How to get people to donate their time and skills to your organization for free

If you want to run a free program, you’re going to need some help from donors or volunteers. Mobilizing both is something the Corzo Center has mastered. 

The Corzo Center for the Creative Economy is an office and virtual space within The University of the Arts that runs programs that teach entrepreneurial skills to artists — UArts students and alumni, but also the broader Philadelphia creative community. All of its programs are offered at no cost to participants. 

How is this possible? It’s something that executive director Neil Kleinman says he has been asked many times over the years. To him, though, it’s not a question of how, but why. The answer is mission.

It’s taken a lot of networking, but Kleinman has built up a steady collection of volunteers, or partial volunteers who might be paid for some of their services, such as leading workshops, but donate other parts, such as being available for open office hours. About half of the Corzo Center’s services are provided by business professionals pro bono or at significant reduction.  

This January, the Corzo Center will hold its “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” program, which will offer 15 hours of mentorship to 20 artists who want to start their own businesses in partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia. The program is funded by grants from the Knight Foundation, StartUp PHL and the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, as well as by the Corzo Center’s endowment given under the UArts umbrella. Most — $15,000 to $25,000 — of its operating budget will be offered as seed money for one or several program participants, or a team, to implement their business plans.

As with other Corzo Center programs, some instructional time is being donated by industry professionals.

According to Kleinman, it doesn’t take much convincing when the individual is motivated by the simple idea of passing their knowledge forward.

“A lot of them … frankly just respond to the notion that what we’re trying to do is help the community of entrepreneurs,” he said.

Of course, there’s always some selfish motivation. Each person who lives in a city has a vision for what they want that city to look like, and in Kleinman’s circle, that vision often involves it being a place where creatives are encouraged to start their own ventures and have them thrive. The Corzo Center offers ways to help people form the city into the place they imagined, whether it be through volunteering on the individual level, or through strategic partnerships on the organizational level.

As for why he himself is in the business of doing good, Kleinman says he is driven by the mantra of paying it forward: “I’m doing this because I had some remarkable people over the past 50 or 60 years who were remarkably generous with their time and energy.”

Applications to the Corzo Center’s “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” program are due by Friday, Nov. 20, and can be found here.