Fundraising
Fivel specializes in raising money through grant writing and crowdfunding campaigns on behalf of nonprofits, filmmakers, and artists. NGO clients include the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Leslie-Lohman Museum, Human Rights Foundation, South Asian Council for Social Services, and Van Alen Institute. Over the last three years he helped secure millions of dollars funding from funders such as Citi, Ford, Mellon, NEA, NYSCA, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Wells Fargo.
Interference Archive
Interference Archive is a volunteer-run non-commercial cultural space in New York City. Its mission is to show how art and creativity fuel social and political change. Picture a combination of a library, museum, and hangout spot packed with posters, zines, books, and music from all kinds of social justice movements. Unlike archives at universities, for example, this one is “open stacks.” That means you can flip through stuff on your own without someone looking over your shoulder. You can also ask the volunteers for help with research, join a workshop, check out an exhibit, watch a film, or dive into a conversation.
Fivel served as a volunteer organizer from 2014-2022. His primary focus was on general operating support and project-based fundraising through grant writing and membership campaigns. He helped raise tens of thousands of dollars from:
Awesome Foundation
Brooklyn Arts Council
Nathan Cummings Foundation
Citizens Committee for New York City
Humanities NY
Puffin Foundation
Mellon Foundation
Mishler Fund
New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA)
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation
Interference Archive founder Kevin Caplicki and volunteer coordinator Sophie Glidden-Lyon join Brooklyn Rail Art Books Editor Megan N. Liberty for a conversation on social movements, cultural production, and the Interference Archive. We conclude with a poetry reading by Chariot Wish. (Brooklyn Rail, 2021)
Neighborhoods Now
April 2020—December 2022
“As the COVID-19 pandemic took root, its uneven impact on the lives of New Yorkers became painfully clear. While our city’s well-resourced communities quickly purchased expertise necessary to navigate a changed world, neighborhoods where many of our essential workers live did not have the same access and resources.
In response, in Spring 2020 the Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute tapped into our collective network of architects, designers and engineers. By building interdisciplinary partnerships, Neighborhoods Now has supported local organizations leading their communities’ recovery. Over three years, the initiative evolved from rapid, tactical responses to long-term recovery strategies on a wider scale. Led by community organizations, seven interdisciplinary teams have enlivened and programmed public space, provided technical support to small businesses, and strengthened cultural activities.
Neighborhoods Now was made possible through a grant from Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund.”
Photo by Martha Snow
Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s
Mar 10, 2023 - Jul 30, 2023
Leslie Lohman Museum
“Activism, education, and media production in trans, queer, and feminist movements.
Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s reveals the technologies through which influential image cultures were constructed and circulated. The exhibition presents a range of photographic practices to explore the process of learning within alternative schools, workshops, demonstrations, dance clubs, slideshow presentations, correspondences, and community-based archive projects.
Featured artists and collectives include: Diana Solís, Joan E. Biren (JEB), Lola Flash, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, ART+Positive and the Sexual Minorities Archives, among others.”
Curated by Ariel Goldberg.
Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s was co-organized with the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. The exhibition was originally presented as a FotoFocus exhibition on the occasion of the FotoFocus Biennial: World Record on September 30, 2022-February 12, 2023.
Photo by Morgan Gwenwald.
Image Credit:Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, 2023.
Lyd
Released 2023
A feature-length speculative documentary film
“This feature-length, sci-fi documentary shares multiple pasts, presents, and futures of the city of Lyd in Palestine/Israel. From the perspective of the city herself, voiced by Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi, the viewer is guided through the lifespan of a five-thousand-year-old city and its residents.
Lyd was once a thriving Palestinian city with a rich history. In 636AD, It was even considered the first capital of Palestine. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, Lyd became an Israeli city, and in the process, hundreds of Lyd’s Palestinian residents were massacred by Israeli forces, and most of the city’s 50,000 Palestinian residents were exiled.
Today, the city has a Jewish Israeli majority and a Palestinian minority and is disinvested and divided by racism and violence. For Palestinians, Lyd’s story is a painful and tragic fall from grace, which is why our film dares to ask the question: what would the city be like had the Israeli occupation of Lyd never happened?”
The crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo raised over $43,000 in 30-days. The funds helped us secure a major donation from Executive Producer Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, grow our audience, and fund a production trip and research.
Directed by Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland
Edited by Eyas Salman
Produced by Sawsan Asfari and Fivel Rothberg
Film website
Island Soldier
Released 2017
Island Soldier, a feature-length documentary film
“6,000 miles from America is Kosrae, a Micronesian island that has become a “recruiter’s paradise” for young men looking to leave behind their fishing boats for armored tanks. Island Soldier takes us from the Pacific Islands to Afghanistan and San Diego, revealing the heartache of a community and its weary ties with the United States.”
The crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter raised over $40,000 in 30-days, allowing us to source matching funds, build a committed audience, and fund a production trip. Elsewhere, the film raised over a $100,000 from from Pacific Islanders in Communications (PICCOM) and additional funds from the Guam Humanities Council.
Directed by Nathan Fitch
Edited by Bryan Chang
Produced by Bryan Chang, Nathan Fitch, and Fivel Rothberg
