In the past week Red Gate Arts Society, The Toast Collective, Black Lab, and CBDB’s—four of Vancouver’s most established and active not-for-profit cultural organizations—have launched fundraising efforts to sustain themselves in the face of Vancouver’s crushing property taxes.
Below are links to each organization’s Patreon and GoFundMe campaigns as well as Red Gate’s open letter to the City of Vancouver and BC Provincial Government calling for the elimination of unjust property taxes for cultural non-profits.
Please take a moment to read and sign the letter and to support these groups if you can.
Red Gate Arts Society
Patreon
One time donation via Paypal
Red Gate Arts Society’s Open Letter to the City of Vancouver and the BC Provincial Government
The Red Gate is an independent community organization dedicated to providing space for Vancouver’s non-commercial and experimental culture, with a deep history going back decades, through the dark days of the “no fun city” era, to our current status as “the world’s most unaffordable city”. We’ve managed to keep pace with exponentially increasing rents, but now we need to come up with an extra $9116 by the end of the month or face eviction. This figure represents just a half year’s increase in property tax, which we are obligated to pay under the terms of our commercial lease. It’s actually the tax on the empty air space above our building, due to archaic and pro-development “highest and best use” tax policy. As art spaces continue to close and the people that depend on them simply give up and leave town, we are doing out best to reverse this process, but we can’t do it without your support! So we’re asking you to help us in three ways:
make a one-time donation, or buy a membership to become an ongoing supporter, either using the links below, or visit our Patreon page, sign our open letter to the City and Province to eliminate unfair and unjust property taxes for non-profit cultural space, and help us get the word out and promote this campaign!
The Toast Collective
GoFundMe
Patreon
The Toast Incredibly Nice Fundraiser Event
An all day fundraiser show on Saturday, January 18! Bring your friends!
For over ten years, the Toast Collective has been a grassroots nerve centre for new bands, art movements, community projects, and activism.
However, right now our financial situation doesn’t look good. Our rent has been raised to $1500/month as of this year, and this is absolutely too expensive for the way we’ve been operating. We don’t charge much to host an event at the Toast, so that we can keep our rates accessible for artists who can’t pay out of pocket and who might not have a very large audience.
We love hosting these events and supporting these artists, so we’d really prefer not to raise our event rates if we can.
Please consider donating! No donation is too small (or too large!), and Go Fund Me allows you to list your name or donate anonymously, whichever you prefer. Your donation will go completely towards our operating costs — the Toast is run by 100% volunteer labor.
Speaking of which… there are only five of us who do everything for the space, and frankly we’re burning out running all these events ourselves! There is a lot of demand to host more events at the Toast, but we don’t have enough volunteers to host them. If you are able to volunteer with us, a donation of your time would be equally valuable! If you want to volunteer with us, set up an event, or just e-transfer your donation, you can find us at the.toast.collective@gmail.com.
We also have a Patreon if you’d like to sponsor us with a monthly donation.
Finally, we’ll be hosting an all-day fundraiser show on January 18th 2020. Please come out and bring a friend!!
Black Lab
Patreon
We are a DIY, collectively run, volunteer-based punk space located on unceded Coast Salish territories, also known as Vancouver, BC, in the Downtown Eastside. The Black Lab is an anti-authoritarian, anti-oppressive DIY punk space and aims to stand in solidarity with our neighbors in resisting gentrification, the war on drugs, and colonization. We run shows, workshops, movie nights, and more.
CBDB’s
GoFundMe
CBDB’S is a d.i.y. space in Vancouver BC used by anyone who wants to put on a show. Keeping up with the bills has been tough lately so we’re looking for a little help to keep the space open.
All the funds raised will go to paying the bills, rent, hydro etc. If there’s more raised we will definitely do some upgrades, but for now let’s just make sure we can have shows.
Everyone’s support is greatly appreciated and we thank you.
There will be some fundraising shows coming up so if you can come support that way please do, if not please support here.
