About Sacramento Valley Spark

Sacramento Valley Spark is a nonprofit organization committed to providing support and performing activities that promote the arts, self-expression, and creating positive social change. It is a community-based framework built to create sustainable community. We aim to unite burners and kindred spirits throughout the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills—from Davis and Sacramento to Auburn and Nevada City, and all points in between—so we can share our gifts with each other and our region at large.

It All Started When…

A group of resourceful community builders and artists returned to the Sacramento area from Burning Man suffused with the energy of the playa. We still smelled the dust and felt the urge to keep the music and the art and the entire beyond-amazing vibe going during the 51 weeks away from Black Rock City. We wanted to bring our playa home with us in spirit to show the Sacramento Valley how “Burners” can enrich the greater community.

So, a group of burners old and new gathered in a Sacramento living room on September 26, 2011, to kindle the fire. The first log we threw on was the Sacramento Burning Man Orgers Association, an unincorporated organization that was created to launch community collaboration efforts by producing events in 2011. That group was built to be temporary and to lead to the formal creation of a more inclusive, sustainable community organization in 2012 for the future.

The association’s initial mandate: Throw one awesome arts festival. And so it happened. On November 5, 2011, we celebrated an officially sanctioned Decompression called “Burn the River” . Mother Nature and the winds of fate attempted to foil our plans: we found ourselves needing to change venues at the last minute, and it rained and rained on event night. But with more than 300 people in attendance and 15 theme camps and numerous artists, interactive art projects and DJs participating, it was obvious that the Sacramento Valley community was looking for more opportunities for radical participation.

A Sustainable Structure

At the end of 2011 we took the next big leap, into creating a structure to support the community into the future. On January 21, 2012, we held a public meeting to discuss the formation of an enduring nonprofit organization and suggest the types of activities that such a group could promote.

We wrote, debated, and finally adopted a set of bylaws and elected a board of directors. This effort was all new to us, and as often happens when creating something from nothing; it didn’t come without a few bumps in the road. Yet with its first board meeting on March 11, 2012, Sacramento Valley Spark was born as a structure to support and foster the artistic community of the Sacramento Valley and foothills.

Sacramento Valley Spark is here so that we all can learn and share our creative history, support each other and nurture our artistic present, and ensure that there will be a strong community tomorrow. The idea is to be a flexible organization composed of community supporting community.