Ms. Ann Smythe
President
Company Foundation
89 Center Street
Anytown, CT 06400

Dear Ms. Smythe:

On behalf of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), I am writing to request support from Company Foundation in the amount of $40,000 for a major, organization-wide technology upgrade at the NYFA. This upgrade will increase our organizational capacity and strengthen the long-term effectiveness of our service to artists and arts organizations in New York and beyond.

In recognition of significant support for NYFA’s technology upgrade, the Company Foundation would receive logo exposure on our website; recognition in the donor newsletter and in our quarterly arts journal, which is available nationally and has a readership of 70,000; and in our biennial report.

History and Background

Established in 1971 as an arts service organization to facilitate the development of arts activities throughout the state, NYFA serves individual artists, promotes their freedom to develop and create, and provides the broader public with opportunities to experience and understand their work. Throughout its history, NYFA has explored multiple ways of developing and providing grants, technology planning, and informational services to respond to the needs of a diverse and ever-changing arts community.

Entering its thirty-first year of operation, NYFA has firmly established itself as the leading arts service organization in New York and is now poised to enter a critical juncture in its institutional development. Many members of the corporate and foundation community have a long-standing relationship with NYFA and have leveraged their investments on NYFA’s success in providing artists with the support and practical assistance they need to move from the initial inspiration to creating art.

Repeatedly, both artists and funders turn to NYFA to help meet the most pressing needs of the arts community. During the past twelve months, there have been three prominent examples of this involving all parts of the arts community:

The first two initiatives required a high degree of cooperation and participation from New York’s diverse cultural community. NYFA was able to obtain this and, as a result, has made significant contributions to the cultural life of New York City. The third project called on NYFA’s expertise in providing information to artists in all disciplines to a degree unequalled by any organization in the United States.

Over the past ten years, NYFA’s programs and services to the field have expanded and undergone many changes, its organizational budget has grown from $5.5 to $16.7 million, and NYFA’s staff has grown by 35 percent. As the next step of NYFA’s long-term technology plan, we will be upgrading workstations and software, networking hardware, server, and server software to increase efficiency and aid in communication—all with the aim of more effectively fulfilling our mission to invest in individual artists and the broader arts community.

Technology at NYFA

Although NYFA has been a pioneer in exploring new possibilities enabled by the recent information technology revolution, convening landmark conferences on the intersection of arts and technology, and in providing financial support and services to artists and arts organizations seeking to use the Internet or build organizational capacity, it has never received a significant donation for the sole purpose of upgrading internal technology systems. We have received small donations of second-generation equipment from individual donors and corporations, but the vast majority of our computer workstations, printers, and various file servers have been leased or purchased on an ad-hoc basis with funds from general operating support.

A grant of this magnitude from the Company Foundation would be an investment in the contemporary artists and artist-centered organizations we serve at a key moment in NYFA’s institutional history, bringing our infrastructure up to a level more appropriate to our preeminence among arts service organizations.

I am grateful for your kind consideration of this request, and I welcome any questions or suggestions you might have regarding NYFA, its programs, or its goals. Please contact me at 212-555-1212, extension 201, or by e-mail at [email protected] should you have any questions about this proposal.

Sincerely,

Executive Director

Proposal to the Company Foundation for a grant of $40,000 to Implement NYFA’s Technology Plan

Introduction

The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) was established in 1971 as an arts service organization to facilitate the development of arts activities throughout the state. NYFA serves individual artists, promotes their freedom to develop and create, and provides the broader public with opportunities to experience and understand their work. NYFA also collaborates on the development of regional, national, and international initiatives.

As one of the country’s preeminent arts-service organizations, much of our work is conducted using computers and information technology. Over the past 10 years, NYFA’s programs and services to the field have expanded and undergone many changes, our organizational budget has grown from $5.5 to $16.7 million, and NYFA’s staff has grown by 35 percent. We have gone from conducting only a portion of our work on computers to conducting almost all of our programs and internal tasks using various forms of new technology.

NYFA is in a leadership position regarding issues arising from the intersections of arts, arts organizations, and technology. In 1997, NYFA became the first organization in the country to offer Artist Fellowships ($7,000 unrestricted cash grant) in the computer arts. The 1988 Orcas Conference, “Creative Support for the Creative Artist,” gave rise to NYFA’s Arts Wire program, the first national online network to provide the arts community with a communications network that incorporated the websites of individual artists and community-based cultural groups, and offered technical assistance and information regarding online and computer arts.

In 1998, in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), NYFA planned and coordinated the Governor’s Conference on Arts and Technology “Circuits @ NYS—the arts in the Digital Age.” Our Knowledge In Technology (KIT) program has provided technology planning workshops to groups of arts organizations located in various regions of New York and the greater Northeast (including Arts Boston), and Washington, D.C., and The Arts and Technology Technical Assistance Program (TechTAP) provides subsidies for computer systems consultants, staff training, and professional development.

Technology Planning

As with so many nonprofits that are primarily program-focused, we had never stepped back to make or implement our own comprehensive, organization-wide technology plan. This we did between February and September 2001, working first with a cross-department committee before involving the seasoned expertise of outside consultants and the entire staff in the process. The result was a clear direction and mission for NYFA’s technology needs.

The external section of the plan calls for a reassessment of our website and the development of a strategy of employing e-mail effectively, both of which are in progress. The main needs identified in the internal section of NYFA’s Technology Plan were to …

Since completion of the plan, three of the five major databases at NYFA have been combined, making a marked change in how those three departments operate and immediately increasing cooperation among them. In addition, an intranet site was begun in December 2001 and continues as a work in progress. The group calendar feature requires new software and hardware that is part of this proposal, as well as the workstation upgrade.

Project Description

With assistance from our network consultants, NYFA has developed a plan for an organization-wide computer equipment and network upgrade. The workstation and file server upgrade is the next—and critical—step in the implementation of the larger technology plan, addressing concerns such as optimizing time management, increasing overall systems efficiency, and standardizing programs and processes.

Currently, 22 out of 48 workstations use the all-but-obsolete Windows 95 operating system, 20 use the later model Windows 98, and the others use the newer Windows 2000. This mix of platforms means various staff members do not have access to the same tools; for example, those with Windows 95 cannot upgrade other software such as Internet Explorer to the current versions. Also, the older machines simply work slower, making it impossible for employees to work at their maximum capabilities. In addition, many older machines lack CD drives, which means they cannot access files sent to them on CD from outside the organization. Perhaps more importantly, this means adding any new software is more laborious because the CD has become the preferred means for new software to be distributed.

Under the IT upgrade, old workstations will be replaced with new, Pentium IV machines operating with Windows XP platforms, along with new Microsoft Office XP software. This organization-wide workstation consistency will make training new employees easier (because everyone will be working with the same system) and allow future upgrades to be done in a consistent and efficient manner.

It is also necessary to upgrade the file server at the same time as the individual workstations. NYFA is now using an IBM NT server leased since 1997. Although it was state of the art computer technology in 1997, it falls significantly short of the capacity and speed needed to run a 48-station network today.

As part of this systems upgrade, NYFA will purchase a new IBM Series 240, Pentium III server, with the complementary software. The new server has the capacity to create a parallel copy of all data on a separate drive. With this facility, should the main hard drive fail, a new one can be installed while the network continues to operate off of the “ghost” drive. In addition, the greater capacity of the server necessitates a new backup drive and tapes. Data security is critical to any system, and particularly at NYFA, which is a national clearinghouse for information and resources artists rely on for their career needs.

Rationale

Strategy: NYFA recently completed a strategic plan for institutional advancement, the primary goals of which are to (1) conduct research and analysis about artists, art making, and arts funders; (2) sustain and create programs of the highest standards; and (3) primarily serve individual artists but always recognize the critical dynamics among art making, arts organizations, donors, and the public perception of artists’ value to society. NYFA’s Technology Planning Committee took these goals into consideration in prioritizing the implementation process and underscored the primary need for standardized operating systems and increased server capacity.

Tangible results: As mentioned in the previous description, the systems upgrade will:

Long-term organizational potential: With more and more artists and others wishing to take advantage of NYFA’s services, but with funding relatively static at best, we must work more efficiently to continue to serve our constituencies. The technology upgrade’s major long-term benefits will be in optimizing staff time and workflow, increasing service to the field, and enabling efficient time management.

Agenda

Implementation and evaluation of the NYFA computer systems upgrade will take one year to complete:

Evaluation

To ensure that NYFA’s technology equipment upgrade is properly implemented and brought to optimal effectiveness, NYFA will follow a rigorous evaluation procedure throughout the year. We will survey staff on special software needs and inventory all existing hardware to determine if any parts are upgradeable.

We will then refine the purchase documents. We will seek evaluations of all staff following the initial training on the new machines and provide additional training based on those findings. We will again ask staff to evaluate the functionality of their new equipment after two months of use and make adjustments based on that evaluation.

Past Technology Support

Although NYFA has been a pioneer in exploring new possibilities enabled by the recent information technology revolution, convening landmark conferences on the intersection of arts and technology, and in providing financial support and services to artists and arts organizations seeking to use the Internet or build organizational capacity, it has never received a significant donation for the sole purpose of upgrading internal technology systems. We have received small donations of second-generation equipment from individual donors and corporations, but the vast majority of our computer workstations, printers, and various file servers have been leased or purchased on an ad-hoc basis with funds from general operating support.

Attachments [only the Project Budget is included here]:

New York Foundation for the Arts

Information Technology Systems Upgrade Project Budget