Software Helps Arts Organization Strengthen Programs and Increase Efficiency
Executive director Martha Richards founded WomenArts (formerly The Fund for Women Artists) in Berkeley, California, in 1995 to empower women in the arts community. It has been celebrating supporting and promoting art by and about women ever since, engaging over 10,000 individuals and setting up events in 23 countries.
Like many nonprofit organizations, it has an ambitious vision and a modest budget, so it needed to find smart ways to manage its finances. From the start it used Intuit's QuickBooks. "Since we have always operated on a tight budget, we needed an easy way to keep track of our income and expenses and to generate timely financial reports," says Richards.
With QuickBooks donated via TechSoup, WomenArts creates and prints checks to track each one as it's written. Richards says that WomenArts has been able to use QuickBooks to not only save time and money compiling W-2s and 1099 forms but also to increase revenue. The funders have been consistently impressed with the clear and concise financial statements.
QuickBooks has also helped WomenArts more reliably run SWAN Day, its annual international arts celebration with a staff of just two people. That would not have been possible without a solid accounting system.
