Craft Emergency Relief Fund » Issue 13: August 2005

Issue 13: August 2005 – CERF+ History

Twenty Years of CERF+ing – How we started, how we’ve grown

By Doug Wilhelm

Twenty busy years ago, what is now the CERF+ began with the passing of a hat.

Actually it was the passing of quite a few hats, year after year. When craft artists would return each June, in those days, to the American Craft Council’s (ACC) annual Craft Fair in Rhinebeck, New York, "all of us had not seen each other for a whole year – and we would discover that somebody’s barn had burned down, or somebody else had been in an auto accident, or someone’s van had been broken into and they had lost all their crafts," recalls glassblower Josh Simpson.

"We would pass the hat," says Carol Sedestrom Ross, a clothing designer and craftsperson who was then president of American Crafts Enterprise, an arm of the ACC that ran the Rhinebeck Fair.

"In 1984, when it was time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Rhinebeck Fair," she continues, "an ACC trustee, Mary Nyburg, and I were talking about what we could do that would be ongoing, in a memorial to the 20 years of the fair. We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could institute this passing of the hat, so that craftspeople could feel that there would always be someplace where they could go?’

"It was Carol’s idea to try to do something that was more concrete, and more organized, so that we could help people who were in trouble," Josh says.

In 1985, Ross, Simpson, and ceramist Marilyn Dintenfass created the Craftsmen’s Emergency Relief Fund, incorporating it as a non-profit in New York state. The organization would grow to one that today has an annual budget of almost $600,000, and has provided close to $900,000 in loans, grants, and other services to hundreds of craft artists across the U.S.

But all that started slowly. With Josh Simpson as president, CERF+’s original board committed to raising $50,000 before making the organization’s first loan to a craft artist who faced an emergency.

"I thought, well this is cool, we’ll just raise $50,000 right off the bat and have a fund that will help artists forever," Josh says. "It’s just wonderful to be full of energy and totally naive."

Raffles, Raffles, Raffles

CERF+’s founders "quickly learned that raising money can be like pulling teeth," Josh recalls. "We were trying to ‘bootstrap’ this from other craftspeople, who were running their own little businesses. I did slowly, slowly start getting donations – but a major gift was 25 bucks.

"We did everything that humans can do to raise money," Josh adds. "We had bake sales, we’d get people to give us stuff and we’d have raffles, raffles, raffles. It got so that when I would walk down the aisles at craft fairs, people would duck behind their booths to avoid me selling these $5 raffle tickets!"

Then a silent auction at the ACC fair, which in the mid-80s moved to West Springfield, Massachusetts, raised "something like $25,000 – which is pretty amazing," says Carol Ross. "Everybody gave things, and made things."

With those funds, CERF+ was launched. The organization made its first loan in 1987; early loans were generally between $250 and $500. For several years, the organization was housed in Simpson’s home in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, where Josh did all the office work. The first paid administrator was Leslie Ferrin, who would go on to join CERF+’s board and serve as its president. Soon after, Lois Ahrens became CERF+’s first executive director.

Lois helped build CERF+ into a much more visible and significant organization. She moved the office to Northampton, Massachusetts, and brought in the organization’s first grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which enabled CERF+ to boost its maximum loan to $1,000. With help from the board, Lois developed partnerships with suppliers and show producers, to generate benefits such as booth-fee waivers and discounts on equipment and supplies for craft artists in need.

One of those was Michael Kraatz, a New Hampshire glassblower who broke his leg so severely in a 1993 accident that he couldn’t walk for several months.

"He contacted CERF+, and met with ‘zero bureaucracy. It was like talking to a friend," said the magazine Craft World in a tenth-anniversary profile of CERF+. Within a week, Kraatz had a much-needed check.

"It wasn’t huge," he told Craft World – "but … it was important to know there was someone out there to help, people who cared enough to put together a group like CERF+."

Personal, individualized, & fast

Michael Kraatz is hardly alone. Since its creation, CERF+ has helped over 400 professional craft artists who have faced emergencies. The organization still serves as a "first responder." Along with over $650,000 in grants and loans, CERF+ has passed along about $200,000 worth of donated services.

"We’ve come a long way because of this community’s belief in and support for this work," says Cornelia Carey, who became CERF+’s executive director in 1996. "We’ve maintained our commitment to the individual craft artists, and to our grassroots beginnings. Our assistance is always personal, individualized, and fast."

Since 1996, CERF+ has moved its headquarters to Montpelier, Vermont, and grown from a single-person office to a staff of four and a half. Today, the largest loan CERF+ makes is $8,000.

In recent years, CERF+ has also:

Begun publishing this newsletter;
Overhauled its emergency relief funds to create two types of loan funds, grant programs for craft artists with chronic health conditions, and a much-needed disaster relief fund;
Begun helping craft artists protect themselves from emergencies through new professional-development resources, such as seminars and programs at conferences and other craft events, articles in cerfnews, and an expanded CERF+ web site; and
Used the results of a nationwide survey, assessing the status and needs of professional craft artists, to shape a new, five-year agenda for the growth of CERF+’s services.

"We’re still the only organization completely dedicated to supporting craft artists’ careers," Cornelia Carey says. "For the next five years, our top priorities are to better integrate recovery aid with preventative help for craft artists, and to expand our emergency relief aid package.

"To better serve artists in need, we’re especially excited about the creation of a new web-based ‘exchange marketplace,’ where suppliers, show producers, manufacturers, schools, craft organizations, and others will be able to offer CERF+’s beneficiaries donated or discounted services, equipment, supplies, residencies, and more. We anticipate that a test site will be ready in early 2006."

CERF+ has indeed come a long way – and no one sees that more clearly than its founders.

"It has developed almost way beyond my imagination," says Carol Ross. "I’m very, very pleased."

"Every craftsperson in the U.S. is a bastion of small business," Josh Simpson adds. "These are people who live very, very productive lives, often in out-of-the-way places off the corporate ‘grid.’ It takes a lot of courage to do that, and we have many issues in common – such as challenges finding affordable business, health and disability insurance. CERF+ helps craftspeople who have had disasters in their lives that prevent them from making a living. It’s really so simple.

"This is such a great group to be involved with," he concludes.