1. Initial Proposal
    1. NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION
      1. BACKGROUND
      2. JUSTIFICATION
      3. TECHINICAL CONSULTANT ACTIVITY
      4. ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
      5. IMPLEMENTATION
      6. IMPACT
      7. ASSESSMENT
      8. Next steps
    2. STAFFING
      1. PTTV Staff
      2. CONSULTANTS
      3. Technical Consultant
    3. TIMETABLE

Initial Proposal

EXPERIMENTAL TELEVISION CENTER MEDIA ARTS TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FUND REQUEST

Organization PAPER TIGER TELEVISION

Contact Person: Maria Juliana Byck Title Distribution and Administrative Manager

Application Date April 1 2008

Amount Requested $ 4000

Request is for Organizational Development

Start date of project June 1 End date of project November 30 Summary of project activity: Upgrade, streamline, and integrate current accounting system to operate in tandem with distribution contact database and online ordering. Work with financial management consultant to rework the Paper Tiger budgeting and financial planning process.

NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION

BACKGROUND

After receiving funding from ETC to hire an organizational consultant

and to embark on a collective retreat, PTTV spent much of its 25th year in reflection and strategic planning. Through this process we have come to more clearly understand the organizational strengths and weaknesses of the collective. In light of the findings, the collective has made a firm commitment to return to its creative media reform and media literacy roots, increase production, and revive the regular PTTV show on public access in NYC. We have also identified the need to greatly increase our exposure and to develop a new and expanded audience. By reaching more artists, social justice advocates, scholars, alternative media makers, and the general public, PTTV plans to continue its historical role as a leader in media art, media activism, and media analysis.

With the recent explosion of Internet video distribution, do-it-

yourself (DIY) media has grown from an isolated endeavor to an increasingly powerful international phenomenon. In addition, media reform is now nationally recognized as a critical issue on the political agenda. Therefore the work of Paper Tiger has become doubly relevant. PTTV will continue advocating for media reform, producing thoughtful and creative DIY media, and fostering a more equitable and democratic media.

For the last twenty-five years, thousands have enjoyed the

intelligent, irreverent, ultra-low-budget antics of PTTV. The PTTV collective, anarchic, improvisational commentary and satire on modern culture is unlike anything else. PTTV wants to increase distribution not only out of love and respect for its history of creating radical critiques of mass culture and politics, but also from a desire to continue supporting and providing innovative leadership to documentary filmmakers, artists, media literacy educators and social justice media movements around the world. As a pioneer and leader in both the DIY media and media reform communities, PTTV is uniquely positioned to make a significant contribution to both movements.

JUSTIFICATION

To remain independent yet and viable as an organization, PTTV

recognizes the need to create a strong independent funding stream through sales and distribution of our productions. In the past, funding generated though sales has enabled PTTV to remain truly alternative—free to choose the subjects imperative to creating a more democratic media, not influenced by the topics or approaches deemed important by outside funders. Streamlining the administrative aspects of distribution, publicity, and outreach is a critical part of accomplishing our goals. As we operate with extremely limited staff (one person, 3 days per week) it is essential that our systems be easily managed.

Currently the PTTV database of over 9000 contacts is extremely

outdated, and riddled with inconsistency and technical flaws. Although our accounting system has been recently upgraded significantly, this new system is not currently compatible with our database. Thanks to our recently much improved, expanded, and searchable web-based production database we are able to process most orders online through PayPal?. Unfortunately, this also is not compatible with our old contact database or new accounting system. Finally, with our current system, people who want to be added to our outreach list must either send us an email or sign up on our mailing list requesting to be added. A volunteer then adds interested persons to our listserv manually. In other words, as it is now, the same basic contact information is put in to the dis-jointed system four times. The inefficiency of the system makes it clear that we are losing potentially valuable contacts as well as not leveraging our current contact database.

An efficient outreach and record keeping system is essential for

distribution to a large audience. Volunteers and collective members do much of the work that keeps our small organization operating, but the integration of all four of these systems is beyond the scope of the technical capabilities of our current collective. Therefore we would like to hire a professional technical consultant to integrate our current accounting system with online purchasing and our contact outreach database.

TECHINICAL CONSULTANT ACTIVITY

If funded, Paper Tiger will use money from this grant to hire a

technical consultant to streamline our accounting system, contact database, online orders and listserv so that it may be more easily attended to by the collective members and volunteers. An accounting consultant will work with Paper Tiger staff to go over current financial management systems, identify problems, develop solutions and implement an effective budget-planning framework. With help from consultants we plan to upgrade and integrate the QuickBooks? and general accounting procedures with contact database so Paper Tiger can set up a sustainable system easily managed by the staff and collective.

ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES

PTTV will streamline and integrate accounting, online ordering, and

contact database system. Through this new system, contact information from online orders will be easily funneled into our contact database and accounting system. Invoices will be automatically generated and a current up-to-date record of all sales will be recorded in a master database. In addition, we will make it easy for interested persons to be added to our listserv and mailing list. Ideally, we will eventually be able to do targeted outreach to people based on the productions they are interested in or the events they have attended. With professional guidance in financial management and accounting we will be better able to anticipate funding needs and less staff time will be needed to maintain our books. Once this new system is in place, staff and collective members will have more time to focus on production and distribution.

IMPLEMENTATION

This is a rather extensive project but we are committed to completing

the project as soon as possible. After an initial assessment, during which an overall plan will be devised we would work with the consultants to implement the plan. We will purchase the equipment and required software with funds already set aside for this purpose. Staff time has already been designated to see this project through its completion. We hope that at least the first stage in our overall plan to greatly expanding our audience and distribution will be complete and the new system ready to launch in late 2008.

IMPACT

Paper Tiger is looking to improve its publicity, marketing and

outreach practices. Tape sales can and should be a major part of Paper Tigers yearly income. We currently make some money from tape sales, but we believe that amount can be significantly increased with a more focused marketing plan. With an integrated accounting, contact and online ordering system we will be able to devote more organizational resources to reaching a much wider audience with our productions. Once we have an effective system to keep records of all our sales, outreach, supporters, fans, and clients we plan to hire someone to revamp our current marketing plan and help devise ways to strengthen connections to Paper Tiger’s familiar customer base of academics and activists. Part of new system integration is ability to sort sales by category, thus allowing targeted mailings. One outcome of strengthening these ties will be to strategically identify and attend conferences that pertain to relevant issues and causes. There will also be a concerted effort to reach out to educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and libraries through conferences and mailings. These institutions often have money in their budgets set aside for buying media that can be used as a teaching tool. We want Paper Tiger to be one of the first groups they think about when looking to allocate this money. In order to reach a consistent audience, PTTV plans to re-establish a close connection with the media arts, culture, and educational community. As productions from PTTV archive of 323 works are a treasure trove for media scholars, academics, artists and students we have identified the need to do extensive and targeted outreach to universities, museums, cultural and community organizations, both nationally and internationally. The overall outreach and distribution plan is far-reaching and ambitious and will take several years to implement, and the first stage is to create a firm technical foundation.

ASSESSMENT

Assessment of the activity will be based on several factors: Ease of use: we will assess the new system by how easy to navigate and use by volunteers and staff. Effectiveness in keeping records: We will assess the new system by how effective it is in keeping records of all of our distribution efforts Simplify outreach: We will assess how easy it is to contact past customers with targeted outreach about new offers or information about events. Increase in contacts: We will assess the new system by how many more contacts we are able to add and by the increase in the number of targeted emails we are able to send out. Increase in sales: We will assess the amount of extra time we have to work on marketing and outreach to increase sales when we have a system that is more effective and less time consuming.

Next steps

After the accounting and database systems have been integrated we will then work to increase our marketing and outreach efforts to increase distribution as described above.

STAFFING

PTTV Staff

Maria Juliana Byck, Distribution and Administrative Manager for Paper Tiger Television, will be the primary contact for this project.

CONSULTANTS

Accounting Consultant

Andrea T. Mills, MBA, CPA, CCSA, Director of FMA, provides one-on-one consulting support to nonprofit Executive Directors and fiscal staff in financial management areas such as budgeting and cash flow analysis. Her support enables organizations to improve their fiscal operations by establishing effective policies and procedures and managing financial risk. She is also responsible for supervising FMA's outsourced accounting engagements, software consulting projects, and fiscal services to start-up organizations.

Andrea is a member of the American Institute of CPAs and the Institute of Internal Auditors, and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of Continuing Education. She holds an MBA from Drexel University and a BBA from Temple University, where she graduated magna cum laude.

Andrea volunteers her time with Soroptimist International and is on the Board of Directors of Unifem/USA, NY Metro Chapter .

Technical Consultant

Jamie McClelland? co-founded the May First Technology Collective in 1999 and is now Co-Director of May First/People Link. His work at May First includes building databases, server administration, and technology planning. Prior to working at May First, Jamie worked at Libraries for the Future in a variety of capacities. As Network Administrator, he built and managed LFF's cross platform Internet-accessible network, supervising all hardware and software purchases. As national Youth ACCESS coordinator, he developed the curriculum and taught an after-school youth technology program that was launched in Newark, NJ and later replicated in Oakland, Harlem, Detroit, and Phoenix. As Information and Technology Policy Specialist, he conducted extensive research on telecommunications policy in the public interest, organized both nationally and locally to effect telecommunications policy change, presented at dozens of conferences and meetings around the country, and published several articles and booklets on the topic. Jamie was formerly on the Board of Directors of Paper Tiger TV where he was an active producer and activist between 1994 and 2004. Previously, Jamie worked as a video instructor for Sidewalks of New York, teaching basic production skills to homeless youth. He also worked as a community organizer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and was an active member of ACT UP New Orleans.

TIMETABLE

May 2008

  • Set up initial meetings with consultant
  • Define scope of project and availability

June - July 2008

  • Regular meeting with consultants
  • Finalize integration plan
  • Research and purchase equipment and software needed

August - October 2008

  • Implementation

November - December 2008

  • Troubleshooting and finalize new system