Sustained Capital for Cultural Leadership
Cultural and civic life depend on forms of labor that are not always visible in conventional employment accounting. Artists, cultural workers, and community stewards frequently work as self-employed practitioners, span multiple disciplines, combine paid and unpaid activity, and sustain their practices alongside other employment. To inform the design of Emberline Collective Fund, we drew on an extensive array of data, surveys, and longitudinal evaluations from academic institutions, philanthropic research bodies, and federal agencies to understand the realities of funding, employment, unrestricted support, and compensation across the sector. Even so, standard economic datasets carry clear structural boundaries: federal arts and labor metrics provide crucial insight into formal payroll employment, organizational revenues, and industry output, but extended volunteer-based, community-based, and intermittently compensated work remains outside standard labor accounting.
This measurement gap obscures a foundational layer of community resilience, functioning much like unpaid caregiving and domestic labor, which generates an estimated 5.6 trillion dollars in economic value annually yet remains unrecorded in traditional measures of gross domestic product. Below are the core findings and data sources we draw upon to inform our work.
The case for
Emberline Collective Fund
Case for Unrestricted Funds
The evidence base for unrestricted cash is broader than the arts. Research on cash-transfer programs confirms that recipients deploy flexible resources toward immediate needs and durable investments according to their own circumstances.
National cash trials. The Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard, a partnership of the Stanford Basic Income Lab, the University of Tennessee, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and The Bridge Project, aggregates spending data across dozens of U.S. pilots. Recipients spend the large majority of unrestricted funds on essentials: retail sales and services and food and groceries lead, followed by transportation and housing. OpenResearch's Unconditional Cash Study, the largest randomized trial of unconditional cash in the United States, found a 35 percent increase in recipients' peak savings relative to the control group, and recipients were 24 percent more likely to cover an unexpected expense from savings.⁸
A 2025 synthesis of 115 studies found that unconditional cash transfers generated positive average effects across several economic and social outcomes, including consumption, income, assets, food security, and psychological well-being. The review also determined that ongoing, sustained transfers produce stronger welfare effects than one-time payments.
These findings establish the design principle that recipients possess the clearest insight into how flexible resources should be allocated.
Unrestricted support operates differently from traditional project grants. An unrestricted award allows the recipient to direct resources toward housing, healthcare, caregiving, debt repayment, savings, equipment, professional development, rest, or ongoing cultural work.
This flexibility acknowledges that essential cultural practice, including preservation, mentoring, research, recovery, and relationship-building, has an actual cost to the people who sustain cultural and civic life over time.
Creatives Rebuild New York
The primary precedent for this intervention in the cultural sector is Creatives Rebuild New York’s Guaranteed Income for Artists program.
Between 2022 and 2024, the program provided $1,000 per month for 18 consecutive months to 2,400 artists, culture-bearers, and culture-makers across New York State. The payments were unconditional and completely decoupled from project deliverables.
A multidisciplinary research team,m including researchers from Appalachian State University, Indiana University, New York University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the City University of New York, conducted the program's impact study. The study examined financial well-being, artistic labor, caregiving and other responsibilities, health, and impacts on community and families.
The published findings reported that:
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participants spent 19 percent more hours on arts-related labor;
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participants experienced a 19 percent reduction in food insecurity;
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participants reported a 29 percent reduction in severe anxiety and depression; and
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75 percent of caregiving artists reported improved work-life balance.
Earlier findings from the program reported that participants used 17 percent of their payments for debt repayment, 16 percent for savings and investments, and 15 percent for major expenses such as rent and utilities. Participants also reported pursuing grants, residencies, workshops, and paid opportunities connected to their practices.
These results indicate that unrestricted cash supports immediate financial stabilization and longer-term professional development. Artists continued to work and develop their practices when they received cash without a project requirement.
Creatives Rebuild New York served a statewide population of artists whose circumstances, award size, payment duration, and pandemic-era context differed from Emberline’s model. They provide a strong arts-sector precedent and an empirical basis for further inquiry.
The Institutional Squeeze
The organizations that sustain cultural and civic life are facing a widening gap between public need and institutional capacity. The Nonprofit Finance Fund’s 2025 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey, based on responses from 2,206 organizations, found that 36 percent ended the year with an operating deficit—the highest share recorded in the survey’s ten-year history. Eighty-six percent reported that inflation had affected their organizations or the people they serve, while 52 percent had three months or less of cash on hand. Only 41 percent reported that they could pay all full-time staff a living wage.
The pressure is not coming from declining demand. Eighty-five percent of surveyed organizations expected demand for their services to increase, and 63 percent expanded their programs or services despite financial constraints. Organizations are therefore being asked to do more with less: respond to deeper community need while absorbing higher operating costs, uncertain public funding, and inadequate support for the true cost of their work.
This institutional strain is also a worker-retention problem. Nonprofits employ approximately 10 percent of the U.S. private workforce and contribute an estimated $1.4 trillion to the economy each year. Yet more than two-thirds of organizations surveyed reported difficulty employing enough program and administrative staff. When organizations cannot offer living wages, benefits, reserves, or meaningful flexibility, experienced workers may be forced to reduce their cultural work, move into more financially secure fields, or leave the sector altogether.
The burden is not distributed evenly. Women make up approximately 69 percent of nonprofit staff and 62 percent of nonprofit leaders. BIPOC women lead approximately 18 percent of nonprofit organizations overall, but their representation declines as organizational budgets increase, from 28 percent of the smallest nonprofits to 14 percent of the largest. Organizations led by BIPOC women also operate with substantially fewer resources: the median revenue of majority-BIPOC-led organizations is approximately 54 percent lower than that of majority-white-led organizations.
These findings demonstrate that women from marginalized racial and ethnic groups are represented in nonprofit workforce and leadership data. They also show where they are most concentrated: smaller, less-resourced organizations that are often least able to provide competitive compensation, benefits, professional development, or long-term financial security. Their presence in the data is therefore not evidence that the system is working equitably. It may instead reflect the extent to which women of color are carrying essential community work in institutions with the fewest available resources.
Other forms of marginalization are less consistently measured. Candid reports that approximately 15 percent of nonprofit staff identify as LGBTQIA+ and approximately 15 percent identify as having a disability, while roughly 9 percent of nonprofit leaders identify as LGBTQIA+ and 10 percent as having a disability. However, many organizations do not report these characteristics, making some groups difficult to identify and analyze.
Cultural-worker data have similar limitations. Federal surveys can identify artists and cultural workers by occupation, age, gender, race, employment status, and income, but they do not fully capture people whose work is intermittent, unpaid, self-directed, volunteer-based, or combined with caregiving and other employment. A recent national survey of artists found that 57 percent were worried about at least one form of financial vulnerability, 34 percent were fully self-employed, 11 percent had held three or more jobs during the previous year, and 28 percent provided unpaid care for someone with a health condition or disability.
This matters because the point at which a community leader may have accumulated the greatest skill, credibility, and relational knowledge is often also the point at which housing costs, caregiving responsibilities, health expenses, and years of modest or unstable compensation become most difficult to absorb. Existing studies include women and members of marginalized groups, but they do not always isolate the combined effects of gender, race, age, caregiving, disability, sexuality, and mid-career status. People whose cultural work is not their sole occupation,or whose contributions are not formally compensated, may be especially difficult to see in conventional datasets.
Addressing the Gap
Emberline is designed to address that gap through a deliberately focused equity strategy. Its target population is women age 40 and over whose cultural and civic contributions may be underrepresented in conventional employment and arts data. The fund will pay particular attention to the ways gender intersects with race, class, disability, caregiving, sexuality, immigration status, geography, and other forms of structural inequality.
Emberline does not assume that every participant will have the same needs or produce the same outcomes. It recognizes that experienced women, particularly those whose identities and contributions are not fully reflected in conventional data, may carry significant cultural and civic value without access to the financial resources required to sustain that work. The fund is designed to help close that gap.
This is not a claim that all women in the target population share the same economic circumstances. It is a decision to focus resources on a population for whom cumulative gendered disparities, unpaid responsibility, and incomplete measurement may affect access to income, time, recognition, and institutional support.
Sustained Capital for Cultural Leadership Sources:
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U.S. Government Accountability Office. Unpaid Household Work: Estimated Value and Time Spent on Household Work and Its Relationship to the Economy. GAO-26-107871, 2026.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107871This report supports the statements that unpaid household work is excluded from GDP, that its estimated market value was at least $5.6 trillion in 2024, and that women represented approximately 53.9 percent of people performing unpaid household work while representing approximately 51.2 percent of the U.S. population.
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U.S. Government Accountability Office. Unpaid Household Work: Full Report. GAO-26-107871, 2026.
https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-26-107871/index.htmlThe full report provides the methodology, analysis of 2021–2024 American Time Use Survey data, estimated values for domestic work and caregiving, and discussion of why unpaid household work is not included in GDP.
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U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Household Production Economic Statistics.
https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/household-productionThis source explains that cooking, cleaning, childcare, and other unpaid household activities are not included in the Bureau of Economic Analysis calculation of GDP because they do not involve market transactions. It also provides research and data on methods for measuring the economic value of household production.
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National Endowment for the Arts. Artists and Other Cultural Workers. National Arts Statistics and Evidence-based Reporting Center.
https://www.arts.gov/impact/research/NASERC/artists-and-other-cultural-workersThis resource documents the federal data used to study artists and other cultural workers, including occupation, demographics, employment status, multiple jobholding, part-time work, and earnings. It also demonstrates that cultural labor is measured primarily through employment and labor-market datasets.
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National Endowment for the Arts. Artists and Other Cultural Workers: A Statistical Portrait.
https://www.arts.gov/impact/research/arts-data-profile-toolThis report provides a broader statistical portrait of artists and cultural workers using multiple federal datasets. It includes information on self-employment, secondary jobs, employment in cultural industries, and the different ways people sustain artistic and cultural work.
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National Endowment for the Arts and National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture. NASERC Resources on Measuring the Arts.
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/sites/nadac/data/naserc-resourcesThis resource identifies the primary federal datasets used to measure artists, cultural workers, arts industries, employment, earnings, and cultural participation, including the American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, American Time Use Survey, and Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account.
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National Opinion Research Center. National Survey of Artists Sheds Light on Invisible Workforce. 2026.
https://www.norc.org/research/library/national-survey-artists-sheds-light-invisible-workforce.htmlThis national survey of 2,618 artists provides recent evidence that artists frequently combine self-employment, part-time work, multiple jobs, non-arts employment, unpaid caregiving, and other sources of income. It found that 50 percent of artists were self-employed in their primary job, 61 percent of primary jobs were part-time, 11 percent had held three or more jobs in the previous year, and 28 percent provided unpaid care for a family member or friend because of a health condition or disability.
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. American Time Use Survey.
https://www.bls.gov/tus/The American Time Use Survey provides federal data on how people spend time on paid work, household activities, caregiving, volunteering, and other activities. Because many forms of cultural stewardship and community support occur outside formal employment, time-use data provide an important supplement to conventional wage and employment statistics.
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International Labour Organization. Measuring Unpaid Domestic and Care Work. ILOSTAT.
https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/unpaid-work/measuring-unpaid-domestic-and-care-work/This resource explains why unpaid domestic and care work has historically been excluded from economic and labor statistics and why measuring it is important for understanding labor-force participation, underemployment, and gender inequality.
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United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Guide on Valuing Unpaid Household Service Work. 2017.
https://unece.org/statistics/publications/guide-valuing-unpaid-household-service-workThis guide provides international standards for measuring and valuing unpaid household service work, including domestic labor and caregiving, using time-use data and replacement-cost methods.
Evidence for Unrestricted Funding Sources:
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Stanford Basic Income Lab. Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard.
https://basicincome.stanford.edu/research/guaranteed-income-dashboard/The dashboard aggregates data from more than 30 guaranteed-income pilots in the United States and provides information about participant spending, program design, and outcomes.
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Center for Guaranteed Income Research, University of Pennsylvania. Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard: Spending Data and Initial Findings.
https://sp2.upenn.edu/news/new-data-dashboard-finds-guaranteed-income-pilots-help-americans-afford-basic-necessities/This source supports the statement that recipients primarily used unrestricted payments for essential expenses. The initial spending data showed that the largest categories were retail sales and services, food and groceries, transportation, and housing and utilities.
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Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard. Pilot Spending Data.
https://guaranteedincome.us/The dashboard provides updated aggregate spending data from guaranteed-income pilots across the United States. It currently reports that retail sales and services, food and groceries, transportation, and housing and utilities account for the largest shares of participant spending.
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Stanford Basic Income Lab. What Is Basic Income?
https://basicincome.stanford.edu/research/what-is-basic-income/This resource defines the core features of basic income and guaranteed income, including cash payments, unconditionality, and recurring payments that allow recipients to determine how resources should be used.
OpenResearch Unconditional Cash Study
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OpenResearch. Unconditional Cash Study.
https://www.openresearchlab.org/projects/unconditional-cash-studyThis is the primary source for the three-year randomized controlled trial that provided $1,000 per month to 1,000 adults in Illinois and Texas, with 2,000 participants in the control group receiving $50 per month. The study followed participants from 2020 through 2023 and examined employment, savings, spending, housing, health, parenting, and financial well-being.
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OpenResearch. Key Findings: Savings.
https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/unconditional-cash-study/key-findings-savingsThis source supports the findings that recipients accumulated higher peak savings and were more likely to pay for unexpected expenses from savings. It also discusses how unconditional cash increased participants’ ability to respond to changing financial circumstances.
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OpenResearch. Key Findings: Financial Health.
https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/unconditional-cash-study/key-findings-financial-healthThis source addresses improvements in participants’ self-reported financial health and their ability to absorb financial shocks.
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OpenResearch. Key Findings: Employment.
https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/unconditional-cash-study/key-findings-employmentThis source examines how recipients made employment decisions, including changes in work hours, job search, and the ability to make choices that better aligned with their household circumstances and goals.
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Bartik, Alexander W., et al. “The Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Consumption and Household Balance Sheets: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 32784, 2024.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32784This peer-reviewed working paper provides the detailed analysis of consumption, savings, assets, debt, and household balance sheets from the OpenResearch study.
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Bartik, Alexander W., et al. “The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 32719, 2024.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719This paper examines the effects of unconditional cash on employment, labor-force participation, job search, and work hours.
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Miller, Sarah, et al. “Does Income Affect Health? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Guaranteed Income.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 32711, 2024.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32711This paper examines the effects of unconditional cash on health, health care use, and health-related outcomes.
Evidence from the broader cash-transfer literature
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Crosta, Tommaso, Dean Karlan, Finley Ong, Julius Rüschenpöhler, and Christopher R. Udry. “Unconditional Cash Transfers: A Bayesian Meta-Analysis of Randomized Evaluations in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 32779, 2024; revised 2026.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32779This meta-analysis synthesizes evidence from 115 studies of 72 unconditional cash-transfer programs. It found positive average effects across most measured outcomes, including consumption, income, labor supply, food security, psychological well-being, total assets, and financial assets.
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Crosta, Tommaso, Dean Karlan, Finley Ong, Julius Rüschenpöhler, and Christopher R. Udry. “What Broad Lessons Have We Learned from 115 Studies on Unconditional Cash Transfers?” VoxDev, 2025.
https://voxdev.org/topic/social-protection/what-broad-lessons-have-we-learned-115-studies-unconditional-cash-transfersThis accessible summary explains the study’s findings about lump-sum versus recurring payments. It reports that recurring payments can support consumption and financial investment over time, and that the effects of ongoing payment streams may strengthen as recipients use some funds to stabilize their finances and invest in the future.
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Innovations for Poverty Action. “VoxDev Highlights the Positive Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers.” 2025.
https://poverty-action.org/voxdev-highlights-positive-impacts-unconditional-cash-transfersThis provides a concise overview of the 115-study meta-analysis and its findings on consumption, income, labor supply, and broader social outcomes.
Creatives Rebuild New York
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Guaranteed Income for Artists: Impact Study.
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This is the primary source for the Guaranteed Income for Artists program and its impact study. It provides links to the full report and seven research briefs covering participant demographics, spending patterns, financial well-being, artistic labor, caregiving and other responsibilities, health and well-being, and community and family impacts.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Guaranteed Income for Artists: Preliminary Findings.
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/The preliminary findings report documents the program’s $1,000 monthly payments to 2,400 artists, culture-bearers, and culture-makers for 18 consecutive months. It also provides early information about debt repayment, savings, rent and utilities, artistic practice, and participant well-being.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Research Brief #2: Spending Patterns.
Available through the CRNY Impact Study page:
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This brief supports the discussion of how artists used unrestricted payments, including spending on debt repayment, savings and investments, rent, utilities, and other major expenses.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Research Brief #3: Financial Well-Being.
Available through the CRNY Impact Study page:
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This brief examines changes in participants’ financial stability, economic stress, savings, debt, and ability to manage financial needs.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Research Brief #4: Artists’ Labor.
Available through the CRNY Impact Study page:
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This brief supports the finding that participating artists spent 19 percent more hours on arts-related labor after receiving guaranteed income.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Research Brief #5: Juggling Responsibilities.
Available through the CRNY Impact Study page:
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This brief examines caregiving, household responsibilities, and work-life balance. It supports the finding that 75 percent of caregiving artists reported improved work-life balance.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Research Brief #6: Health and Well-Being.
Available through the CRNY Impact Study page:
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This brief supports the finding that participants reported a 29 percent reduction in severe anxiety and depression, as well as improvements in physical and mental well-being.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Guaranteed Income for Artists: Impact Study Overview.
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/The overview explains the study’s multidisciplinary design and identifies the research partners, including Indiana University, Appalachian State University, New York University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the City University of New York.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. Creatives Rebuild New York Homepage and Program Overview.
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/This source documents the overall program design, including the $125 million initiative, the 2,400 participating artists, and the program’s broader purpose of supporting the lives and livelihoods of New York State artists.
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Creatives Rebuild New York. “Transformative Impact of Cash for New York State Artists.”
Available through the CRNY Impact page:
https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/research/gi-research/impact/This summary reports the principal findings from the impact study: increased arts-related labor, reduced food insecurity, improved mental health, and improved work-life balance among caregiving artists.
The Institutional Squeeze Sources:
1. Nonprofit Finance Fund. “2025 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey.”
This is the primary source for the section’s claims about nonprofit financial conditions. The survey includes responses from 2,206 organizations and found that 36 percent ended the year with an operating deficit, the highest share recorded in the survey’s ten-year history.
2. Nonprofit Finance Fund. “2025 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey: Highlights and Findings.”
https://nff.org/state-of-the-nonprofit-sector-survey/
This source summarizes the survey’s findings on rising service demand, operating deficits, inflation, limited cash reserves, uncertain government funding, living wages, staffing shortages, and organizational capacity.
3. Independent Sector. “Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector.”
https://healthysector.org/
This source provides broader information about the nonprofit sector’s employment, economic contribution, wages, financial health, and role in sustaining civic and community life. It provides additional context for the section’s discussion of nonprofits as a major part of the U.S. workforce and economy.
4. Candid. “What to Know About U.S. Nonprofit Sector Demographics.”
https://candid.org/blogs/diversity-in-nonprofit-sector-candid-demographic-data-report/
This source analyzes demographic information from more than 59,000 U.S. public charities and supports the claims that women make up approximately 69 percent of nonprofit staff and approximately 62 percent of nonprofit leaders.
5. Candid. “The State of Diversity in the U.S. Nonprofit Sector.”
https://candid.org/blogs/diversity-in-nonprofit-sector-candid-demographic-data-report/
This report provides the underlying demographic analysis summarized by Candid.
6. Candid. “What Do We Know About LGBTQIA+ Nonprofit Leaders and Staff?”
https://candid.org/blogs/what-do-we-know-about-lgbtqia-nonprofit-leaders-staff/
This source supports the claims that approximately 15 percent of nonprofit staff identify as LGBTQIA+ and approximately 9 percent of nonprofit leaders identify as LGBTQIA+.
7. Candid. “What to Know About Disability Representation in the Nonprofit Sector.”
https://candid.org/blogs/diversity-in-nonprofit-sector-candid-demographic-data-report/
This source supports the claims that approximately 15 percent of nonprofit staff identify as having a disability and approximately 10 percent of nonprofit leaders identify as having a disability.
8. NORC at the University of Chicago. “National Survey of Artists Sheds Light on Invisible Workforce.”
https://www.norc.org/research/library/national-survey-artists-sheds-light-invisible-workforce.html
This source supports the discussion of the limitations of conventional cultural-worker data and the difficulty of identifying people whose creative work is intermittent, unpaid, self-directed, volunteer-based, or combined with other employment.
9. Mellon Foundation. “New National Study Offers Fresh Insight into the Lives and Livelihoods of U.S. Artists.”
https://www.mellon.org/news/new-national-study-offers-fresh-insight-lives-livelihoods-us-artists
This source provides an accessible summary of the national survey of artists and supports the findings concerning financial vulnerability, self-employment, multiple jobs, caregiving, part-time work, temporary work, and the ways artists combine cultural work with other forms of employment.
10. National Endowment for the Arts. “Artists and Other Cultural Workers: A Statistical Portrait.”
https://www.arts.gov/impact/research/arts-data-profile-series
This source provides federal data on artists and cultural workers by occupation, age, gender, race and ethnicity, employment status, earnings, and other labor-force characteristics.
11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.”
https://www.bls.gov/cps/
This source provides the federal labor-force framework used to measure employment, unemployment, occupation, self-employment, hours worked, and earnings.
It provides background for the section’s discussion of why people whose cultural work is combined with caregiving, multiple jobs, unpaid work, or other employment may be difficult to identify in conventional datasets.
12. National Endowment for the Arts. “Artists and Arts Workers in the United States.”
https://www.arts.gov/impact/research/arts-data-profile-series
This source provides additional information about the demographic and economic characteristics of artists and arts workers, including employment patterns, income, self-employment, age, gender, race and ethnicity, and participation in the cultural workforce.
13. Nonprofit Finance Fund. “2025 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey.”
https://nff.org/state-of-the-nonprofit-sector-survey/2025-state-of-the-survey-nonprofit-sector-survey/
This source supports the section’s interpretation of institutional strain as a worker-retention problem.
14. Candid. “What to Know About U.S. Nonprofit Sector Demographics.”
https://candid.org/blogs/diversity-in-nonprofit-sector-candid-demographic-data-report/
This source supports the section’s final argument that women from marginalized racial and ethnic groups are represented in nonprofit workforce and leadership data but are disproportionately concentrated in smaller organizations with fewer resources.
15. NORC at the University of Chicago. “National Survey of Artists Sheds Light on Invisible Workforce.”
https://www.norc.org/research/library/national-survey-artists-sheds-light-invisible-workforce.html
Support the Emberline Collective Fund
Every gift to Emberline moves directly toward multi-year, unrestricted awards for cultural stewards and the infrastructure that sustains them. Support at any level helps build the fund's founding years, and you can stay connected through quarterly updates and an annual report.
FAQ
Can I direct my gift to a specific person? No. Gifts support the fund as a whole. Awards are made through Emberline's selection process, and contributions cannot be designated for an individual.
Who receives and processes my gift? Emberline Collective Fund is fiscally sponsored by Phīla Venture Fund, a Washington nonprofit and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. All gifts are made payable to Phīla Venture Fund for the benefit of Emberline, and Phīla Venture Fund sends each donor an acknowledgment letter for their records. Please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your contribution.
How do I give by check? Make your check payable to Phīla Venture Fund and write "Emberline Collective Fund" in the memo line. Mail to [Phīla Venture Fund mailing address]
How will I know how my gift is used? Donors receive quarterly updates and an annual report on awards made, the fund's progress, and the work awardees choose to share.
How are awardees selected? Awardees are identified by the Emberline Advisory Board and Founding Steward, who prepare a blind proposal for each nominee. That proposal is reviewed and approved by the Advisory Board together with three national and international advisors. Nominees are then informed of the award privately. Emberline does not accept applications.
Can I nominate someone I know? We're always glad to hear about people doing meaningful work in their communities. Nominations come from within Emberline's selection process, which keeps every award independent of donor and other relationships, and protects each nominee's privacy. You're welcome to share what inspires you at info@emberlinecollective.org.
Can I nominate someone I know? We're always glad to hear about people doing meaningful work in their communities. Nominations come from within Emberline's selection process, which keeps every award independent of donor and other relationships, and protects each nominee's privacy. You're welcome to share what inspires you at info@emberlinecollective.org.
Who receives and processes my gift? Emberline Collective Fund is fiscally sponsored by Phīla Venture Fund, a Washington nonprofit and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. All gifts are made payable to Phīla Venture Fund for the benefit of Emberline, and Phīla Venture Fund sends each donor an acknowledgment letter for their records. Please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your contribution.
Can I give monthly or make a multi-year pledge? Yes. Monthly giving is available through the donate button. For a multi-year pledge, write to info@emberlinecollective.org and we'll arrange a schedule with you.
Can I give through a donor-advised fund? Yes. Recommend your grant to Phīla Venture Fund with "Emberline Collective Fund" noted as the purpose.
I'm interested in a larger gift. Who should I talk to? Leilani Lewis Jupiter, Founding Steward, at [email].