Plus, limited spots for Kerry McCarthy on funder relationships, Sept 17
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Representing Literature
for New York State
LitNYS is the nation's largest ecosystem of Literary Arts organizations, building literary capacity, community, and culture for 25 years.
September 2026
ASSEMBLING NEW PRACTICALITIES
IN STRENGTH & SOLIDARITY
Convening Open to You & Your Teams
October 4-6 at Poets House in New York City
For the First Time, Bring Your Colleagues Who...
- Communicate about programs and publications
- Curate or edit publications
- Fundraise to meet the bottom line
- Participate as a mentor or mentee in the LitNYS Mentoring Program
Peer
Sessions
Sunday, October 4,
2-4 PM
Comms &
Marketing
Kenna McCafferty, Anchor
Development
Kathy Kearnan, Anchor
Programming &
Curating
Ron Kavanaugh, Anchor
Reading
& Mingle
Monday, October 5,
7-9 PM
Host
Mahogany L. Browne
Readers
Rob Arnold
Noah Arhm Choi
Rico Frederick
Bruce Morrow
Jive Poetic
Caroline Rothstein
Jon Sands
Peer
Sessions
Tuesday, October 6,
10 AM-11:45 AM
Executive Directors
Rob Arnold,
Anchor
Editors
Erika Goldman,
Anchor
Mentors
Maya Nussbaum,
Anchor
ONE OF SUNDAY'S PEER SESSIONS
Group Mentoring:
Strategic Planning for Mentees Past & Present
Sunday, October 4, 2-4 PM
Facilitated by Alison Meyers
What ongoing practices can you implement to move beyond reaction to strategic response and planning? In this interactive session, we’ll pick up tools for institutional self-interrogation of core values and programmatic alignment to mission, resources, and intended audience. We will discuss building a workplace culture that engages board members as goal-driven thought partners, developing human and material resources, and budgeting realistically from the ground up. Time will be divided equally between presentation and participants’ discussion of their organizations’ successful, adaptive responses to internal and external challenges, and persistent sticking points.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
The Whole of Our Parts:
Advocating for the Literary Arts Field
New Time: Sunday, October 4, 4-5 PM
Presented by Jen Benka
Jen Benka is the Executive Director of the Literary Arts Fund, a five-year $50M philanthropic initiative to catalyze private support for the nonprofit literary arts field. Jen helped found the initiative, fueled by 25 years of executive leadership in the literary arts. Jen has authored two poetry collections, essays and articles, and received the Poetry Foundation's Pegasus Award for Service in Literary Arts.
Building Leadership
NEW LITNYS MENTORING PROGRAM
Free Help from Mentors on Call
Book a Working Session with a Literary Leader Who's Been There
Powered by Girls Write Now, LitNYS Mentor on Call connects you with a seasoned literary leader for a single working session, when you need it. Sign up in any of these capacity-building areas:
Assessment & Evaluation · Collaborations & Partnerships · Governance & Board Development · Finance · Fundraising · Human Resources & Staffing · Marketing & Communications · Strategic Planning · Systems & Information Technology
Building Capacity
LITNYS SPECIAL SESSION
From Transaction to Partnership:
Finding Your Power in Funder Relationships
Thurs, Sept 17, 10 AM-12 PM ET via Zoom
Presented by Kerry McCarthy
Free & Limited to 30 Registrants
Questions with Kerry
In this year's final special session, Kerry McCarthy will lead us through her tried-and-true approach to building lasting, mutually beneficial funder relationships.
Kerry McCarthy is the Founder and Principal of 1:1 Advisory, a consultancy that builds partnerships between funders and nonprofits.
What is one myth in the funder relationship that needs debunking?
Nonprofits are supplicants to powerful funders. The reality is that nonprofits and foundations exist in a state of structural interdependence; private foundations are obligated to pay out a percentage of their assets annually to nonprofits.
How do you define trust-based philanthropy?
Trust-based philanthropy is a funder-led model that simplifies grantmaking compliance and offers multi-year unrestricted funds. But nonprofits that equip foundation program officers with data and replace flattery with transparency break the transactional cycle, positioning themselves as indispensable peers to forge the true partnerships this model intends.
When evaluating value-add, how do nonprofits translate everyday programming into tangible community assets? Can you share an example of a program and the strengths it brings to a philanthropic portfolio?
Literary Arts nonprofits deliver programs with both intrinsic artistic merit and instrumental community value. A community poetry workshop, for example, provides high-impact contact hours with underserved populations, inspiring creativity while filling critical public education gaps for youth from historically marginalized populations and fighting social isolation for older adults.
You can also get one-to-one support on funding issues with LitNYS Mentor on Call
Start Dreaming for 2027
Grants
up to $2.5K
For organizational budgets
$75K-$249K
Grants
up to $5K
For organizational budgets
$250K-$750K
Grants
up to $7.5K
For organizational budgets
$750K+
Each year LitNYS awards regrants to New York State Literary Arts nonprofits for projects beyond the scope of other NYSCA grants. As you plan for what your organization needs next year, consider how an Advancement Regrant will get you there.
Regrants help organizations strengthen managerial and financial stability, deepen diversity, equity, inclusion, and access efforts, build a firmer foundation for their artistic vision, and reach new audiences and readers. Past requests have covered strategic planning and consultancies, staff and board development, software and hardware upgrades, and website development.
Regrants can't supplement existing NYSCA-supported programs or cover ongoing costs like rent or salaries. They can help launch a new position or expand a part-time role, if you show how you'll sustain it going forward.
Open to literary publishers, presenters, and service organizations funded through NYSCA's Support for Organizations or Support for Regrants and Services categories. Organizations that received an Advancement Regrant in 2026 are not eligible.
Including tips for a strong application!
Building Community
LITNEWS MEMBER EDITION
Until We Meet in Person...
Between Convenings, Share Your Organization's Initiatives, Events, Resources & Publications
LEADER SPOTLIGHTS
Stories from the Field
Lunch with LitNYS & Life@LitNYS
Listen to the untold stories of New York's Literary Arts leaders on Girls Write Now's podcast, Lunch with LitNYS, available on all major podcast platforms.
This year, Girls Write Now features conversations between LitNYS mentoring pairs on LinkedIn's Life@LitNYS.
LitNYS
LitNYS is a coalition of New York State-based Literary Arts organizations committed to field-building work and collective thriving. We connect individuals of shared interest and purpose, helping them build and sustain capacity to foster, promote, and present the Literary Arts. Founded in 2001 as a New York State Council on the Arts Literature initiative, LitNYS responded to national literary leaders’ call to professionalize the field. Our comprehensive collaborative approach—through our Advancement Regrants, Mentoring Program, Special Sessions, and Annual Statewide Literary Arts Convenings—has made us the nucleus of field-sustaining work for Literature in New York State.
Girls Write Now
Brought to you in partnership with Girls Write Now, LitNews NYS is a monthly digest of features, resources, and opportunities from the LitNYS network. With attacks on our freedoms mounting daily, now is the time to strengthen and project our collective voices.
Girls Write Now helps build the connections between LitNYS partners that make it possible. We are a nationally award-winning nonprofit, media incubator, and multi-generational community—for nearly three decades, we have broken down the barriers of gender, age, race, and poverty to mentor, teach, and connect writers and leaders across disciplines and around the nation.
