Kickstarter

Meet Laurel.

Laurel has been working at Fourth Arts Block (FAB) for 8 months and in that time has become an essential part of our day-to-day functions. She is a performing artist who is working in a job where she actively gets to help dozens of artists and audience members. Laurel is the extra pair of skilled hands that lets us effectively assist dozens of arts organizations with vital services in difficult economic times.

WHAT WE NEED
FAB needs to keep Laurel on as a part-time employee so that we can keep serving a community of artists who increasingly need the strategic and audience-building services we provide. To keep Laurel employed in the spring of 2010 we ask your help in fundraising $1,200. A donation of as little of $12 (one one-hundredth of our goal) will allow Laurel, an essential part of our organization, to continue her valued work. Please read on for more information on how Laurel & FAB are actively and daily supporting the artists, arts organizations, and audiences of the East Village & Lower East Side.

WHO WE ARE
FAB works to improve & promote the East 4th Street Cultural District, the only cultural district in Manhattan. Together with our partners & members we are building a vibrant and lasting home for the arts and preserving our community’s unique creative ecology.

WHO WE SERVE
FAB serves 20 member and affiliate member groups, including New York Theatre Workshop, La MaMa E.T.C., Performance Space 122, Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance, Downtown Art, DUO Multi-Cultural Arts Center, Millennium Film Workshop, New York Neo-Futurists, Rod Rodgers Dance Company & School, Teatro IATI, Teatro Circulo, Works in Progress, WOW Café Theatre, Creative Time, East Village Dance Project, Bleecker Street Opera, Horse Trade Theater Group, and Lower East Side History Project, as well as all their resident companies and other partners. Some are organizations are just celebrating their 5th birthdays, while others have been creating on East 4th Street for over 30 years. These organizations work in every imaginable medium supporting scores of emerging, established, youth and adult artists. Each year our members serve over 1,500 individual artists, including writers, directors, actors, dancers and designers, with rehearsal space, training, production assistance, workshops and much more.

WHAT WE DO
Our services help strengthen companies from the inside and bolster them from the outside. Internally, we offer customizable free ticketing services with constant technical support, we help small companies improve their Internet presence via our website and online partnerships, we help coordinate and advance physical improvement projects on all our members’ theaters, studios, and offices. We also offer one-on-one marketing and strategic planning help. If our members or community express a need, we do our best to serve it within our capacity.

Externally we lead programs and initiatives that help raise awareness about our members & the East 4th Street Cultural District, as well as increase attendance to performances & events. FAB’s efforts have run the gamut from a public art program to beautify scaffolding, improving the street itself with lighting & bike racks, marketing, greening efforts, community building, group advertising, establishing partnerships with larger non-arts organizations, and annual festivals.

Overall, FAB is nimble and capable of helping our members take advantage of all the opportunities available to them, without placing a greater burden on their infrastructures and staff, which are and should be primarily focused on the creation of their art.

And FAB is a non-profit, so if you invest in this project it is tax deductible as well!