Fundraising Strategy For Theatre Company

We are seeking a Taproot volunteer to help us develop a clear, actionable fundraising plan for Freedom House Theatre Company. As a new multidisciplinary performing arts organization with a bold equity-focused mission, we are preparing for our first season of programming and are actively raising seed funding to launch.

We are hoping for support with the following tasks:

- Outlining a 12-month fundraising strategy that aligns with our mission and growth goals

- Helping us prioritize funding sources such as major donors, corporate sponsorships, foundation grants, and grassroots campaigns

- Identifying realistic quarterly fundraising targets to support our annual goal of raising $200,000 (plus 5 percent fiscal sponsor fee)

- Recommending fundraising tools and systems that are appropriate for a small but growing team

- Offering feedback on our fundraising case statement and giving tiers

- Helping us map out donor cultivation strategies and engagement timelines

This fundraising plan will be essential for supporting artist compensation, staffing, programming, and community outreach during our launch year. We anticipate needing 3 to 5 hours of support per week for 4 to 6 weeks.

This project will directly support our mission to build sustainable careers for dancers, musicians, and actors, especially those from Black, Indigenous, and historically silenced communities. By helping us craft a focused and realistic fundraising plan, you will be laying the financial foundation for everything we aim to do—support artists with dignity, provide access to transformative performances, and reshape the arts ecosystem toward equity and care.

In the next year, this plan will guide our efforts to raise $200,000 to cover artist compensation, foundational programming, and operational needs. It will also help us reach an urgent goal: putting our Executive Artistic Director, who has been working unpaid to build this vision, on payroll.

Long term, your work will help us move toward offering livable wage salaries, full benefits, and ownership of creative labor to our artist collaborators. You will be helping us move from possibility to implementation—activating real resources to support a new model for how the performing arts can look and feel when justice is at the center.

Volunteers often ask how their time will matter. In our case, your contribution will help launch a movement. It will help artists survive and thrive, communities connect and heal, and the vision of a more equitable cultural landscape come to life.

We’re fully committed to making this project successful and impactful for both our team and the volunteer who joins us. Freedom House Theatre Company has done the necessary groundwork to ensure your recommendations will be implemented and drive meaningful progress.

- Internal Alignment: Our Executive Artistic Director and advisory board are aligned on fundraising priorities and are actively involved in cultivating leads and applying for funding.

- Materials Ready: We have a draft fundraising case statement, detailed budget projections, a sponsorship pitch deck, and a tiered donor benefits framework. These materials are available for immediate review and refinement.

- Taproot Momentum: We are also working with a Taproot volunteer on our marketing strategy, ensuring that our fundraising and communications efforts are aligned and reinforcing one another.

- Infrastructure in Place: Our fiscal sponsor, Group 36, provides back-office support for receiving funds, issuing tax receipts, and managing payroll and benefits once funds are secured.

- Implementation Plan: This fundraising plan will guide our daily development efforts over the next 12 months, inform quarterly fundraising benchmarks, and directly support our annual keystone goal of raising $200,000. A key short-term milestone is putting our Executive Artistic Director (currently working unpaid) on payroll as soon as possible to ensure long-term sustainability and leadership stability.

We are collaborative, communicative, and mission-driven. Your expertise will be valued, respected, and put to use immediately in service of building a new kind of arts organization rooted in care, justice, and sustainability.