’, ‘democracy’, ‘privacy’, ‘criminal justice system’, and ‘counter surveillance’. Your taglines and marketing language are less useful here, and this is the space to get creative with the descriptors from other points of view. Don’t forget about outreach campaigns. There is funding out there for more than just production expenses. Outreach campaigns often include media and are a whole other phase of expense and funding for producers. This tool lets you search by ‘Support Strategy’ and ‘Outreach’. Use the ‘Constellations’ visualizer. The database search results default to a list view, however it can often be difficult to get an intuitive snapshot when looking at a spreadsheet. By using the constellations view, that data is visualized and you can immediately see who is coming together around a specific topic, and see the different levels of support. Provide thoughtful feedback. The folks behind this new tool are genuine, and are actively seeking feedback on how to make this data actionable within the field (shout out to project lead Sarah Armour-Jones). Once you have dug in and given this new tool a thorough dance across the floor, suggestions can be sent by email through the mapping tool. Okay, ready to jump in and explore? You can also check out this 10 minute video tutorial of the database, and there is an FAQ on the site. Tips and Tools out.

by Aisha Jordan, Program Associate at Fractured Atlas Each month we feature one of our fiscally sponsored projects who have been successful at using our program to advance their art/cause/career. This month’s featured project is Doppelgänger Dance Collective

Being an “innovative workplace” isn’t just about having a great idea. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. The halls of history are littered with great, unrealized innovative ideas. Innovative workplaces instead are about the people and systems that allow and support ideas to be explored, nurtured, and often, nixed.

Attracting and retaining great people who move organizations forward Several years ago, I set out to interview a collection of senior-level executives about what they felt it took to attract and retain really great people who could move organizations forward.

We’ve entered a New Year — the future is upon us! It’s that time when people take stock of their life goals and think, time to change things up. As an employer, you can ignore this reflection point and pretend people aren’t thinking about it, but chances are at least a handful of those who work for your organization are dusting off their resumes and using this mile marker to take the next step in their careers. Happens every year. As an employer, it’s a good time to think about what you need to do to find that next stellar staff member when a position opens up.