2024-11-03T10:58:14-07:00 2024-06-30 990EZ 2023-07-01 043257661 FUND FOR WOMEN ARTISTS INC dba WomenArts FUND 5108685096 1442 A Walnut St Ste 67 Berkeley CA 94709 Martha Richards President 5108685096 2024-11-03 1 2023 2024-10-15 13:58:12Z X https://www.WomenArts.org X X 31710 X 9574 0 0 21336 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 800 31710 147875 0 0 5183 0 551 7574 161183 -129473 592209 27660 490396 X 591616 489797 0 0 713 719 592329 490516 120 120 592209 490396 Our mission is to increase the visibility and opportunities for women artists. We provide free information and advice to artists through our website and newsletters, and we collaborate with other non-profits on projects that support the work of women artists. ONLINE RESOURCES: WomenArts provides a variety of free online services designed to increase the opportunities & visibility of women artists. Our volunteers maintain a website with hundreds of pages of educational information for women artists, articles about inspiring women artists around the world, and links to research studies and funding information. We collaborate with the Women in the Arts and Media Coalition in New York to produce monthly newsletters listing funding deadlines and other opportunities for women artists in theater, film and video. WomenArts provided $1,000 to Women in the Arts & Media Coalition this year to support the funding newsletters. 1000 1000 COLLABORATIONS WITH OTHER NON-PROFITS: We collaborate with other non-profits on arts projects featuring women artists and on an annual international celebration of women artists in all art forms called Support Women Artists Now Day or SWAN Day for short, which takes place during March (Women's History Month). During 2023-24, we provided support to 6 non-profit women-led arts organizations. 26875 X 1286 ENDOWMENT DISTRIBUTIONS - WomenArts submitted a petition in June 2023 to the MA Attorney General's Office to transfer our endowment to another non-profit with a similar mission. Since they have not been able to process our petition for 16 months, the WomenArts Board obtained permission from two of our key endowment donors to release the restrictions on their endowment gifts so that their gifts could be distributed. After we obtained these releases we transferred $100,000 to Brava for Women in the Arts and $20,000 to the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts' Valley Creates program. We have paid $5,183 in legal fees for our petition and subsequent correspondence. 120000 5183 7469 Martha Richards President & Director 15 0 0 0 Barbara Schaffer Bacon Secretary & Director 1 0 0 0 Christine Young Treasurer & Director 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 MA Martha Richards 1442 A Walnut St Ste 67 Berkeley CA 94709 5108685096 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NONE NONE 1 X 44547 39930 17178 1295 9574 112524 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 44547 39930 17178 1295 9574 112524 36615 75909 21482 21610 29174 25703 21336 119305 0 0 0 0 0 0 247 0 0 0 800 1047 232876 0 0.32596 0.18353 X PROOF OF ONGOING FUNDRAISING AND SERVICE ACTIVITIES: We collaborated with 6 women-led arts organizations to produce events in California, Massachusetts, and Kenya. We collaborate with the Women in the Arts and Media Coalition in New York to publish monthly e-newsletters and web pages listing upcoming funding and employment opportunities for women in theatre, film, and video. We continue to provide mentorship and grant-writing advice to other women artists and to serve our constituents through the educational resources on our website and our e-newsletters. We currently have an email list of approximately 8,500 people as well as approximately 10,000 Facebook fans. ******************************************************************************************* ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT OUR ENDOWMENT INCOME: We became an all-volunteer organization during the pandemic and our income dropped to under $50,000 for the past three years. We have been trying to transfer our endowment to other non-profit arts organizations with similar missions for the past year and a half. We submitted our petition to transfer the endowment to the Charities Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office in June 2023, and we called and wrote to them numerous times during our 2023-24 fiscal year. We have spent $5,183 on legal fees, but the Charities Division did not respond to any of our messages. We contacted our State Representative's office for assistance, and they were able to determine that our petition is "under review" but as of November 1, 2024 (16 months after our initial submission) our petition still has not been processed. The only reason we are submitting this Form 990 EZ is that the MA Charities Division requires it for non-profits with income over $25,000, and our income is over that limit because we had $21,336 of investment income from our endowment while we were waiting for the Charities Division to process our petition. We have been extremely frustrated by their inaction, since most arts organizations serving women artists are financially strained and it is painful that we cannot transfer our endowment to help them. Since the Charities Division claims they are backlogged, we do not understand why they are requiring us to submit a Form 990 EZ even though the IRS does not require it. In April 2024, we started contacting our key endowment donors and obtained permission from two of them to release the endowment restrictions on their gifts. One donor had given $100,000 and agreed that we could transfer those funds to Brava for Women in the Arts. Another donor released her endowment gift of $20,000 so that we could transfer it to the Valley Creates arts program of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. Once we complete the transfer of our endowment, we anticipate that our income will be less than $50,000 per year and we will be completely publicly supported since our main sources of revenue will be foundation grants and small individual donations for specific arts projects. ********************************************************************************************** OTHER FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES: Although our board is small, our three board members are recognized as leading experts in their fields. Our founder and president, Martha Richards, has been recognized with awards for her visionary leadership by three different organizations - the Women in the Arts and Media Coalition in New York, NY; the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts in Springfield, MA; and StateraArts in Cedar City, UT. In 2007 she was one of three U.S. nominees (with Quincy Jones and Wynton Marsalis) for the prestigious international Montblanc De La Culture Award for outstanding service to the arts. She worked for twenty years in mainstream arts organizations prior to founding WomenArts - including serving as the first female executive director of Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College in New York. She is a member of the California bar and was a founding board member and Vice President of California Lawyers for the Arts. She has written and lectured extensively about the status of women in the arts. Our treasurer, Christine Young, is the Director of the Honors College at the University of San Francisco, and a full professor with a specialty in feminist theatre. Our secretary, Barbara Schaffer Bacon, is an expert on the arts and social change who has worked for Americans for the Arts as the co-director of their Animating Democracy program, and as a consultant for numerous other arts organizations and foundations. Schedule A, Part II, Line 10 Cash back from our Bank of America Credit Card RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED Form 990-EZ, Part I, Line 8 We received $800 in cash-back rewards on our credit card. Form 990-EZ, Part I, Line 10 WomenArts made grants from our cash reserves to the following non-profit arts organizations for projects featuring women artists: LA Women's Theatre Project $2,040; The Institute for the Musical Arts $5,000; Eggtooth Productions $2,500; Brava for Women in the Arts $10,000. Also, 2 donors to the WomenArts Endowment released the restrictions on their funds so that we could give $100,000 to Brava for Women in the Arts and $20,000 to the Valley Creates arts programs of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. Form 990-EZ, Part I, Line 16 Description;Amount^Computer and Website Services;4604|Liability Insurance;1072|Employment Taxes and Workers Comp;656|Office Supplies and Expenses;1242^Total;7574^ Form 990-EZ, Part I, Line 20 Unrealized WomenArts Endowment Capital Gains $30,158; Realized Endowment Long-term Capital Loss -$2,498 Form 990-EZ, Part II, Line 24 Prepaid Liability Insurance $719 Form 990-EZ, Part II, Line 26 Bank of America Credit Card Bill Payable $120