Benefactory
"The SVZ provided us with considerable training in problem identification and lean business structure. We were able to hone in on our very niche issue thanks to the support and insight of the Zone. Starting a business is a struggle and having like-minded, driven individuals as allies is very helpful."
Founder: Tyler Willis and Spencer Gordon
Investing in the next generation of writers and the writing community
As founders of a successful literary magazine, longtime members of the Toronto literary community, and internationally acclaimed writers and editors, Tyler and Spencer observed a lack of transparent funding models available to Canadian writers and literary producers. Vital literary presses, magazines, and reading series faced irreparable pitfalls and were discontinued. Viewing the government monopoly on literary funding as ripe for disruption, Tyler and Spencer developed Benefactory.
Benefactory is a unique organization that will provide a clearly articulated, easily accessed funding resource for publishers, editors, and organizers. It will offer investors at the individual, corporate, non-profit, and civic level the chance to fund new projects, receive reminders of where their money has gone, and immediately impact a new generation of Canadian artists and institutions. Regular panels and workshops will enable emerging arts workers to cement ties with more established arts institutions as well as vanguards. Through this new model of funding the literary arts, Benefactory will create networks, opportunities, and connections that the Canadian writing community has never seen before now.
Through Benefactory, Tyler and Spencer hope to directly nurture hundreds, if not thousands, of writers each year. A “venture capitalist” is someone who puts money into a new or growing company. For Tyler and Spencer, it’s time to take a play from the venture capitalist model and revolutionize it into the concept, “venture philanthropist.”
