How You Can Contribute to the Arts This #GivingTuesday
By: Chloe Rabinowitz May. 05, 2020
The theater community around the world is currently facing unprecedented circumstances during this global health crisis. Those who work in the arts have suddenly found that their lives and their work have been brought to a halt. While this global health emergency has forced the world of entertainment to a come to a pause, the artist community is working together to continue to create and contribute what they are able to under these difficult circumstances, despite the uncertainty about what the future holds for them and their work.
During this time, we are all working to band together and unify to ensure that there continues to be hope in this difficult time. If you are looking for ways to help the community of artists who are currently affected by the shutdown of theaters and arts organizations around the world, here is a list of ways you can contribute. If you want to contribute this #GivingTuesday, here's how you can help...
Ways To Donate
Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights Aids
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation's leading industry-based HIV/AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. They fund the social service work of The Actors Fund and award grants to AIDS service organizations nationwide.
The Actors Fund
The Actors Fund is a national human services organization here to meet the needs of our entertainment community with a unique understanding of the challenges involved in a life in the arts. Services include emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, senior care, secondary career development and more.
Actors' Equity Foundation
The Actors' Equity Foundation - a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization - has remained steadfast in its mission to support the professional theatre community, from emerging artists to seasoned vets, while promoting and investing in the theatre and the performing arts. The Foundation carries out its theatrical mission by giving grants to over 150 nonprofit theatres across the nation annually and to agencies and institutions serving the arts community, including AIDS and health care programs, diversity initiatives and career transition. The Foundation also offers workshops and seminars for the professional development of performing artists. The Actors' Equity Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors, led by President Judy Rice. It is separate from Actors' Equity Association and receives its funding from estate bequests and individual donations. Union dues are not used to fund the Foundation.
Dramatists Guild Foundation
DGF provides necessary funds to writers for the stage facing emergency circumstances. They also bestow funds upon writers and theaters that challenge, protect, and develop the craft. Through their intensive development program, an in-school program, and a national education program, they ensure that writers have access to free, quality education on the craft of writing. They offer writers a fully furnished multi-purpose space in NYC that they can use completely free of charge.
Local 802 AFM, The Musicians' Emergency Relief Fund
They are the Associated Musicians of Greater New York, American Federation of Musicians Local 802, the largest local union of professional musicians in the world. They unite to fight for the common interests of all musicians by advancing industry standards that dignify our labor and honor and enrich our art. They seek to organize a community of all musicians and aspiring musicians, and we reach out to all who share our interests and our passion. They are committed to upholding the integrity of live musical performance and to advancing the vital role of music in education, and in the economic, cultural and social life of our community and beyond. They advocate for economic and social justice for musicians and for society as a whole.
American Federation of Musicians
80,000 musicians comprise the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM). They perform in orchestras, backup bands, festivals, clubs and theaters-both on Broadway and on tour. AFM members also make music for films, TV, commercials and sound recordings. As the largest union of musicians in the world, they have the power to make the music industry work for musicians.
American Guild of Musical Artists
They are the labor organization that represents the artists who create America's operatic, choral, and dance heritage. Performing artists live to perform. But their talents, their skill and the beauty they create won't necessarily pay the rent, put food on the table or guarantee the necessities of life. Without forceful advocacy and defense of their rights, artists may be vulnerable to exploitation or illegal discrimination. They need protection.
Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation
Stage Directors and Choreographers Workshop Foundation (SDCF) exists to foster, promote and develop the creativity and craft of stage directors and choreographers. SDCF's goals are to provide opportunities to practice the crafts of directing and choreography; to gather and disseminate craft and career information; to promote the profession to emerging talent; to provide opportunities for exchange of knowledge among directors and choreographers; to increase the awareness of the value of directors' and choreographers' work, and to convene around issues affecting theatre artists. Because the work can often feel isolating, and these career paths can feel inaccessible to emerging artists, SDCF events and programs are designed to offer access, opportunity and community to directors and choreographers at all levels of career.
National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London, known as The National Theatre, is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues.
Motion Picture & Television Fund
Motion Picture & Television Fund is an organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources. Its mission is to enrich the lives of people in the Southern California entertainment community by evolving to meet their health and human services needs.
Theatre Development Fund
TDF is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to bringing the power of the performing arts to everyone. TDF sustains live theatre and dance by engaging and cultivating a broad and diverse audience and eliminating barriers to attendance.
TDF envisions a world where the transformative experience of attending live theatre and dance is essential, relevant, accessible and inspirational.
Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company is a not-for-profit organization. They produce familiar and lesser-known plays and musicals with the ability to take artistic risk as only a not-for-profit can; discover talented playwrights and provide them long-term artistic support to contribute to the future of the theatrical canon; reduce the barriers-financial, physical and cultural-that can inhibit theatergoing, and they collaborate with a diverse team of artists to identify programming for consideration. They build transformational education experiences that enhance teacher practice, deepen student learning, and ignite the futures of young people through career training and placement; and capture and archive over five decades of production history as an open resource for artists, scholars, and our community.  
American Theatre Wing
American Theatre Wing invests in brave work, supports creative growth, and celebrates excellence to bring diverse stories to our national culture through theatre. American Theatre Wing has spent a century using theatre to advance human experience, empathy and cultural growth like never before.
The Broadway League
The Broadway League is the national trade association for the Broadway industry. Our 700-plus members include theatre owners and operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in North American cities, as well as suppliers of goods and services to the commercial theatre industry. Each year, League members bring Broadway to more than 30 million people in New York and more than 200 cities across the U.S. and Canada.
A BroaderWay
A BroaderWay Foundation (ABW) was created in 2010 by Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, and a passionate group of artists, activists and social workers with a basic goal - amplifying the power of young women through the arts.
The Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is a vibrant home for the most creative and talented singers, conductors, composers, musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers from around the world. The Met is reportedly the US' largest performing arts organization.
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