A Grant Maker Draws Lessons From Her Past as the Founder of a Nonprofit Artists’ Collaborative

ENTRY LEVEL

Dorothy M. Danforth

Age: 30

First nonprofit job: Founder, Artwell.com, Philadelphia

Current job: President, Verity Foundation, Philadelphia

I’ve always found it fascinating that you can find personality traits from your past that guide your future. For me, it was critical that my parents gave me such a strong sense of empowerment from an early age. They taught me to be creative and to embrace the challenge of taking a seemingly impossible idea and making it possible — a belief that was confirmed by my first nonprofit job and has been a theme in my career ever since.

My first encounter with the nonprofit world was right after college. During our senior year at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, some friends and I decided we wanted to start an artists’ collaborative — an organization that would serve as a free resource for artists, as well as a means to market their work. Unfortunately, the goal seemed unattainable at the time: Not only were we broke, but we didn’t have a clue how to create something like that from a practical perspective.

Luckily, I had gotten involved with the Internet during college and, a few months after graduation, it hit me: Why not bring artists together through the Web? This was a pretty innovative concept at the time, since the Internet was still new to the mainstream and definitely not yet considered a visual medium. Nonetheless, my friends and I decided to try: In 1996, we started to promote people’s work through a Web site called Artwell.com. We offered low-cost scanning and walked artists through the process of putting their work online. And it worked. Artwell still exists today as a free, nonprofit resource for artists and a place for them to sell their work.

The main thing I learned from founding Artwell is just how difficult it is to start a nonprofit organization. So much of what you do is on your own. I knew nothing about running an organization of any kind.

Not only that, but I had very few relevant skills. I soon discovered that in order to make my idea work, I couldn’t just be an artist. I had to step outside my core competencies. I had to talk to as many people as possible and teach myself how a business functions.

But I learned that no matter how tough it was, it could be done. I also learned valuable business-administration, engineering, and design skills. Within a few years, these skills got me a job offer as a Web developer for the news service Reuters, in King of Prussia, Pa. I’d always been hesitant to work in a corporate environment, but the company said it would let me stay active with Artwell. And as it turns out, the Reuters job ended up being an important step in my career. I deepened my Web skills and I learned about sales. It may seem strange, but sales are an essential part of running a charity. Today, as the head of the Verity Foundation, I “sell” my organization and its services to potential partners and financial sponsors almost every day.

After the Reuters job, I moved to San Francisco, where I worked for a telecommunications company and then an Internet start-up. While in San Francisco, I had helped launch a charity that pooled together business professionals to help nonprofit organizations, and I wanted to start something similar in my hometown of Philadelphia. In 2001, I moved back to Philadelphia to found the Verity Foundation. I immersed myself in understanding the city’s nonprofit market and professional culture, and last October, the Verity Foundation was officially born.

Verity’s mission is to raise the quality of life in the Philadelphia area by giving pro bono marketing and technology services to socially focused nonprofit organizations. All of our services grants are implemented entirely by volunteers, who work in multidisciplinary teams of five to six people on projects that last three to four months. While assigned to a project, each Verity volunteer contributes about five hours of work per week, much of which can be done remotely. Right now, we have 65 volunteers who all bring different skills and strengths. This allows us to match each project with a customized team of professionals.

Our pilot project, which was completed two months ago, was with Special Olympics Philadelphia. We created a Web site for the organization and taught the staff how to maintain the site in-house. Currently, we’re running three other projects, one of which is with the Youth Golf and Academics Program, an academic-enrichment effort for at-risk elementary students. We’re developing a database that allows the program to track its kids and evaluate its success, a resource it otherwise couldn’t afford.

When I reflect on the past year, I realize how much my early job experiences impact what I do at Verity. Not surprisingly, the technical skills I learned at both Artwell and Reuters have been invaluable. But there have been other lessons, too. For example, when I moved back to Philadelphia, I had very few current business contacts. But I remembered what I did when I started Artwell, and I threw myself into meeting all sorts of different individuals with all sorts of different skills. I’ve met some terrific people, and together, we’ve pulled off an amazing launch for Verity. Once again, I’ve been reminded that if you believe in something, you should go for it with all of your gusto.

Starting Artwell, and thus stepping outside of my own innate interests and strengths, began for me a journey that I never would have expected. My parents were right: If you’re creative and persistent, almost anything is possible. Your life is your own canvas to fill. — As told to Alicia Abell

How did your first work experiences shape your current nonprofit career? Tell us at entrylevel@philanthropy.com. Your story may appear in a future edition of Entry Level.