$25k CAMPAIGN KICK-OFF:
Monday June 28 at 12pm ET / 9am PT
Hi :-)
June is upon us: the month of the first ever formal School of the Alternative fundraiser!! We are raising $25k in order to pay faculty and staff, offer more scholarships, improve physical accessibility, and increase class supplies. Learn more below!
Trying to raise this much money is brand new for us, but the motivation for the campaign is not new. Radical accessibility has always been at the top of our list – we want as many folks as possible to be able to attend sessions, and for the experience to be mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially healthy for them. Please help us get there. Starting next Monday!
– Nelle Dunlap, School of the Alternative board member
How you can help (easy as pie):
DONATE to SotA instead of buying that new Glade plugin scent or a weirdly expensive purebred parakeet.
We are all coming from different places financially. If you have $5 to give right now, awesome. It helps! If you have $50 or 500 or 5k, awesome. It helps! We will send our campaign link out on Monday, or you can head over to our Patreon and join our sustainer community right now.
SHARE your SotA experience and the campaign link with your coworkers, your family, that cute person you've been chatting up...
If you are on this list because you attended a session and liked it, please share that with your community. Did it change your art-making direction? Did you form close friendships? If you appreciate our journey in radical arts education, pass it on! And don't forget to add the campaign link right along with it, whether in an instagram story or in a letter to your rich aunt.
Want more? The money you raise will fund:
Paying faculty and staff + supply budget
I'm not sure you know this, but right now staff and faculty positions are all volunteer roles and most supplies are donated. This limits who can come teach at SotA to those who can afford to take the time off work and travel to the mountains, and who can supply their own class materials. If we raise $25k, we will pay faculty each week to offset those costs, and will have a budget to pay for art supplies.
Fundraising starts in a week!
More scholarships
It is our long term dream that SotA be free or sliding scale. We aren't there yet. But increasing the number of scholarships we offer goes a long way. Hitting our goal would mean that our whole, half, and Black Equity scholarships could fully or partially pay for as much as 50% of our student body to attend SotA.
We start working towards that goal this Monday!
Physical accessibility
The SotA campus is in the Blue Ridge mountains, housed in buildings that were constructed 100 years ago. It's beautiful, but there are major physical challenges to moving from space to space. Adding resources like vans and ramps would help all of us have a more comfortable experience at school – and would make it possible for a new group of folks to join us who haven't been able to before.
