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.