My feelings exactly!
Based on their extraordinary support of new American theatre, we'd always wanted to introduce The New York International Fringe Festival to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. So we were thrilled when we were invited to apply for funding, and even more thrilled when they awarded us a multi-year grant in support of our goals for FringeNYC's second decade.
Their $10,000 per year award for 2007, 2008, and 2009 has already moved us much closer toward our goals:
In fact, in 2007 we were able to add two one day per week staff members:
Bonnie Pipkin, who interned for us in her last year of Graduate School at New York University has come on board as a Fundraising Associate.
And Taty Sena, our long-time volunteer webmaster and coordinator of our 1,500 other volunteers now joins us as Director of IT.
Having just launched back into fundraising from foundations and individuals in order to meet our goal of re-balancing our income and adding infrastructure for the future, we consider The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust's gift a Leadership Grant - literally setting the foundation for our future.
Thank you to Maria Osmanski and the Board of Directors of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
In addition to the incredible generosity shown by the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation in providing their lovely theater as a venue for FringeNYC at our normal puny venue fee, George Forbes and the members of the Foundation’s board again went WAY above and beyond in 2007.
Not only did six of our productions get to take advantage of a beautiful, safe, well-equipped enormous off-Broadway venue, they again thrived on the opportunity, and we're again so very grateful.
You can read more about the extraordinary contribution our venue owners make in the pages of this Annual Report. But The Board of Directors of the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation not only allow us to use their venue, they also once again granted us $5,000 in support of FringeNYC. It honestly could not have come at a better time. After all, we need nearly $5,000 in cash just to make banks for our box office staffers for the first day of the festival! There are many wonderful things about running this festival almost entirely on earned income, but cashflow isn’t one of them. The thing about earned income is that you don’t actually receive it until you earn it. The generosity of the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation, and the entire organization, are making an extraordinary impact on not only The New York International Fringe Festival, but the entire off-Broadway community.
My feelings exactly!
