Impact Collaborative

The ZAP Impact Collaborative Program was developed as a way to foster equity and economic stability within the Salt Lake County arts and culture nonprofit community.

The Impact Collaborative program is intended to identify and facilitate individualized opportunities for Tier II grantees to build organizational capacity through curated networking, workshops, trainings, and mentoring.

The program will bring together small cohorts of Tier II grantees who are similarly positioned whether in budget size, discipline, staff size, or organizational priorities. Participants will be selected through assessment of an Interest Form, a review of the most recently submitted ZAP Tier II Application, and in consideration of cultural and geographic diversity of Salt Lake County.

Resources

ZAP Impact Program Guidelines

2025 Interest Form

Webinar Recording

Impact Collaborative Eligibility Criteria

In order to be considered for this program applicant must:

Be a current ZAP Tier II grant recipient.
Be able to commit to attending all three of the trainings.
Ideally, the same organizational representative will attend all trainings, as attendance is mandatory. However, other representatives are welcome to attend or fill in as needed or appropriate. Organizations can send up to two representatives to each session.

New for 2025

This year, the program will be structured as monthly two-hour meetings over the course of three months. The three meeting sessions will cover an in-depth look at one topic, which is determined through Interest Form responses.

Monthly meetings may be structured as panel discussions, presentations, casual coffee conversations with industry leaders, or perhaps field trips. As with the topic selection, the structure of the meetings will be catered to selected cohort members' needs. Where one group may benefit from a training session on sponsorship development and a tour of a performing arts venue, another group may best be served from board training and discussions with board chairs from large community nonprofit organizations.

The schedule, topics covered, and structure will all be finalized in consultation with selected cohort members.

Selection Criteria and Process

One objective of the Impact Collaborative program is to build a network of resources through colleagues, shared experiences, and knowledge. The selection of participants will be based on finding organizations that have similar needs. This may mean that the group is comprised of organizations working in the same discipline, have a similar budget size, or work with and in similar communities. Due to this priority of grouping similar organizations into the same cohort, the selection process will be heavily influenced by the organizational needs reported on the Interest Form.

The selection committee will be comprised of ZAP staff, ZAP advisory board members, and County staff. The selection committee will review all submitted Interest Forms and will also utilize information submitted in the organization's most recently completed ZAP Tier II grant application. This may include audience and staff information from the SmartSheets form as well as narrative responses.

The Selection Committee will prioritize:

Organizations that have received ZAP funding for the last three years. (Organizations that do not meet this criteria will still be considered.)
"Medium" sized organizations as defined by:
- Organizations with average three-year organizational budgets of approximately $75,000 to $500,000. (While our selection committee will target organizations in this range, those outside of this range will not be disqualified from consideration.)
- Organizations with at least one paid staff person (full-time or part-time)
Organizations with similar needs for capacity building support, as indicated in the Interest Form responses.

We understand that all organizations have a need for capacity building support. The objective of the program is to group like organizations with similar needs together so that the group can begin at a similar starting point.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. This program will not impact the annual grant review process. Additionally, information gathered in the Interest Form, will not be used as review material for future grant application reviews.

There is no additional funding for participating in this program.

This is a pilot program and while we plan to continue the program in future years, we will not know for sure until late 2024. In the meantime, we plan to offer other learning, training, and networking opportunities throughout the year, open to all community members. Please be sure to follow our social pages @slcoZAP and sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about upcoming opportunities.

There will be a webinar on Tuesday, January 14 where you will be able to ask questions. OR

Please feel free to reach out to Kelsey Ellis, ZAP Impact Program Manager with additional questions.

Contact Kelsey Ellis

ZAP Impact Program Manager

Email Kelsey Ellis

2024 Collaborative Cohort

These ten Tier II organizations participated in the first Collaborative cohort.

Cottonwood Heights Arts Council
Excellence in the Community
Flamenco del Lago
Lyrical Opera Theater
Make Salt Lake
Mental Healthy F.i.T.
Millcreek Arts Council
Salt Lake Academy of Music
Story Crossroads
Wasatch Theatre Company

2024 Collaborative Program Statistics

90%
Of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the trainings will make a difference in the way they do their work and that they feel more confident in their abilities

12 Hours
Of in-person training received by each 2024 participating organization.

3 Hours
Of additional one-on-one training received by each 2024 participating organization.

Quotes from Participants

“My time with [the trainers] was amazing and set us on a different path and I’m really excited about that. I just want to let you know that the cohort is really impacting our organization and you will start to see that soon.”

“It’s always good to refresh and receive some new takeaways. Networking with members from other ZAP funded organizations is also extremely valuable and unites the arts community even more.”

Impact Collaborative

Resources