“One thing that was clear in the immediate aftermath of the disaster was that people needed money to be able to recover from the storm, to replace things they lost and to transition into temporary housing. It’s amazing to have found an organization that helped us fulfill this need in the community, by providing technical support and fiscal sponsorship”
-Beth Trigg
A founding principal of Asheville Creative Arts is that the arts are not removed from our daily lives, rather they model the foundational skills that inform the ways we relate to each other and show up for each other.
We are honored to support the organizations that are providing critical resources to the communities we also serve, such as Swannanoa Communities Together. Asheville Creative Arts’ Carolina Corona sat down with Beth Trigg of SCT to talk about their important work, and how it is sustained by our partnership. Here’s what Beth had to say!
Swannanoa Valley community members support each other, care for each other, and share resources. We build community, advocate, and organize for Swannanoa’s future to be built by all of us for all of us.
Swannanoa Communities Together was born out of the storm and we didn’t have any organization structure at all. We were a group of community members doing basically mutual aid and we needed a way to be incorporated but also a way to get a fiscal sponsor who understood our values and intentions but also could help us with the technical part of being a 501c3. We have applied for 501c3 status and probably will get it at some point. I think even after that, we will still want to work with Abby and ACA for some of the financial and compliance infrastructure she can provide.
ACA allows us to receive tax deductible donations in a way that is in compliance with regulations, which we were not ready to do on our own. They also have enabled us to do some reporting about our fundraising that we wouldn’t have been able to do without them because we didn’t have our own system for tracking donations. We have been able to apply for grants and ACA has supported us with some basic financial infrastructure to apply for grants.
They have helped us move grant funds and donations directly into the community. One thing that was clear in the immediate aftermath of the disaster was that people needed money to be able to recover from the storm, to replace things they lost, to transition into temporary housing, gas for generators, all the things you need money for.
We started moving money initially from Venmo. Just people gifting each other and we knew that wasn’t a sustainable long term way of doing it. As we got further into building infrastructure for the nonprofit, we learned that direct cash assistance to people, post disaster, is actually an evidence based best practice for disaster recovery.
Even though hardly anyone is doing it, here, but it’s done internationally. You can do it in compliance with the nonprofit structure, which is a something that I think a lot of institutions don’t know or aren’t willing to try. We have had to do a huge amount of advocacy with funders to educate and advocate for funding to be able to be given directly to people in the community. We had some success with that and we also found some funders in the national and international level, who understand that.
We started receiving funds from them to give to the community. We wouldn’t be able to do that within the nonprofit structure without a fiscal sponsor who understood that that could be done and knew how to do it legally and in compliance.
When I first called Abby to talk about fiscal sponsorship, we had already talked to other entities who do fiscal sponsorship, who had already said no because of us wanting to distribute cash funds directly to the community. We are based on listening and responding to the community and it was very clear that that is what people were saying they needed.
I remember our first conversation because I was driving. It was still a very chaotic, trauma infused time, when a lot was going on. I was driving from a hotel where people were staying temporarily, and everything felt very chaotic. I remember saying to Abby, the thing is we are going to need to give money directly to people. She said of course, that’s fine. And so, from that moment on, what I realized from Abby is that she has this very calm, grounded, but also very informed way of approaching the work. So, her experience and knowledge give her the confidence and wisdom to be grounded in a moment like that.
She shares the values of trying to meet community needs being more important than relying on what traditionally has been common practices in the nonprofit sector that have been institutionalized.
“Knowing that ACA holds fiscal sponsorship for other organizations that we support and care about, like Semillas, Tepeyac, and Hood Huggers, immediately gave me a sense of the values and politics of ACA. We fit right into this ecosystem, we share values and intention. I am so grateful that those groups exist, we are part of a community of communities.”
-Beth trigg
One of those is a real resistance to the idea of giving money to people. To us, that has been really important in the work we do and it is super complex in terms of power dynamics and feelings but we know it needs to be done. And so, we have continued to refine the way we are doing it and she has been a partner in being able to do that. We have been able to move money from churches, private foundations and individuals giving to ACA as our fiscal sponsors and then it moves to SCT.
We use most of those funds to directly support people in the community. We have had people come in who needed glasses that were lost in the flood. Where would they even go to have that need met? They would have to find a nonprofit that does that specific thing and go through a process of applying to that. Our attitude has been to trust that people know what they need and we gave him a check to cash and buy glasses and other things that he needed to replace for his house. Because this work started outside of the nonprofit sector and it was an immediate response in the community, we have tried to retain that kind of approach.
Abby and the way ACA is structured has been a really amazing partner to do that. We are not expected to force ourselves into a paradigm that moves us further away from community.
Knowing that ACA holds fiscal sponsorship for other organizations that we support and care about, like Semillas, Tepeyac, and Hood Huggers, immediately gave me a sense of the values and politics of ACA. We fit right into this ecosystem, we share values and intention. I am so grateful that those groups exist, we are part of a community of communities. The work that we do is in the context of all these small organizations that either don’t have the infrastructure or capacity, or choosing not to spend their energy building that, and letting the fiscal sponsor manage that instead. I think being a part of that landscape and knowing that we are not alone and knowing that all those other groups that are working with ACA are also able to do the work they’re doing because they have someone who can hold the technical part of it.
Asheville Creative Arts has helped us be calmer and to feel it’s covered. Somebody is thinking about the legal and financial and fiscal and technical pieces so that we don’t have to panic about it. A lot of times, I will call and email Abby freaking out about something and she will be like it’s covered. She has helped us to start building some systems so that we can do better tracking ourselves internally of the pieces that we are managing. It;s so much less stressful and it has allowed us to focus on community work.
It’s amazing to have found an organization that is based in the Swannanoa Valley and now I know that you (Carolina) and Abby both are part of ACA and also part of our community here. You know what happened here and what is happening here and care. We can lean on you for the specific type of work that ACA does. A highly specialized skill set that we don’t have so I am really grateful.
