Deadline: 13-Mar-24
The Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced Digital Accelerator Program to strengthen nonprofit cultural organizations through strategic investments in their digital infrastructure.
The Digital Accelerator provides funding, expert technical assistance, and leadership development over two years to strengthen the digital infrastructure of nonprofit cultural organizations with the principal goals of growing revenue, increasing fundraising, engaging audiences, improving operations, and developing programming opportunities.
Implementing a successful digital project can pose significant challenges even for the most well-resourced organization. This program was designed in recognition of those challenges, providing participants support and structure to develop a viable project plan, build internal alignment, manage the competing demands of implementation, and document what works and what doesn’t to ensure organizational learning and growth. The program is cohort-based, with peer organizations from across the country and internationally sharing difficulties and successes to help build a broader base of knowledge about technology and culture.
Supported projects fall into the following categories:
- Content creation and distribution
- CRM/Ticketing (including donor management/fundraising systems)
- Digital Archives/Digital Asset Management
- Websites
Costs funded through this initiative include hardware, software, vendors/suppliers, staff time, and training. Note: content creation projects should focus on production infrastructure rather than fees for one-time digital projects.
Core Components
- Expert Technical and Project Management Assistance: An advisor from Arts Council England (UK) or the Lapine Group (US) will provide guidance and tools throughout the grant period to aid in developing a plan to address your organization’s specific digital infrastructure need, procuring the necessary hardware and software, and managing organizational change throughout implementation.
- Bloomberg Tech Fellow (BTF): Each grantee will designate a staff member to serve as digital project lead, coordinating the project on behalf of their organization. BTFs work one-on-one with the assigned advisor in putting together a project plan and budget. They also attend sessions on best practices in digital technology. BTFs should be prepared to dedicate 1-2 days per week (or longer for large/complex projects) to the project during the 3-month planning phase and then around 1 day per week (depending on the complexity of the project) over the following year. Selecting your BTF requires careful consideration, including whether parts of the individual’s current work responsibilities role may need to be reassigned during the most intense period of this grant
- Organizational Oversight: The board of each grantee organization will create a subcommittee to oversee approved projects in a manner appropriate and consistent with grantee governance structure. And for the duration of the grant period, the Bloomberg Tech Fellow will report directly the organization’s chief executive about the project – regardless of whether or not that reporting structure is normally in place.
- Metrics/Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Organizations identify success metrics/KPIs as part of the planning phase that are then tracked throughout implementation. These include “early wins” as well as longer-term benchmarks to understand the impact of each project and contribute to field-wide learning about effective use of technology.
- Network: Grantees join a group of over 140 organizations already in the program. They encourage and support knowledge-sharing, and continuously facilitate it among Bloomberg Tech Fellows. The grant period includes online workshops, roundtables, and an in-person convening to encourage professional skills-building benefiting organizations into the future.
Eligibility Criteria
- Non-profit cultural organizations in existence for at least 3 years based in the US or UK are eligible to apply.
- Organizations must have 501c3 status
- Organizations must have a budget of at least $500,000 in FY23
- UK organisations must be constituted as one of the below to apply:
- Community interest companies (CICs) registered with the CIC regulator
- Charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs) registered with the Charity Commission
- Charitable companies or charitable trusts registered with the Charity Commission.
For more information, visit Bloomberg Philanthropies.