Financial Transparency, or How We Use Money To Make Art

Emit Theatre is always accepting individual donations, from supporters like you, and applying for grants to fill up our funding “cookie jar.” We take all of those sweet resources and use them to create our season.

Too often this process is done behind closed doors, but Emit Theatre cares deeply about transparency, and we want everyone to know exactly how our financial cookie crumbles.

Because Emit Theatre is a charitable organization, anyone can look up our tax information online. However, as an educational company, we want to go the extra mile and break down our spending for you. Here are some ways to understand our finances.

  • What have we received and how do we use it?

    Look at our 2024 Fiscal Year* Budget to see how much money we collected (Profit) and where it goes (Loss).

    (*A "Fiscal Year" is a year in the life of a company. Emit Theatre's season mirrors the New York City school year, so our Fiscal Year (FY) begins in September and ends in August. The number in the name of our FY reflects when our season ends.)

  • How much do we spend on our programming?

    Whenever our income exceeds $25,000, we complete a Form 990-EZ, which is an overview of our activities, governance, and detailed financial information. On Page 2, Part III you can find a description of how we spent money in our three largest programming areas in Fiscal Year 2022.

  • What do we pay our artists?

    We pay our artists for everything they do. In FY24, artists are paid $30/hour for rehearsals, $27/hour for meetings, administrative work, and training, and a fee of $120 per performance; teaching artists receive $80/hour for facilitating workshops, inclusive of prep time. Our artists that work at a manager level make $32/hr, and those working as department directors make $45/hr. Interns make $15.45/hour. Wages are established through open discussion with our staff and artists.

Our Financial Priorities

Our goals as an organization are simple: provide high quality immersive theatre experiences to learners of all kinds, and support our artists. Translating these goals into a financial reality is directly tied to our artistic process. Here are some ways we aim to embody our goals

  • All of our public performances are free or pay-what-you-wish. We also frequently use grant funding and donations to provide discounted and free programming for schools.

  • Our artists are all employees on payroll, and they are compensated for all of the Emit work they do, whether it be rehearsals and performances or meetings and administrative support.

    ​In FY23 we have provided our artists with free mental health workshops in collaboration with Imari Hardon.

  • We use affordable insurance, accounting and legal services, and specialized software necessary to run a responsible nonprofit organization. Our relationships with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and Arts FMS ensure we are compliant with state, city, and federal requirements for nonprofits and that we have a sound fiscal controls policy.

    We are grateful to A.R.T./New York for providing us with grant funding, workshops, and resources.

    ​The incredible generosity of The Shakespeare Forum and El Barrio's Artspace PS 109 has allowed us to rehearse and perform for the public while keeping our space rental costs very low.

  • We keep our production costs low by committing to a human-centric contemporary production style, augmented by stock from free resources such as Materials for the Arts. We also keep our rehearsal and performance rental fees low thanks to the generosity of The New York Foundling and The Shakespeare Forum.

    We are excited to continue building a culture of ethical and inclusive budgetary spending at Emit Theatre. In these times of economic insecurity, we want to keep providing high quality programming for our community, no matter how thin our audiences’ financial resources may become. If we are able to build up a Rainy Day fund from generous individual donations, we’ll be able to make art and give back to the next generation of artists and educators, regardless of prospective uncertainty. Help our current and future audiences out, become a donor!