Power2give, the national online cultural marketplace designed and created by the Arts & Science Council (ASC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, will cease operations in October of 2016.

Culture Works secured a $50,000 grant from the CareSource Foundation in 2013 to launch power2give for the Dayton Region and became the 24th national site for the program in March of 2014. Both the Dayton Power & Light Foundation and the Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District (MCACD) have provided matching funds for projects posted on the site. The DP&L Foundation, the largest matching funder, contributed $100,000.

Since the launch of the Dayton Region power2give site, a total of $271,177 has been raised for more than 110 arts and cultural projects.

“We are deeply saddened that the Arts & Science Council has decided to discontinue a program that has been so brilliantly successful, not just in the Dayton Region, but across the country,” said Culture Works President & CEO Martine Meredith Collier. “We are very grateful to the CareSource Foundation, the DP&L Foundation, and MCACD for their support.”

Fractured Atlas, a New York based arts service organization, has purchased the franchise rights for power2give. They are redesigning how the program will work and doing away with the power2give name entirely in October, at which time they will launch a new, as yet unnamed crowdfunding entity. A major change in the operational structure of this new entity is that Fractured Atlas will be the charity of record rather than the organizations that host regional pages. Additionally, they will no longer pay administrative fees to hosting organizations.

“Culture Works will not be partnering with Fractured Atlas in this new initiative,” said Collier. “We have declined the opportunity to enter into an agreement with them. It doesn’t make sense financially, and their business model is not a good match for our mission, or for the goal of community building that attracted matching funders to power2give. However, we will continue to look for opportunities to provide a greater diversity of funding opportunities to nonprofits and artists to encourage the cultural vitality of our region.”

The Culture Works power2give site will close on June 30, 2016, the last day of the organization’s fiscal year. Any new project postings must close by that date.

Collier notes, “There is still matching funding from the DP&L Foundation and MCACD available, and we encourage any organization who has been putting off posting a project—to do it now!”

For more information, contact Karen Maner, Communications & Project Manager, at kmaner@cultureworks.org or 937-222-2787.