SPARK THE ART

Hello out there, all you creative folks,

The Board of Burnt Oranges, Inc. (BOI) hopes you’re all hanging in there, distancing but interacting in meaningful ways. We’re thinking about you! We know a lot of you are creating and sharing art to help get through this bizarre part of our history. Since part of the mission of BOI is to cultivate interactive art and one of our goals is to provide interactive artists an opportunity to express themselves, we came up with a mini-grants program to implement while we’re awaiting the abatement of this pandemic. This will keep our artistic appetites whetted and give us something to do until in-person meet-ups begin again.

Spark the Art is a microgrant program designed for small funding grants ($20) with a rapid turn-around (one month). Here’s how it works:

FUNDING:

We’re asking our Burner community (and anyone else who wants to participate – think family, friends, employers) to make a small donation of $5 (more is even better!) to the microgrant fund

THE GRANT:

Anyone can apply for a $20 grant from this fund to help them create art that can be shared. This could be visual art, sculpture, music, dance (with a video to share), performance art locally…..use your imagination! The grants will come in the form of a $20 Amazon gift card delivered via email or SMS.

TO APPLY:

To apply, the program is currently closed.

You don’t have to be a member of the Burn community. Invite your artistic family members and friends to apply, too (and ask them if they’d like to donate $5 or more towards Spark the Art).

We’re asking for a one-month deadline for the completion of your art.

We want to be able to showcase the art digitally from this program at AfterBurn and possibly on our website or Facebook page, so please submit a digital image/recording of your art to art@burntoranges.org. We’d also like to display your physical art in our Art Gallery at AfterBurn, if it is available.

TO DONATE:

You can quickly and easily send your donation through our BOI Facebook fundraiser: https://www.facebook.com/donate/579853895981688/

Great news! The BOI Directors have all made personal donations to jumpstart Spark the Art and BOI has matched the first $100! So, get your applications in; it is a first come, first serve basis for the microgrants and there is already more than $250 in funds awaiting you!

Let’s continue to grow and share our creativity and passion, even while we’re all keeping our distance from each other. We will burn again together soon. Until then, let’s Spark the Art!

Love,

The Board of Directors

Burnt Oranges, Inc.

P.S. Did you know that if you submit your Amazon orders by signing in through the Amazon Smile website, Burnt Oranges, Inc. can receive a small donation from Amazon? It doesn’t cost you anything extra and it helps support your local artists! Try it out today: Amazon Smile

Please note that Burnt Oranges, Inc. does not respond on Facebook to questions or comments, but we ARE interested in your input, questions, and concerns. Please contact us using our monitored email address board@burntoranges.org and we will get back to you soon. Thank you.

February 2, 2020February 2, 2020

Calling Future Burnt Oranges Board Members

Hello Florida Burners, the Burnt Oranges board hopes your new year is off to a great start! We anticipate some of you are busy getting ready for Love Burn, so we’ll cut to the chase: along with beginning to plan AfterBurn 2020, we need new board members! Read on for details…

We have board members we’d like to promote to participant AND we’d like to expand from a five-person board to a seven-person board. Although this is an unpaid volunteer position, we are pretending like it’s a job and want to make sure whoever joins is a good personality fit with the remaining board and shares our current short- and long-term goals. Here’s what we’re looking for:

Progressive leadership experience would be great! We’re community members and participants just like the rest of our burn community. But we have the extra responsibility of having to make critical decisions. You should be able to do so while also working with your fellow community members to lead the charge. Please be good at leaving your ego at home.

While the Burnt Oranges mission doesn’t actually mention AfterBurn, we have come to recognize that it is currently our one primary time and place to gather the community. We feel that we need to work with our event committee to make sure the framework is in place for future community members to run future events before we can seriously move into other activities. A larger board may allow us to work on AfterBurn and other fundraising or outreach activities, but AfterBurn is the priority for now.

That does not mean you’ll need to be on every single planning call – we’re planning to have a liaison or two handle that and report back to us – but you will need to help out with AfterBurn. Ideally you’re able to take time off from your work and life to help with build (Wednesday & Thursday pre-event assuming we return to Camp La Llanada) and/or strike (Monday post-event). You will also be working during the event as a Board of Director on Call. The number of attending board members will determine how long this shift is – we worked 12 hour shifts at AfterBurn 2019 including overnight shifts. If your radio will wake you up, you can actually nap during your shift! Basically, if the event leads need to escalate an issue – typically rejections or 911 calls – they’re going to call you. We also want to set a good example, so plan to work in a normal 4 hour (at least) volunteer shift during AfterBurn.

If you have skills with bookkeeping (we use Xero), developing meeting agendas and note-taking, nonprofit fundraising, or anything else you think may be relevant, we’re especially interested! We currently utilize a CPA for our actual financial filings, but one lucky board member will work directly with Morgan to eventually take over treasurer responsibilities.

We do also have monthly board meetings. These can be as brief as 30 minutes, but some times they can go for three hours. They are typically weekday evenings. If you can’t make one or have to miss part due to life, we understand, but it can’t become a regular occurrence.

If you are selected to join, we have tentatively planned our annual in-person board meeting for February 29 at Catpult in Lakeland. Unless you or someone you love is a leap year baby, it’s an extra day that we hope is free. We are also expecting to begin AfterBurn 2020 planning the following week and would like all board members to plan to attend the kick off meeting. Our 2019 event committee has indicated a desire to return for 2020 and they’ll be doing the event planning, that’s why we don’t all have to be on every single AfterBurn meeting.

You need to be a team player! We’re aiming for a seven person board and a roughly equal sized event committee, plus we have even more team leads at AfterBurn and an entire community of volunteers. If you don’t play nice with others, please contact the DPW/DOGS team for volunteer opportunities.

Now that you know what we want from you, here’s what you get from the position:

An all expenses paid reasonably priced lunch during our in-person board meeting!
Dinner at a board members’ home in Lakeland after our in-person board meeting!
The ability to put “board member of a nonprofit” on your resume!
Use of a radio for part of AfterBurn!
Financial assistance to attend the South East Round Table (SERT), most likely in April and pretty darned close to home!
Tons of new friends!
Your very own @burntoranges.org email address!
Coverage on our liability insurance plan!
Lots of Slack notifications!

If this is as exciting sounding to you as it is to us, here’s what you need to do:

Fill out our board member intake form.
When #1 is done, send your letter of intent to board@burntoranges.org. For inspiration, consider including a description of yourself, what you think you bring to the organization, and what you’re looking to get from this experience.
Do your best to keep February 29 clear and begin thinking about how you’ll get to Lakeland for a long day of fun if you’re selected.

Steps #1 & #2 need to be completed by February 14. After this date, you are still encouraged to apply, but you will be considered for the next round of “hirings” at a future date. The current board will sort out any obvious “No” votes (sorry, if you have a lifetime event ban we can’t really have you on the board) and conduct interviews – ideally in person as a group, but we have creative ideas if that won’t work – prior to our February 29 in-person board meeting.

We look forward to seeing your applications!

October 11, 2018October 15, 2018

An Open Call For Supporters, Contributors, Facilitators, and Board Members

Founded in 2008, Burnt Oranges Inc. received 501(c)3 Charitable Organization and Florida Non-Profit Corporation status in 2010. Operated by a Working Board of Directors, the organization has no employees.

If you’re unfamiliar with this type of oversight, check this article about what an AVO is: https://blueavocado.org/board-of-directors/boards-of-all-volunteer-organizations/ From the article:

Two responsibilities in particular are uniquely important in AVOS: recruiting new leaders, and turning over responsibilities to them. Sometimes long-time leaders and volunteers view the organization as “their baby” and are sharply critical and undermining of anyone whose approach is different. Letting go is difficult for them. They may find fault with new volunteers, or refuse to allow newcomers to take on real responsibility. Board members who truly believe in the organization’s work will want to ensure that they encourage new leaders (even if they seem to be doing it all wrong at first) and let the organization grow into its own future. (This may mean allowing current activities to die out and new activities to take their place.)

For the organization to move forward, it must remain dedicated to its mission and goals:

OUR MISSION

Burnt Oranges is devoted to cultivating interactive art through artist funding and advocacy, by creating supportive venues for interactive artists and performers, and through public education of interactive art.

OUR HISTORY

It’s important to post here the items from the original documentation submitted to the IRS in Form 1023 ATTACHMENTS – original submittal which show how the organization would accomplish this mission, and which granted Burnt Oranges, Inc. 501(c)3 exemption status:

PUBLIC ART EXHIBITIONS: The main activity of Burnt Oranges Inc. will be to encourage, promote, and support the production of community-based interactive art and the display of that art to the public. To accomplish this, Burnt Oranges will work to identify appropriate sites and venues for the public presentation and display of interactive artwork. Burnt Oranges will especially focus on venues and exhibition opportunities that emphasize the civic and social functions of these art works.

Burnt Oranges Inc. plans to organize and conduct public exhibitions of the community-based, interactive art it promotes, at a variety of different sites and venues.

A PERMANENT PUBLIC ART EXHIBITION. Burnt Oranges plans to establish a permanent, year-round, ongoing public exhibition of community-based interactive art. The location of this will be in the Central Florida area, and will be Burnt Oranges’ main center and facility for the development, display, and celebration of the innovative, community-based, interactive art that it seeks to encourage.

TRAVELING ART EXHIBITIONS. Burnt Oranges plans to organize a traveling exhibition of community-based, interactive art that can be taken out “on the road” and displayed at dozens of other major citiesthrough the country.

DISPLAYS AT OTHER PUBLIC EVENTS. Finally, Burnt Oranges also plans to display the community-based, interactive art that it seeks to encourage, at a variety of art festivals and other public events that are compatible with this form of innovative art. These will include artistic festivals such as the Burning Man gathering, which is an annual festival of innovative art and culture that takes place in a remote desert area of Nevada.

Beyond the creation of these venues, Burnt Oranges also funds the creation of art through grants. If you’d like to participate in the granting process, please email board@burntoranges.org to join a committee. Here’s how this was originally laid out:

GRANTS TO SUPPORT COMMUNITY-BASED, INTERACTIVE ART: In order to promote the development of community-based, interactive art which can be part of its public art exhibitions, Burnt Oranges plans to provide financial support for artists who will work to produce innovative, creative examples of interactive, community-based art. Burnt Oranges intends to support only art projects that otherwise could not be produced through the support of the existing commercial and institutional mainstream art community.

There is a great need for the work of Burnt Oranges because, unfortunately, there are currently no dedicated sources of arts funding that specifically support and facilitate community-based, interactive art, despite a 50 year history of such work going back to Allan Karprow’s “Happenings” of the late 1950sand early 1960s.

Third, Burnt Oranges seeks to aid a collective or artists in the community by supporting these efforts. If you’re interested in contribution to this capability, please email board@burntoranges.org. Here’s the original intent:

DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTISTIC COMMUNITY PRODUCING INTERACTIVE ART: In addition to promoting and supporting the production and public exhibition of innovative examples of community- based, interactive art, Burnt Oranges will help the artists who produce it by developing a networked community of artists that can collaborate and work together to produce interactive art. This networked community will provide the artists with contacts that can supply them with inspiration, collaboration, material resources, technical assistance, volunteer services, and financial aid.

Many artists have not been able to develop the collaborative strategies and techniques needed to produce the unusual, innovative interactive art that Burnt Oranges wishes to promote. Burnt Oranges will work to create and provide a laboratory for the development for informal, artistic project-driven networks through which collaborative efforts can produce community-based, interactive art.

As part of this work, Burnt Oranges may develop a year-round arts center and artistic residency program. This center will provide a site for artists from all around the world to come and work together in a dynamic laboratory for the creation of collaborative artistic projects, involving many different artists in the shared production of community-based, interactive art. This facility will be part of the interactive- art network that Burnt Oranges intends to help create and support. Accomplished artists will be offered short-term residency programs to help facilitate the collaborative production of these interactive art projects. The art produced, and the process of creating that art, will be displayed to interested members of the public.

Lastly, the development of Educational Outreach Programs is the final pillar of the Organization. If you’re interested in doing outreach on behalf of Burnt Oranges, please email your program ideas, fundraiser ideas, and how you’d like to assemble your project to board@burntoranges.org. Here’s the original intent:

EDUCATIONAL PUBLIC OUTREACH PROGRAMS. Finally, Burnt Oranges intends to educate the general public about the spiritual value and social relevance of community-based, interactive art. For this to happen, the public must have opportunities to see and interact with this unusual art form. Burnt Oranges will utilize every opportunity, including its own public display and exhibition of this art as well as providing funds for art supplies and art programs at public schools and community centers, to educate the public about the larger social and cultural importance of interactive art. As stated above, the ultimate mission of Burnt Oranges is to use public exhibitions focusing on interactive art, to promotea revival of art’s culture-bearing and socially connective functions. As part of this, Burnt Oranges seeks to educate the public about the need to free art from its dependence on the commercial marketplace, and to reintegrate it into public and community settings.

The Above Charter is the Road Map

At no time has the Organization voted to change any of this. While the original intent may have been sidelined in the favor of “producing events” throughout the past ten years, the current direction of the Board of Directors is to support these, intact.

I’m interested in helping lead AfterBurn in the future:

For the community members who are interested in the facilitation, administration and overall production of the Sanctioned, Central Florida Regional Burn, we’d encourage you to submit your intentions to assist with this via a letter mailed to us at our mailing address, or via email: board@burntoranges.org. Those with operational plans, management plans, property ideas, etc are requested to send their agenda, staffing, event budgets, safety plans, and training plans to the BOD for inclusion in the voting process for the next “Event Lead” for 2019. Email board@burntoranges.org to start this process.

I think the Organization should move in a different direction:

It’s difficult to change an existing charter, but not impossible. While we are open to hearing ideas, it’s best if they fit within the above strategy.

If you’d like to add your ideas to the mission and vision, just submit your intentions on how you’d like to help. The current BOD is open to hearing how you’ll be using the 100-1000 hours a year you put into this. And if someone amazing steps up, let’s make them president, and allow them to lead. This isn’t a popularity contest, nor does the office of Board Member come with any perks other than the ability to sweat (because Florida), donate time (because we’re an AVO), and expand your knowledge, capability, and integration with something MUCH larger than our little piece of it in central Florida. If you’ve ever dreamed of changing the world, it begins with the first step: changing your community first.

I want to help with the stated objectives of the Organization.
What do I do?

The first part of the process would be to let us know that your intentions include being able to help implement what’s listed above. Perhaps your background specializes in one of these. Perhaps you’ve got previous non-profit experience and would love to assist. The perfect response would be something you craft yourself, tell the BOD about your relevant experience, and then perhaps how YOU would implement something. Include your methods for volunteer recruitment for the cause, methods of keeping those volunteers accountable to do the things they say they’re going to do, and ultimately how you’ll deal with people accusing you of cheating them out of their party in a cow field instead of the stated objectives above. Feel free to use as much space as necessary. The BOD has the ability to create committees, task forces, and any other type of thing that might move it forward. But we can’t do it by adding additional titles to five people who have maxed out their capabilities just trying to make sure that you can still burn stuff and complain while doing it. Whether you think you’re qualified for a board seat, a committee chair, a contribution in the form of money or guidance, a workshop for artists, community builders, or something completely different, we ask that you draft an email, introduce yourself, and see if being a part of an AVO is for you.

But what about the community?

We’d love to see a community organize itself, and decide how they’d like to interact with the organization. While BOI desires for to create tons of trailheads for engagement; perhaps you’d like to help start one, or facilitate a group discussion on how the community can become more involved.

It’s impossible for an All Volunteer Organization to be any more advanced than the abilities of the volunteers of the community.

In order to achieve what’s listed above, BOI needs dozens, if not hundreds of volunteers who dedicate hundreds, if not thousands of hours to make it happen. Maybe that won’t be possible. Maybe it is. Email board@burntoranges.org and be a part of an AVO.

Donations, the lifeblood of public charities.

501(c)3 organizations depend upon your tax-deductible contributions to make programs happen. Without funding, and the ability to raise funds for these programs there can be no future. If you’d like to contribute a charitable gift, contact board@burntoranges.org for more information, or send your check to:

Burnt Oranges, Inc.
5337 North Socrum Loop Rd. #137
Lakeland, Florida 33809

If you’d like to support the year-round capabilities and operating budget of the organization, consider becoming a Mandarin Supporter.

If you’d like to support the organization through purchases, consider using us as your Amazon Smile Beneficiary. It costs you nothing, and shows up in our account.