Our History + Values
Our Mission
We believe that the future of Chicago's cultural vitality rests in the hands of those building new opportunities for artmaking, collaboration, education, and public advocacy.
We fundraise to build vital financial resources for these arts and humanities organizations in alignment with our commitment to advancing social change.
Our Story
Artistic Fundraising Group was founded by Erica Bittner in 2018. After spending the formative years of her development career within large nonprofit organizations–alongside her work as a professional actor and writer–she recognized a profound lack of affordable, practical, and scaled fundraising resources for nonprofits in the arts.
Today, Artistic Fundraising Group raises $20M+ annually for a wide range of nonprofit arts and humanities organizations that are committed to social change.
Our client base spans across all artistic disciplines and humanities sectors, including theatre, dance, music, independent film, creative writing, visual art, journalism, and artist residencies. We also extend our work beyond the arts to include organizations within education, social services, mutual aid, health, and disability services. Finally, we support grantmakers on their journey toward more equitable funding practices, collaborating with leaders in this field. While our focus is local to the Chicagoland area, we serve clients nationwide.
Our Work
We provide fundraising strategies and resources to nonprofit organizations with budgets ranging from <$100,000 to more than $10 million in annual operating expenses. In essence, we are skilled at scaling a full suite of development services to successfully meet the needs of grassroots nonprofits as well as major institutions.
We are immensely proud that 100% of our clients to date have garnered new or increased funds as a direct result of their work with us.
Our Team
Our multi-hyphenate team brings the high-profile fundraising experience we've garnered at major institutions into the best practices we instill within each of our clients. We are also all professional artists and educators in addition to our work in nonprofit fundraising. As such, we are passion-driven individuals who bring an intimate, intersectional understanding of the arts and humanities to our work. This empowers us to present our clients to prospective funders and donors with an unparalleled competitive edge.
“AFG is phenomenal.
We love everything they do!”
— Chicago Composers Orchestra
Our Values
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We believe in the power of coalition building and collective thought leadership over the individualistic scarcity mindset that pervades the nonprofit sector. We advocate for integrity and transparency as we leverage the strength of the collective we build among creative workers, nonprofits, and philanthropists.
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We hold ourselves to a high standard of excellence, both in our work and in our collaboration with others. To this end, we build entirely customized, creative solutions that achieve lasting impact for each mission we support.
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We approach our days with an authentic desire to improve our approach to our work, our understanding of ourselves and others, and our potential for impact upon the world around us. We embrace revision in product and in practice, as we believe our work is never done.
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We believe that lack of fundraising experience or expertise should not determine who is allowed to thrive. We scale our service models to support organizations of all sizes and stages of development, and we advocate for more inclusive philanthropic practices among those who hold wealth.
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We welcome each member of our collective across our team, our clients, and our collaborators to bring their whole multi-hyphenate selves to their cultural work. We respect boundaries between our work and the lives that work supports. Above all, we acknowledge and celebrate diversity of lived experiences with an inclusive and humble mindset.
Our Commitment to IDEAA
Artistic Fundraising Group is actively committed to working practices that are antiracist, equitable, and inclusive, and that are free of discrimination or harassment. We strive to be accountable to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled individuals and the organizations that center their lives and work.
We acknowledge that our work and learning is and must be ongoing as we listen to, lift up, and center marginalized voices. We continually learn and embrace practices that dismantle harmful ideologies and practices to ensure that our values of antiracism and inclusion permeate our organizational structure and every aspect of the work we do.
Let’s fundraise together!
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