For more than 25 years, Independent Arts & Media (IAM) has supported artists, journalists, creators, and grassroots organizers often overlooked by traditional institutions. As the organization grew into a major fiscal sponsor in the Bay Area, leaders faced an important challenge. They needed to modernize financial operations without losing the personal, equity-centered project experience that made IAM different. That led IAM to test and adopt Mazlo, bringing approvals and payouts into one workflow, reducing manual payment work, and giving staff more time back. The result was a simpler financial process that still honored IAM's deeply human approach to fiscal sponsorship.
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Independent Arts & Media was founded in 2000 as a community convener supporting independent artists, journalists, and cultural organizers across the Bay Area. They began their fiscal sponsorship practice in the mid-2000s, and many of IAM’s earliest projects came from communities working outside the mainstream. One example is 924 Gilman, the legendary Berkeley punk venue founded as a music club and community space for young people.
Unlike many large fiscal sponsors, IAM focuses on one-on-one relationships from the start. Staff personally onboard projects, stay in direct communication, and review operations through an equity lens. By the 2010s, IAM had become the fiscal sponsor of choice for hundreds of independent projects.
But its operations had not grown at the same pace. Spend requests flowed through Salesforce, documentation was carefully reviewed, and approvals were highly structured. But once approvals were complete, the work became much more manual. Every approved payment created a second process. Staff had to manage bank transfers, paper checks, and large volumes of Zelle payments. Twice a month, payout days became full-day administrative events.
For an organization built around the project experience, this created a clear challenge. IAM needed to keep supporting more projects without becoming less personal, less responsive, or harder to reach.
After learning about Mazlo in 2023, the team spent time learning and evaluating whether it was the right fit before fully committing. For a lean staff, adopting a new system was a major shift. IAM rolled out Mazlo gradually over the course of a year. That careful rollout mattered. IAM was not only evaluating software features. The team was also asking whether the platform aligned with IAM's values.
Mazlo brought approvals and payouts into one system, removing the need to manage payments separately through outside banking platforms. But the deeper value was the relationship. Mazlo's team listened. Questions received human responses. Issues were addressed quickly and collaboratively.
For IAM, that made a difference. The platform did not feel disconnected or impersonal. It felt like a partnership.
“There are humans at Mazlo treating us like humans, and it's not just a technology platform. Having been in the Bay Area for so long and seeing all the tech startups, I know how disconnected they can feel. That's never been our experience with Mazlo.”
— Lisa Burger, Executive Director, Independent Arts & Media
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With Mazlo, IAM streamlined its payment operations while protecting the personal support its projects rely on.
For IAM, efficiency only matters if it improves the experience of the people behind the projects. With Mazlo, IAM could spend less time on manual payment work and more time on the work that matters most: onboarding projects, answering questions, solving problems, and providing the personal support the organization is known for.
“We still try to have a very individualized personal connection with our projects,” Lisa said. “There's a very high level of intentionality around availability and personal support.”
Reducing friction was not just an operational improvement. It gave IAM more capacity for the human side of its work. That means more time for conversations, accessibility, responsiveness, and trust, all of which are central to IAM's project experience.
Independent Arts & Media has served as a fiscal sponsor since 2000. The organization has deep roots in supporting independent artists, journalists, and culture-makers across the Bay Area. Its sponsored projects have ranged from legendary punk venues to contemporary multimedia, journalism, and community-building initiatives. IAM centers the experiences of people of color, LGBTQ+ creators, and others who have been systematically underserved by mainstream institutions.